[Business News around the world]

It’s Privacy Day at Facebook par Adam Ostrow Mercredi 9 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

We’ve known that a major privacy overhaul has been in the works for some time at Facebook, and last week a letter from founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg let everyone know that changes were imminent.

Today, the company plans to start asking all 350 million of its users to review and update their settings as they roll out the new simplified privacy interface.

While Facebook’s spinning the changes largely as being about making things easier for users (which is true; the current privacy settings are enormously complex if you care to dive in), it’s also all about encouraging them to share more stuff publicly by letting them choose an “everyone” option each time they post something.

That will be key for Facebook becoming as valuable as Twitter in the realm of real-time search, where both are now integrated in Google. Although it has many times more users than Twitter, to date, most Facebook data remains private and, hence, inaccessible to search engines. We’ll see how that starts to change after today.

Reviews: Facebook, Twitter

Tags: facebook, trending

Live Video Streaming Comes the iPhone, Courtesy of Ustream par Pete Cashmore Mercredi 9 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

ustreamlivesmall Yes, it happened: Live video streaming has come to the iPhone courtesy of Ustream.

In a move that many suspected would never happen — surely the carriers would loathe the increased data usage resulting from such apps — Apple has approved the Ustream Live Broadcaster application, bringing live streaming video straight from the iPhone to the Ustream Web site and any embedded players posted around the Web.

The app works on 3G and Wi-Fi connections, supports yes/no polling of viewers, displays chatroom messages, serves up a viewer count, can transmit your location via GPS and allows you to adjust the resolution. Oh, and did we mention it’s absolutely free?

Suffice to say, this looks to be a killer app, and it’s worth giving a spin if you’d like to post live video from your iPhone. It’s available in the iTunes store here.

[via Techcrunch]

Tags: iphone, live video, ustream

Motorola Droid Rooted: Let The Games Begin par Pete Cashmore Mercredi 9 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

For some people, a fancy new smartphone isn’t enough; they want to get into the belly of the beast and customize to their heart’s content. Hence, the popularity of jailbreaking iPhones to add unapproved apps and use an alternative network.

That hacker’s mentality has now extended to the Droid, with one smart modder announcing that he has gained root access to the device’s firmware, permitting administrative rights and opening up a slew of possibilities. The modder, who goes by the name Cyanogen, posted rooting instructions to the Alldroid message boards.

What can you do with root access? Wired has some ideas: “A person will be able to download widgets that allow them to overclock their processor or install themes that dramatically change the appearance of their phone. Cyanogen offers custom builds that truly customize a device and provides easy access to hidden features.”

Whether it’s smart to root your Droid is questionable though; if you’re not the hacking type, you could easily break your phone’s functionality. Verizon and Motorola won’t approve either. It’s likely you’ll void your service agreements by doing so. In short: There are very strong reasons not to do this, but for some the desire to tinker will be much too great.

Disclosure: Motorola and Verizon are Mashable sponsors.

Reviews: Mashable

Tags: droid root

Twitter to Open Firehose to Developers par Pete Cashmore Mercredi 9 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

Twitter apps are about to get a lot more exciting. All our favorite Twitter tools, from iPhone apps to Web apps and beyond, have so far been limited by the fact that developers only have access to a specific set of data, not the full “firehose” of tweets being created.

That’s about to change. Twitter announced today at LeWeb conference in Paris that the firehose will be made available to all developers in “early 2010″. This would give ordinary coders the same access to data that Google and Bing have, and create a platform for even greater innovation. Twitter’s Director of Platform Ryan Sarver said the firehose would be monetized via revenue sharing with partners, although did not provide details.

Combined with the launch of Google Real-time, the move could restart Twitter’s formerly rapid growth, which many say has flatlined over recent months.

[via VentureBeat]

Reviews: Bing, Google, Twitter

Tags: trending, twitter

TIME Names Gadget of the Year: Droid par Pete Cashmore Mercredi 9 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

droid TIME has published its top 10 of everything 2009, and the winner in the gadgets category is a relative newcomer: the Droid.

The Motorola phone on the Verizon network is a great device on the best network, TIME argues, making it the obvious choice despite being new to the market.

TIME writes:

Droid is a hefty beast, a metal behemoth without the gloss and finish of the iPhone, but you don’t miss it. The Droid’s touchscreen is phenomenally sharp and vivid, it has an actual physical (not great, but good enough) keyboard, and, best of all, the Droid is on Verizon’s best-of-breed 3G network.

We tend to agree; the Droid is a fantastic phone and a poster child for Google’s Android OS. Nonetheless, it’ll seem a lot less appealing next year if the iPhone finally comes to Verizon. We still think the iPhone is a superior phone, albeit on an inferior network.

Disclosure: Motorola and Verizon are Mashable sponsors.

Reviews: Google, Mashable, iPhone

Tags: droid, motorola droid, verizon droid

Google Speed Tracer: Google Helps Developers Speed up their Apps [VIDEO] par Pete Cashmore Mercredi 9 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

googlespeedtracer Google’s thirst for speed is unquenchable, it seems: Google Chrome (now on Mac, too) aims to make Web browsing faster, while Google Site Performance helps webmasters speed up their Web sites. Meanwhile, Google’s SPDY is a plan to make the Web itself faster.

Now Google is at it again, launching Speed Tracer, a Google Chrome extension that lets developers track the performance of their apps and make them faster. Speed Tracer’s Sluggishness Graph plots events and helps you to pinpoint what’s slowing down your app.

It’s a developer tool rather than one for general Web users, but we’ll all benefit — a faster Web is a lot more fun to use.

Reviews: Google, Google Chrome

Tags: google speed tracer

(Lire la suite) Barb Dybwad

MySpace Shuts Down imeem and Its App Community par Barb Dybwad Mercredi 9 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

imeem-260 For fans of imeem and other third party music services that made use of its API, the future isn’t looking too bright. Since announcing the acquisition of the struggling music startup in mid-November, MySpace has apparently seen fit to effectively shut it down completely, according to CNet. The once standalone imeem.com site and personal profiles now all point to MySpace Music, which seems like quick work considering the deal was only finalized earlier today.

The free imeem mobile app for iPhone and Android, although still technically available in the iTunes Store and Android Market respectively, is likewise nonfunctional until MySpace pushes out an update. It’s “disabled momentarily” until MySpace can relaunch the app with their own licenses and features — which means there’s also no telling how long it will take or what changes might accompany the new version.

MySpace’s press release says they have plans to restore access to the playlists users have created at imeem, and have added material to their FAQ to reflect that goal. You’ll need to register a MySpace account with the same e-mail address you used to sign up with imeem, and we assume this would be valid for either new account creations or adding an e-mail address to your existing MySpace account (we’ve inquired with MySpace for confirmation). Still, it’s cold comfort for fans of imeem who had built up a large number of playlists and spent time on their personal profiles.

Developers: No API For You

ReadWriteWeb also notes that third-party services that once made use of imeem’s relatively robust API are also in danger. The creator of Twitter music app twt.fm that relied on imeem’s API posted on his blog about the unexpected pulling out of the imeem API rug from underneath third-party developers. Some users are reportedly also complaining of problems with blip.fm, another Twitter-like social music DJ platform making use of imeem’s API.

It’s a bit of a given that there can be some attendant fallout during an acquisition. Still, the silent treatment MySpace appears to be giving to the imeem developer community is troublesome. It also creates a deeper cause for concern over the online music space in general, given how wildly successful open API ecosystems have been in other realms around the Web (think Twitter and Flickr, just to name a couple of heavyweights). It’s hard to imagine MySpace — owned ultimately up the food chain by the same man who’s threatening to close off his content sites from Google — wholeheartedly embracing the open ethos and busting out an accessible streaming API. Right now the MySpace Developer Platform is much like Facebook’s: Third parties can build apps on top of it, but they exist inside the MySpace ecosystem and aren’t independent entities.

It will be interesting to see how this will play out both for imeem’s user community, developer community and the online music space as a whole. Let us know your predictions in the comments.

Reviews: Android, Android Market, Blip.fm, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Twitter, iPhone

Tags: APIs, app ecosystems, apps, blip.fm, developers, imeem, music, myspace, online music

What VEVO Means for the Premium Content Trend par Barb Dybwad Mercredi 9 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

vevo-basic-260 Today marks the launch of a new premium content portal experience, with Universal Music and Google teaming up on the VEVO service. Like Hulu before it, VEVO is another significant marker in the “premium,” a.k.a. “produced by professionals,” content space, this time specifically for music videos. Perhaps its closest analogue is Myspace Music Videos, another high-profile content collection from major labels backed by an already popular social network.

With the recent news that VEVO would integrate Last.fm, it’s clear that major mainstream media companies are finally jumping in full swing to bring their content online. It took a lot of time, love and tenderness for major labels and studios to get on board with the iTunes digital download model — and remember that when that first happened everything was slathered in digital rights management (DRM). It’s taken even longer for mainstream media to warm up to the idea of DRM-free MP3s and now, streaming content.

Disintermediating the Media

There’s a great word to describe what’s been happening to traditional media as the Internet increasingly becomes the go-to place to find cool content: disintermediation. Whereas once the pipes that delivered content were almost wholly owned and locked down by a handful of major media interests in almost every corner (music, film, television, books), now the traditional landscape is being upended by a plethora of new sources to find great stuff produced in large part by unknown creators.

On the flip side of that process, mainstream media companies are picking up on increasingly fragmented audiences and realizing they need to get their content online and in front of the eyeballs they once reached elsewhere. At the same time, companies like Google who invested in user-generated content sites like YouTube early on are realizing the value of “premium” content to increase revenue and attract even more audience share.

Enter premium content destination sites like Hulu, Myspace Music Videos and now, VEVO. It’s a sensible attempt on the part of Google to further one of the bigger problems it’s been trying to solve for the past few years: fully realize the revenue potential of YouTube. It’s also an acknowledgement on the part of the megalithic companies who own vast media verticals that even if the revenue model isn’t entirely on par with legacy distribution and licensing channels, they simply have to make some sort of play online and, if nothing else, figure it all out as they go along. And increasingly, they’re banding together in unprecedented partnerships to do it.

Business Models: Ads, Freemium and Subscription

VEVO, like Hulu and MySpace Music Videos, is embracing a free to stream, advertising-supported model. It’s the model YouTube itself has used since its beginnings and seems committed to optimizing and “make it work.” Still, it’s not the only model in town; both freemium and subscription models seem to be making their own headway in the premium content space as well.

Take the recent launch of MOG All Access as an example of subscription-style plays. Right now the $5-a-month service only covers all-you-can-eat streaming via the Web, but mobile support is promised to arrive very soon. Spotify is a currently Europe-only equivalent experiment in subscription music services, and aims to launch in the U.S. whenever it too can convince the labels to get on board.

In the freemium music realm we have Pandora with its Pandora One service ($3 a month for unlimited streaming after you hit your 40 hours of free listening), and Last.fm, whose $3 a month fee nets you uninterrupted listening (the free version will periodically play video ads), ad-free site services, a view of recent profile visitors and a special demarcation on your avatar as a subscriber.

Assuming the larger content portals can make complete advertising support work out (which still appears to be an open question), there seems to be no reason to imagine all three models couldn’t co-exist indefinitely. After all, lunch buffets haven’t put entrees out of business. Consumers approach music (and other forms of content) from different perspectives and levels of interest. If you only buy a few albums a year, you’ll probably be satisfied with an iTunes-style “own your collection” model and/or the occasional streaming session. If you’re a music buff who loves staying on top of every new release in your favorite genres, then shelling out a few bucks a month for a great streaming and playlisting experience starts to sound rather attractive.

Now that VEVO is live (and seems to be getting hit hard with traffic — it’s actually been up again, down again since it first went live), let us know your impressions of the new service once you can successfully access it. Overall, what are your favorite content sites and services in the online music sphere?

Reviews: Google, Hulu, Last.fm, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube

Tags: Google, music, online music, premium content, universal music, vevo, youtube

(Lire la suite) Barb Dybwad

Redbox: The Enemy of the Entertainment Industry? [STUDY] par Jennifer Van Grove Mercredi 9 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

redbox If bargain movie rentals are your thing, then you’ve probably already happened on those bright red self-service kiosks that dispense movie rentals at a ridiculously low price of a $1 per movie per night.

The company is called Redbox, and while their service is an entertainment hit with consumers (they have 19 percent share of DVD rentals), they’ve attracted the ostentatious indignation of studios who are feeling the pinch of major declines in movie sales.

Now new research, embedded below, from the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. (LAEDC) further paints Redbox as the enemy of the entertainment industry. Data estimates that Redbox’s discounted movie prices will cost the entertainment industry $1 billion in revenue and account for 9,280 jobs lost.

Is Redbox Really the Enemy?

We previously reported that studios were trying to force the hand of Redbox and Netflix to delay new release rentals by 30 days. While Netflix ponders the option, Redbox is suing many of the major studios who refuse to sell them their DVDs. The battle wages on, with some reports indicating that Redbox buys its DVDs from Walmart. If the data from the study can be trusted, we now have further insight into why the struggle is building up to be a battle to the death.

The LAEDC paints a picture of doom and gloom. From the report:

“In the event that new releases are available in Redbox kiosks at street date, there will be erosion of retail revenues. Additionally, to the extent that consumers substitute away from higher-priced rentals to lower-cost rentals, there will be erosion of rental revenues. While the magnitude of the revenue loss is difficult to disentangle from the myriad factors threatening this revenue stream, we estimate overall industry revenues of $1 billion or more will be foregone.

For each $1 billion of revenue in the domestic home video industry, the motion picture industry earns $520 million. Using the motion picture industry in Southern California as representative of overall industry activity, an extra $520 million in industry revenue would translate into direct, indirect and induced economic activity, including:

- At least $1,493 million in economic output (as measured by business revenues)

- At least 9,280 jobs with annual earnings of almost $395 million, of which at least
2,290 would be in motion picture and sound recording industries with earnings of at least $109 million

- Up to $35.4 million in contributions to health and welfare funds for guild and
union members, the majority of which would occur in union plans for below-the-line
employees

- Over $30 million of tax revenues at state, county and local levels.”

As NewTeeVee poignantly points out, the organization behind the study has a vested interest in growing the job market in the Los Angeles area, which could highlight their bias. The LAEDC also admits that other factors, such as the economic client and digital downloads, could have contributed to their findings, admitting “foregone revenues from low-cost new release DVD rentals may be hard to distinguish from other transformational shifts in the industry.”

If the LAEDC is to be believed, Redbox will bring down both the entertainment industry and L.A.’s job market. Of course, we tend to take a different perspective and suggest that studios attempt to understand the changing needs of movie consumers, who have clearly already demanded alternative purchase preferences with their wallets. The age of the DVD sale may have passed, but that could be entirely dependent on the changing attitudes and behaviors around entertainment consumption.

Image from Eddie Does Japan on Flickr

Reviews: Flickr

Tags: entertainment, Movies, redbox

Foursquare Meets Shopping with Postabon par Christina Warren Mercredi 9 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.

Name: Postabon

Quick Pitch: Postabon helps you find and share the best local in-store deals and discounts.

Genius Idea: Postabon takes the location-aware nature of services like Loopt and Foursquare but focuses on finding good deals and hot finds. This means you can find out what places are having sales or running specials based on where you are right now or where you are heading to in the future.

There are lots of great sites to find deals online, but traditional retail shops still have great deals too. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to head to the mall or to the shopping district and instantly find out what places near you were running sales? That’s exactly what Postabon lets you do. The service, which is currently limited to New York City (but plans on expanding soon), lets people post and find deals based on their location.

You can use it from your phone or from your regular computer and Postabon lets you search for specific deals in specific areas. Check out this video:

Like Foursquare, Postabon has a game element, only instead of badges you collect Karma points. There’s a leaderboard for users who have the best Karma by region deal category updated every week. You can also follow specific Postabon users who frequently post good deals that interest you.

This is a terrific idea that we really hope expands to more cities soon. Geo-location and real-time are two of the biggest trends for 2010 and the fact that Postabon uses both technologies to connect users with ways to save money is pretty awesome.

Spark of Genius Series Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”

Reviews: Foursquare, PHP

Tags: foursquare, geo-location, postabon, real-time

REVEALED: Details on YouTube’s VEVO Music Video Site par Ben Parr Mercredi 9 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

UPDATE: YouTube and Universal have just flipped the switch and VEVO is now live (though slow due to heavy traffic). More to come.

—

If you haven’t heard, YouTube and Universal are launching a new music video Web site tonight with great fanfare and a giant, star-studded party in New York City. VEVO will host most of YouTube’s music videos (85 percent of them, actually), including ones from EMI, Sony Music and Universal.

Rock legend Bono, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and others are revealing new and previously unknown details about the VEVO music service. Here are our notes. We’ll keep you updated as we learn more:

- On stage, Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated that Bono suggested the meeting started VEVO.

- Eight-five percent of all music videos will go through VEVO, with the rest going on YouTube.

- VEVO will manage all ad sales

- The music video site is focusing on getting rid of duplicate videos. If you have ever browsed YouTube, you’ll find that many music videos do, in fact, have duplicates.

- VEVO will not launch with HD. That will come out next year.

- Now this is awesome: VEVO includes synchronized and integrated lyrics

- The YouTube and Universal joint venture will be premiering new videos from 50 Cent, Mary J Blige and Mariah Carey tonight. They are all exclusives.

- You won’t have to watch a preroll every time you watch a VEVO video. It will serve ads based on aggregate usage.

- VEVO will come up any time you search for artists on YouTube

- VEVO’s launch sponsors includes AT&T, McDonald’s, Nikon, Mastercard, Dove, Colgate, Axe and Infinit.

- Aol and CBS are joining the VEVO music network. This means that users coming through their Web sites will get VEVO.

More details to come

Reviews: YouTube

Tags: vevo

Holiday Mojo: What Kind of Seasonal Twitter User Are You? par Jennifer Van Grove Mercredi 9 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

Holiday Mojo ‘Tis the season for holiday kitsch and Yahoo has embraced the spirit of Twitter and the season to bring you Social Mojo, Holiday Edition.

Modeled after the original Social Mojo experience, Holiday Mojo will analyze your Twitter stream using a “not very scientific” process to determine what kind of seasonal Twitter user you are.

Depending on your holiday tweeting ways, you could be one of eight different seasonal Twitter users. Are you a snowman, toast master, gingerbread man, or nutcracker? Just enter your Twitter name on the Yahoo Holiday Mojo page to find out.

It’s cute, harmless and yet another way to celebrate the time of year. So what kind of seasonal Twitter user are you? Let us know your results in the comments.

Yahoo! Holiday Mojo

Snowflake – Drifting from here to there, no one is better at following people than you!

Regifter – You’re great at passing on the retweets.

Toast Master – You have a lot to say and take advantage of your 140 characters to say it!

Mistletoe Magnet – You like to bring people together with all those hashtags.

Snowman – Based on how rarely you tweet, you’re clearly the strong, silent type.

Nutcracker – You’re so good at uncovering the best URLs!

Gingerbread Man – All those followers make it clear that you’re quite sweet.

Noise Maker – You like to keep the conversation going with all those @replies.

Reviews: Twitter

Tags: holiday mojo, Yahoo

YouTube and Universal’s VEVO Launch Party Packed and Star-Studded [PICS] par Ben Parr Mercredi 9 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

Sometime tonight, YouTube and Universal Music will be launching VEVO, a new YouTube-powered Web site dedicated to music videos. It’ll include content from some of the world’s largest record labels, including EMI, Universal and Sony Music. Oh, and did we mention that it will boast Last.fm integration?

To get VEVO off the ground in style, the music labels and Google are hosting an elaborate, expensive and extravagant launch party in New York City. An array of music stars are at the event, including Peter Wentz, Mariah Carey, Adam Lambert and (supposedly) Sheryl Crow. We’re also hearing that Google CEO Eric Schmidt is there, too. However, there is one person that we absolutely know is in attendance: Mashable Editor-in-Chief Adam Ostrow.

Adam was kind enough to take a snapshot of the event, and let us tell you: The place looks packed! YouTube and Universal are really pulling out all the stops to make VEVO’s launch a huge event.

We’re going to be monitoring the event and the launch of Vevo. In the meantime, let us know what you think of the VEVO plan and whether it’ll succeed in the comments.

Update: Bono just gave the keynote, and now Google CEO Eric Schmidt is speaking at the launch party.

Update 2: Eric Schmit stated that it was Bono who suggested the meeting that got VEVO going. In addition, 85 percent of music videos will be on VEVO. However, Youtube will remain as the destination for fan-made videos.

Peter Wentz backstage:

Image credit: VEVO

Reviews: Google, YouTube

Tags: universal, vevo, youtube

(Lire la suite) Barb Dybwad

Place Pages Bring Rich Info to Google Earth par Barb Dybwad Mercredi 9 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

google-earth-260 Google brought a rich database of information to Google Maps in September with Place Pages, and now those detailed results on businesses and points of interest are available within Google Earth as well. To access the Place Page for a particular location, just click the “View more information” link at the bottom of the summary overlay that pops up when you click on a business or place of interest.

It’s a sensible integration that brings Google’s rich collection of location information to browsing the globe in 3D. Alhough it lacks the same level of social commentary afforded by the similarly oriented Yelp, Place Pages focus on collecting detailed information about a place including a description, photos and videos, nearby transit options, related Web sites and reviews.

If you’re a fan of Google Earth, it just got easier to gather even more information about landmarks, cities, neighborhoods, shops and other points of interest around the world. Have you had a chance to check out Place Pages from within Google Earth yet? Let us know if you discover anything new and interesting.

Reviews: Google, Google Earth, Yelp

Tags: Google, google earth, location, maps, place pages

The Holiday Card For the Techie Who Has Everything [VIDEO] par Brenna Ehrlich Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

card Have an old iPhone lying around that you’re not using anymore? (Yeah, right — in this economy…) Or, maybe you just switched to a Droid and you’re ready to dispose of the sleek Apple product that was once welded to your palm?

Well, never fear: CNET UK’s Chris Stevens has made like Martha Stewart and come up with a step-by-step video teaching you how to turn your tired tech into the most expensive Christmas card in the world.

There’s a lot of options out there when it comes to sharing the holiday spirit with the tech geeks in your life. Stevens’s gift, however, is the only one that involves paste and glitter. Check out the video after the jump.

You can pick up the Bauble application at your local app store [iTunes link].

As for the construction paper and whatnot, you’re on your own. How many of you festive folk will actually give this card a go? Let us know how it goes in the comments.

Tags: App, bauble, chris stevens, droid, iphone, Martha Stewart

(Lire la suite) Brenna Ehrlich

Head to Head: Chrome for Mac vs. Chrome for Windows par Christina Warren Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

chrome-v-chrome-sm At long last, Google Chrome for Mac is finally in an official, publicly accessible beta. All we can say is, “It’s about time!” There’s just something extremely ironic about a Web browser based on WebKit (a layout engine that Apple created for its Safari browser in 2002 that didn’t even appear on Windows until 2007) taking 15 months to actually come to the Mac.

Ignoring the fact that Chrome Extensions aren’t supported on the Mac version of Google Chrome right now (although if you manage to get a copy of the extension file, you can actually install them — whatever), the question becomes: How does Google Chrome for Mac stack up against its Windows counterpart? Pretty well, as it turns out.

Look and Feel

For the purpose of my testing, I applied the same Google Chrome theme to the latest version of Google Chrome for Windows and for Mac OS X. The default theme for each browser conforms to the UI specifications of each OS, so applying the same theme was the best way to show off the similarities and differences.

chrome-on-chrome

As for similarities, the two browsers look virtually the same. The placement of the buttons and menu bars, the way tabs work — everything is uniform from one platform to another. Even the Preferences (called Options in the Windows version) are nearly identical.

chrome-win-mash

chrome-mac-mash

chrome-options-comp

The one exception is that Chrome for Windows can do Bookmark synching and install extensions and Chrome for Mac cannot.

Under the Hood

I wasn’t able to do a lot of render tests, but because Chrome for Mac and Chrome for Windows share the same version number, they should render content the same way.

chrome-about-comp

Google Chrome’s Developer Tools setup is equally identical under Windows and Mac. In Mac OS X, the Developer Tools take on the same theme as the rest of the browser (in Windows it uses the default Windows window styles), but the content is the same.
devtools-win

devtools-mac

This makes sense, because Developer Tools is virtually identical to Safari’s Web Inspector. And by virtually identical, I mean they are exactly the same.

Differences

Right now, there are very few differences between the two programs, although two stand out.

Extensions — Chrome for Windows supports them, Chrome for Mac does not. Right now this appears to be due more to an imposed restriction rather to any actual technical compatibility issue, but we’ll trust the Chrome developers and hope to see Mac support soon.

If you really can’t wait, check out this tip from grack.com. Note: You’ll need to use either a compatible developer’s build or the latest Chromium for Mac nightly.

chrome-extensions

Menu Bar — One of the striking features about Chrome for Windows is its utter lack of an application bar (you know, File, Edit, View, etc.). However, in Mac OS X, there is a menu bar across the top of the screen that is always present. In addition, applications offer individual menus when that program is running in the foreground.

chrome-mac-extras

To Google’s credit, they decided to adhere to these guidelines, and, in the process, actually give Mac users some features that will be convenient to anyone who uses Safari, Firefox or Camino. This includes the standard File/Edit/View/Window menus, as well as a Bookmarks menu and a History menu.

Yes, you can access your bookmarks and view your history in a browser window from within the actual Chrome application, but these options make it a bit easier for users who are used to using the top Bookmarks menu or who want to see a list of recently closed tabs.

Overall

Clearly, the similarities outweigh the differences, and Chrome for Mac looks like a near-perfect native version of the Chrome browser. Current Safari users should especially feel at home, because the first beta for Google Chrome for Mac is extremely similar to Safari 4. That means that once extension support officially comes to the Mac, OS X fans who want a good secondary browser might just have found something that can usurp Firefox.

Mac users: What are your thoughts on Google Chrome for Mac so far?

Reviews: Chrome, Firefox, Google, Google Chrome, Safari

Tags: chrome mac, Google, google chrome, os x, Windows

(Lire la suite) Ben Straley

HOW TO: Manage Successful Social Media Promotions par Ben Straley Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

discount shopping bags image Ben Straley is the CEO of Meteor Solutions, provider of the leading word-of-mouth analytics and optimization platform that enables marketers to measure, manage, and monetize earned media.

With holiday shopping in full swing, social shopping is already making a big impact. Data from Hitwise shows that downstream traffic to the Retail 500 coming from both Facebook and Twitter increased 36% and 15% respectively on Thanksgiving from the previous day. Downstream traffic to retailers grew again on Black Friday and Cyber Monday as many retailers promoted sales through fan pages and tweets.

This data is very encouraging for marketers, but a social media campaign must still be managed correctly for maximum ROI. Here are some tips on how brands can best engage their customers by offering what everyone now looks to social media for – a bargain.

New Strategies to Turn Buzz Into Buy

new strategy image Other recent research confirms the fact that people are increasingly turning to social networks to get deals on products and services. Razorfish found that the primary drivers of “friending” or “following” a brand were promotions and discounts. Over one-third of social network users and 44 percent of Twitter users engaged with a brand through discount promotions. This is good news for marketers, but the stats also pose challenges to the way marketing programs and advertising budgets will be structured in the future.

Brands have long spent big money on commercials, media placements, direct mail, and more. With most of these methods, there is little way to measure the impact on your bottom line. You either get lucky with a surge in sales after your campaign, or it didn’t work. Either way, success or failure was impossible to measure.

If done right, social marketing is a fantastic way to get the best of all worlds from a campaign – wide-scale and targeted distribution of your offer, for free. But to get it right, marketers have to step lightly. If you’re too pushy with too many promotions, your followers will feel “marketed at” or “spammed.” If you don’t offer good enough deals, your customers may become frustrated and stop following you. After all, they don’t really want to be your friend. They want bargains. Here are some steps for getting social media promotions right.

1. What Are People Saying About Your Brand?

Find out what people are saying about your brand, why they are saying it, and who they are saying it to. You have to do more than just get a vague reading on brand buzz. Track the actual pass-along of your brand’s social content via tweets, blog posts, Facebook postings, etc. to see which content is driving the most sharing on which sites. You can use social media traffic tracking software to do this.

Tracking this word-of-mouth buzz is crucial to formulating the right marketing messages and promotions. You must deliver relevant social deals that resonate with people’s interests.

2. Create a Social Promotion

Once you figure out what people want using the tracking methods above, go ahead and give it to them. For example, you might find that everyone loved your last 20% promotion – it was shared to hundreds of thousands of people via social sites and email – but that the most frequent negative comment was that shipping costs were too high. In your next promotion, offer free shipping.

Or, you may find that there was a huge surge in Twitter searches, blog comments, and Facebook updates about your brand’s winter boots during a snowstorm. This is a great opportunity to immediately put out a social promotion for 20% off boot purchases for one day only via Twitter, Facebook, and/or your company blog.

Have fun with your social promotions. Unlike paid search ads and other media buys, you don’t have to plan and budget for them. Instead, just try one or two out and see what happens.

3. Did It Work?

Figure out whether your promotion worked, and what bottom line impact it had on sales and profits. Go back to your social media tracking and measurement tool and find out how much your promotion was shared, what increase it caused in traffic to your website, and what direct impact it had on conversion. You might want to compare two different promotions run during a similar time frame to see which worked better and why.

For example, did a 50% Off promotion drive more sharing, visits, or conversions than a Two-For-One? In addition to doing simple “A/B” tests, compare results for promotions like these against the data from your regular marketing analytics platform to see whether your social media promotions are performing better or worse than traditional paid marketing campaigns. Social promotions almost always perform better than paid media ads in terms of conversion, but paid ads may drive a higher volume of traffic to your site.

Lastly, do an ROI analysis of your social media promotions to find out their real impact on bottom line profits.

Conclusion

Social media promotions are here to stay. Make sure you use the social channel to deliver “exclusive” deals that make your friends and followers feel special. They’ll thank you by making purchases.

What social media tools do you use to increase sales and measure your brand’s reach? Please share them in the comments below.

More business resources from Mashable:

- Mashable’s Social Media Guide for Small Businesses
- 4 Ways Social Media is Changing Business
- HOW TO: Use Twitter Hashtags for Business
- 5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses
- 6 Must-Follow Steps for Selling in Any Economy
- 5 Easy Social Media Wins for Your Small Business

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, alexsl, AndrewJohnson

Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, iStockphoto

Tags: business, List, Lists, MARKETING, social media marketing, trending

Google and Top Newspapers Experiment with a New Way to Deliver the News par Ben Parr Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

news As social media and the Web have made the transmission and sharing of news and information faster and more efficient, there have been casualties. We’ve reported frequently on the beleaguered state of the newspaper industry and the efforts underway to help it survive.

Google has been at the center of both the decline of newspapers and the effort to save them. It tried (and failed) at print ads and has added new options for publishers that make it easier for them to control their content within Google and Google News.

Today, a new Google project popped up in Google Labs that is a unique extension of this effort. It’s called Living Stories, and its goal is to provide a new and efficient way to read news coverage on breaking stories from one location. Oh, and it’s enlisted The New York Times and the Washington Post for help.

How Living News Works

Google describes Living Stories as “an experiment in presenting news, one designed specifically for the online environment.” The goal is to create specific pages where you can view all of the coverage on a story.

Currently, the homepage is essentially composed of topic bundles from either The New York Times or the Washington Post. Current topics include executive and CEO compensation, Swine Flu, the NFL’s Washington Redskins and the War in Afghanistan. You can select to see all news stories from this page.

That’s when you really realize the beauty of the Living Stories project. The page you are taken toward is a rich multimedia experience, complete with a timeline outlining key events, a sidebar that breaks down coverage (for Afghanistan, it’s divided between Opinion, Casualties, U.S. Policy and other topics), and an RSS feed-like display of recent articles. It’s clean and simple, but effectively explains key issues.

It’s tough to tell how much of Living Stories is editorial and how much of it is algorithmic — it seems that Google does pick some articles and pulls images and videos for each page, but that the newspapers have control over what is displayed as content.

Living Stories isn’t a groundbreaking new technology, but it is a pleasing way to read the news. What we think is even more important is that The New York Times and the Washington Post partnered with Google to try out a new method of news distribution, rather than declare Google the enemy.

Newspapers will not survive by holding onto inefficient practices. The NYT and the Washington post are proving that they realize this and are finding ways to adapt to the Web. This experiment may just be the beginning of even greater forays into saving journalism and bringing it effectively to the web.

Reviews: Google, Google Labs

Tags: Google, google labs, Google Living Stories, Living Stories, new york times, newspapers, washington post

Apple Unveils the Top Songs, Movies and Apps of 2009 par Jennifer Van Grove Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

On Tuesdays we’re typically greeted with new album releases on iTunes, and today is no different. But this Tuesday, iTunes has also gifted us with iTunes Rewind 2009: a look at the top-performing songs, albums, movies, TV shows, apps, audiobooks and podcasts of this year.

Given iTunes’ growing prominence, especially as it pertains to music and apps, the look back at 2009’s top downloads provides insight into the year’s most widely experienced media moments.

When it comes to top music sellers, the Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow” sold the most singles, while the Kings of Leon’s “Only By the Night” was the top-selling album for the year.

Top-selling iPhone apps include The Sims 3, The Oregan Trail and Need for Speed Undercover. In the movie department, the original Twilight got the biggest bang and brought in the most buck as the year’s top rental and seller. Pineapple Express and Quantum of Solace came in a respective second and third place as top sellers in the movie category.

Apple decided to have a little fun with their 2009 iTunes top performers, going so far as to dole out honorary awards to a handpicked group of celebrated movies, music and TV shows. It should come as no surprise that Lady GaGa was declared Best New Artist, while the Artist of the Year award went to Michael Jackson.

Of course Apple wouldn’t be so bold as to share how much their top performers pulled in, but it’s still an interesting look at the year’s hottest digital content. For a full look, make sure to check out and explore iTunes Rewind 2009 — meanwhile, we’ve included the top 10 music, movies, television and apps lists below. Take a look and weigh in on the results in the comments.

Hot Music

Top-Selling Songs:

“Boom Boom Pow,” Black Eyed Peas
“Right Round,” Flo Rida
“Poker Face,” Lady GaGa
“I Gotta Feeling,” Black Eyed Peas
“Gives You Hell,” The All-American Rejects
“Just Dance,” Lady GaGa & Colby O’Donis
“Party in the U.S.A.,” Miley Cyrus
“The Climb,” Miley Cyrus
“Dead and Gone (feat. Justin Timberlake),” T.I.
“Use Somebody,” Kings of Leon

Top-Selling Albums:

Kings of Leon, “Only By the Night”
Various Artists, “Twilight (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)”
Lady GaGa, “The Fame”
Taylor Swift, “Fearless”
Dave Matthews Band, “Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King”
Michael Jackson, “The Essential Michael Jackson”
The Fray, “The Fray”
Jay-Z, “The Blueprint 3″
Eminem, “Relapse”
Black Eyed Peas, “The E.N.D. (The Energy Never Dies)”

Hit Movies

Top Sales and Rentals:

Twilight
Pineapple Express
Quantum of Solace
The Proposal
Star Trek
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Paul Bart: Mall Cop
Up
Bolt

Must-See TV

Top-Selling Shows:

Mad Men, Season 3
LOST, Season 5
24, Season 7
Grey’s Anatomy, Season 6
NCIS, Season 7
Top Gear, Series 12
The Office, Season 6
South Park: Uncensored, Season 13
House, Season 6
Gossip Girl, Season

Popular Apps

Top Sellers – Games:

The Sims 3 ($6.99)
The Oregon Trail ($4.99)
Need for Speed Undercover ($4.99)
Medden NFL 10 ($6.99)
Tiger Woods PGA Tour ($4.99)
Assassin’s Creed ($4.99)
Flight Control ($0.99)
Cooking Mama ($6.99)
Civilization Revolution ($6.99)
Wheel of Fortune ($4.99)

Top Sellers – Apps:

MobileNavigator North America ($89.99)
MLB.com At Bat (Free)
Textfree Unlimited ($5.99)
Tom Tom ($99.99)
Golftshot: Golf GPS ($29.99)
SlingPlayer Media ($29.99)
ColorSplash ($1.99)
Pocket God ($.99)
Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite ($9.99)
The Moron Test ($0.99)

Reviews: flight control, twilight

Tags: itunes, itunes rewind 2009

iPhone App Offers Instant Speech-to-Text Transcription par Jennifer Van Grove Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

Speech-to-text translation isn’t a new idea, but Dragon Dictation for the iPhone [iTunes Link] turns the concept into a functional reality. The app makes it easy for you to dictate notes, e-mails or text messages, which are then instantly converted to text.

With a click of the button, you can go on to send your dictated text via e-mail or SMS, or to save it to the clipboard. Best of all, Dragon Dictation is completely free (for a limited time).

The application itself has a minimalist design: When you launch it, you’ll be able to hit a button and record your dictation — but that’s it. After the initial voice-to-text transcription, you can also edit via text or voice, replace poorly transcriped words with suggested alternatives and select words or phrases to delete.

speech to text

When testing in a noisy environment (i.e. a coffee shop), I noticed that the speech-to-text conversion is nowhere near as accurate as when dictations are recorded in a quiet place. Still, the application is impressive and may offer the fastest and most convenient way to turn your words into actionable text.

[via TUAW]

Tags: dragon dictation, iphone application, trending

(Lire la suite) Josh Catone

HOW TO: Use Social Media to Retain Customers par Josh Catone Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

online shopping image This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

There are many times or reasons that a small business will receive an influx of new customers — such as around the holidays for retail stores, during a new product or service launch or after a local advertising campaign. While new customers are great, returning customers are even better. Social media offers a number of opportunities to turn your new and existing customers into repeat customers and fans.

Hook New Customers on Social Media

The first thing you should do is direct new customers to your social media accounts. A good way to do that is to incentivize that act of becoming your friend, fan, or follower. Offer those who have just made a purchase a discount on future business in the form of a coupon, but tie it to your social media presence. For example, retailers could let customers know at point of sale that if they become a fan of your business on Facebook, they’ll receive exclusive offers for discounts on future purchases. Or customers could be given instructions to tweet out a special hashtag with a message about your store after they follow your Twitter account, and once that’s done you could send them a direct message with a special offer.

This is not unlike the common practice of taking down e-mail or mailing addresses for mailing lists, but social media puts the user more in control since, when properly used, it is a two-way medium. That’s actually an advantage to small business owners because active, engaged customers will be more likely to give you their attention.

Concentrate on Building a Community

online community image Once you have users signed up to follow you on social media sites, the trick to retaining them as customers is to keep them wanting to come back. That means constantly engaging them with new content, exclusive offers and information they can’t get elsewhere. The best way to grow your community is to consistently offer them quality content. That means forgoing the sales pitch most of the time.

Customers join communities because of the quality of information and because they want to be privy to news about sales, coupons, deals, new products, or changes to your business (e.g., new hours, changed location or updated menu items). But that doesn’t mean they want to receive constant sales come-ons. Delivering quality, helpful tips and information to your customers will make them more likely to want to do business with you and help build your online community.

Restaurants could share recipes or tips for properly reheating leftovers, for example, while plumbers could offer instructions for simple home fixes. Retailers could offer honest reviews of new products, and doctors could offer alerts about the latest medical research or health care policy updates. Get creative — what sorts of information can you provide your customer community? This type of content will help to build your social media community and turn new buyers into return customers.

Play Favorites

Social media is a great place to promote your general sales and events, but you should also consider offering your social media fans exclusive deals that cannot be had elsewhere. Online-only offers will keep fans returning for more and it will help to build a community around your store, service or brand, which is what social media is all about.

It’s certainly true that you should treat all of your customers well, but it doesn’t mean you should treat them all the same. Those customers that have taken the time to sign up as your fan, friend or follower have shown a heightened interest in your brand that should be recognized. By plying your social media followers with occasional exclusive deals or discounts, you can help turn customers into fans that will evangelize your business to others. That way, you can turn new customers into return customers, who in turn attract more new customers for you. That’s the type of cycle that social media, when put to work properly, can help you create.

More small business resources from Mashable:

- Mashable’s Social Media Guide for Small Businesses
- Top Mobile Productivity Tools for the Small Business
- 5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses
- 4 Ways Social Media is Changing Business
- 6 Must-Follow Steps for Selling in Any Economy
- 5 Easy Social Media Wins for Your Small Business

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, MorePixels, timsa

Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, iStockphoto

Tags: business, how to, List, Lists, small business

Your Next Car Radio Might Be Pandora par Christina Warren Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

Pandora Radio android-1 Here at Mashable, we’re big fans of Internet radio provider Pandora. Lots of us enjoy it on our laptops, on our mobile phones and even in the car — using various adaptors.

Plugging your iPod touch or iPhone (or Droid, if you will) into your car stereo isn’t the most safety conscious activity, but it’s the only way most of us can access our streaming Internet radio favorites while on the go. That might be changing. As GigaOm reports, Pandora is preparing to aggressively target the automotive space.

According to GigaOm, Pandora CTO Tom Conrad says half of the Internet radio’s mobile users listen to Pandora in the car (like us, they just connect their phones to their stereos). Conrad says Pandora is working with car manufacturers to support Pandora via in-dash controls.

This means that instead of fumbling with your iPhone or Droid and potentially getting in an accident, you could change the station or go to a different saved playlist from your dashboard.

This would work using a tethered-handset mode that would connect the mobile device by Bluetooth or another technology to the dash for playback.

Pandora already has a deal with Ford and its SYNC technology (co-developed with Microsoft), and Conrad hinted at some announcements planned for CES in January.

Would you pay more to have Pandora in your car? How do you listen to music while driving? Let us know in the comments.

Reviews: Bluetooth, Pandora, iPhone

Tags: car, car stereo, pandora

Google Chrome Extensions Go Live! par Jennifer Van Grove Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

Google Chrome Extensions It’s only Tuesday, but it appears as if we’re in the midst of Google Week. Yesterday saw the launch of Google real-time search, Google Goggles and even more Wave invites. Today, it’s all about Google Chrome.

Google Chrome for Mac just went live this morning, and now Google is announcing that the Google Chrome Extensions beta is open, too, with more than 300 extensions already available. Mac users, be forewarned, extensions only work for the Windows version of the Chrome browser.

According to Google’s announcement on the release:

“Today, we’re really happy to release a beta of extensions that begins to deliver on our initial vision. Extensions are as easy to create as webpages. Users can install and uninstall them quickly without restart, and extensions have a great polished look that fits in with Google Chrome’s minimalist aesthetic. When developers upload an extension it is available to users immediately, with limited restrictions and manual reviews only in a few situations.”

Today’s release is huge news for existing Chrome users who have been anxiously awaiting a single repository to find and install extensions. While you’ll no doubt notice that the 300 extensions available don’t match the quality and quantity of existing Firefox extensions, the Chrome browser does offer one huge competitive advantage: no restart required for install or uninstall.

Watch this video for an explanation of how to manage and install extensions for Google Chrome:

Reviews: Chrome, Firefox, Google, Google Chrome

Tags: Firefox, Google, google chrome, google chrome extensions, google goggles, google real-time search, Google Wave, mac, Windows

(Lire la suite) Adam Hirsch

Enter the Zappos Sharing Happiness $3,000 Shopping Spree Giveaway Contest par Adam Hirsch Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

Zappos Sharing Happiness Giveaway Logo Mashable is proud to present the Zappos.com Sharing Happiness Giveaway Contest!

To get into the spirit of the holiday season, we’re asking the question, “How do you use the web to improve your life and/or make people happy?”. One lucky recipient will receive a $3,000 shopping spree at Zappos.com.

To enter:
1. Leave your answer in the comments section below and/or,

2. Tweet out your answer with the hashtag “#SharingHappiness” (Be sure to leave the URL of your Twitter comment in your comment on this post.)

Mashable will highlight some of our favorites on Friday and we’ll announce a winner on Wednesday, December 16th.

Contest Rules and Restrictions:

You must be 18+ years of age and currently reside in one of the 50 US States. If you would like to participate but are not of valid age/residence, please note “not eligible” in your comment below. By submitting, you are agreeing to the full rules and restrictions. Final entries are due on this post by Wednesday, December 15th at 11:59 PM PT.

Zappos Giveaway Box

A Big Thanks to Zappos!

zappos_giveaway_prize “Visit Zappos.com and outfit your life with a new head-to-toe wardrobe for men, women, and kids! Step into all the clothes, bags, shoes and more from all your favorite brand names! Plus, enjoy our 365-day return policy, fast & free shipping, free return shipping & 24-hour customer service!”

Reviews: Mashable, Twitter

Tags: contest, sharing happiness, sharinghappiness, Zappos

Timberlake and Eisenberg’s Facebook Movie Gets a Release Date par Jennifer Van Grove Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

The Social Network, the movie based on Aaron Sorkin’s narrative about Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook, will be released on October 15, 2010, according to ComingSoon. Columbia Pictures has set the date, which means that we’ll be seeing Justin Timberlake grace the screen as Sean Parker in just under a year’s time.

Production on The Social Network, otherwise known as the “Facebook movie,” began in October, with scenes already being shot on location in the Boston area.

There’s also already been plenty of hype surrounding the movie and its cast and crew. As you may recall, David Fincher, the movie’s director, has also directed movies like 2002’s Panic Room, and the acclaimed drama with Brad Pitt, Fight Club.

Also noteworthy is that the book that inspired the film, Accidental Billionaires, was not without its own drama when it hit bookshelves earlier in the year — many thought that the dramatic nature of the book made it more fitting for the “Fiction” section. Given the somewhat scandalous content, the allure of Facebook and its now-famous creator, the big-name director and the cast members, we expect there to be even more buzz surrounding the film as its release date approaches.

Reviews: Facebook

Tags: facebook movie

Google Launches Chrome for Mac par Jennifer Van Grove Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

Google Chrome mac The day has finally come. As we were expecting, Google has just released Chrome for Mac, which can now be downloaded by Mac OS X 10.5 or later users.

If you’re anything like us, you’ve been anxiously awaiting the chance to get your hands on the new browser since last year’s release of the Windows version.

Of course, Google Chrome for Mac is just a beta release, and, as we’ve previously reported, you won’t be able to use applications like Gmail that run on Google Gears, but you can take advantage of other Chrome improvements such as speed and Google search right from the address bar.

Here’s a video demo that Google has released:

After you install Chrome on your Mac, you can optionally import your Safari or Firefox settings, which means your bookmarks and certain preferences can carry over from your existing favorite browser. Given that Google Chrome Extensions should launch any day, you might not even have to live without your favorite add-ons for very long (though at this time extensions are not available for the Mac version).

We’ve just installed it for ourselves, and after taking it out for a test drive, our first impressions are that this thing is slick. While we compile our notes, let us know what you think of Google Chrome for Mac in the comments.

Reviews: Chrome, Firefox, Gmail, Google, Google Chrome, Safari

Tags: Google, google chrome, mac, trending

Twitter Deal: CelebrityTweet Acquired by Russell Simmons par Adam Ostrow Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

You would think that Web sites that simply aggregate tweets from lists of users would become somewhat irrelevant with the introduction of Twitter Lists.

But apparently, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons doesn’t think so, as his Web site GlobalGrind has just acquired CelebrityTweet, a site that aggregates the tweets of famous people, both on the Web and via mobile applications.

Here’s why Simmons says they’re doing the deal:

“Twitter is the most dynamic way for celebrities to connect to their fans in real-time day & night. CelebrityTweet is the most authoritative destination in the space and we view it as having a natural synergy with Global Grind’s strength in providing exclusive content directly from celebrities.”

CelebrityTweet will continue to operate as its own site, syndicating its content back to GlobalGrind. Terms aren’t being disclosed, but considering the site has rather modest traffic, you have to imagine this deal is more about “buy versus build” than a major financial acquisition.

Nonetheless, it marks yet another deal in the Twitter app space, which has recently seen the likes of MSNBC get involved (through a deal with @BreakingNews).

Reviews: Twitter

Tags: russell simmons, twitter

(Lire la suite) Sponsored Post

Sponsored Post: Windows 7 Needs an Extra Layer of Security – Get it Now, for Free! par Sponsored Post Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

AVG Anti-Virus Free 9.0 works with Windows 7 to provide your PC with the best protection against web threats. Get your free download now at free.avg.com.

The explosive growth of dynamic content makes the web a fertile attack vector for infiltrating PCs. Forums, social networking sites, and content delivered by advertising networks are prime targets for the delivery of malicious code. According to IDC, up to 30% of companies with over 500 employees have been infected through web surfing.

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(This post is brought to you by AVG Anti-Virus. For more information on sponsored posts please read here.)

Dell Rides Twitter to $6.5 Million in Sales par Adam Ostrow Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

Dell continues to be one of the more visible corporate behemoths actively using social media, and today they’re out with new numbers to demonstrate some of the success they are having.

The company tells us that they’ve now generated a total of $6.5 million in revenue from their Twitter presence, where they have nearly 1.5 million followers on their @DellOutlet account (and 3 million “connections” across all social sites).

Although a tiny percentage of the company’s total sales (Dell generated more than $60 billion in revenue last year), it does represent significant growth in revenue via social media in the past year. Dell says its sales from Twitter have actually tripled, which is consistent with previous reports about their performance.

With real revenue now being generated via companies on Twitter, the question everyone is asking how Twitter will monetize it. The answer still isn’t clear, though the company continues to suggest that premium accounts for corporate users are in the works soon.

[img credit: pinksherbet]

Reviews: Twitter

Tags: dell, social media, twitter

Magazine Publishers Unite! par Adam Ostrow Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

The venture that some have been calling a “Hulu for magazines” is now official (although it still has no name).

This morning, publishers Condé Nast , Hearst, Meredith, News Corporation and Time Inc. announced that they’re going to “develop open standards for a new digital storefront and related technology that will allow consumers to enjoy their favorite media content on portable digital devices.”

In layman’s terms, that means the magazine publishers are uniting to figure out how to best take advantage of the burgeoning eReader market, which has seen a plethora of new devices emerge in the past year. The end result will be a storefront that, much like Hulu has done for TV networks (minus CBS), will put magazines from competing publishers all under one roof.

The goal is obviously more revenue, which has been something that’s been hard to come by in the print publishing business for some time, with major magazines like Vibe and Gourmet being forced to shut down in the past year. Along those lines, the announcement indicates that the to-be-named service will offer some new advertising options, plus opportunities for eReader manufacturers.

Given there’s no name, no site and no devices or software to speak of, it’s far too early to judge whether or not this represents the future of publishing or simply a desperate alliance that ultimately won’t do much to keep print publications afloat. Nonetheless, it’s another sign of the times in the ever-changing old media business.

Reviews: Hulu

Tags: magazines, media, publishing

(Lire la suite) David Spinks

HOW TO: Start and Run a Successful Twitter Chat par David Spinks Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

birds-wire David Spinks is the Community Manager for Scribnia, where the world’s bloggers and columnists are reviewed by their readers. He also blogs at The Spinks Blog about business, careers and professional communities.

If you spend enough time on Twitter, chances are you’ll come across an occasional chat being held on the platform. Twitter chats are scheduled gatherings of people on Twitter to discuss pretty much anything that interests them, using a #hashtag to keep track of the conversation. There are chats for everything from blogging to art to agriculture — over 80 of them are listed in this great running list of Twitter chats.

Over 3 months ago, Lauren Fernandez and I started a weekly Twitter chat for young professionals called #u30pro. It’s been an extremely rewarding and exciting experience, and I’ve learned a lot about how to run a successful Twitter chat. Here are some tips and tricks for how you can start and run your own chat on Twitter.

1. Choose a Time, Topic, and Tag

The first thing you have to do is choose a topic. Unless you’re looking to start a competing chat, you’ll probably want to choose a topic that isn’t already being done, so ask around, do some searches, and check the Google Spreadsheet linked above.

You’ll also want to make sure you pick a time that doesn’t conflict with a pre-existing chat in topic areas that might attract similar chatters. Ask around and make sure there aren’t many other chats at the same time, especially if it’s something that both audiences will be interested in. Choosing a time can be the toughest part. Just realize, you’ll never be able to please everyone. I suggest choosing a time that works best for you, to make sure you’ll be committed to it.

Your chat’s hashtag should be as short and explanatory as possible. Everyone who participates in the chat will have to use the hashtag with every tweet, so the shorter the tag, the more space they have to write chat messages.

2. Choose a Format

There are a number of different formats that chats can take:

1. Single Topic, Question Based

This is how I run the chat I am involved with. We choose a general topic, then ask specific, numbered questions throughout the chat within that topic. Each question gets roughly 15 minutes, and the chat lasts one hour.

2. Multiple Topic, Question Based

The longest running chat, #journchat which was started by Sarah Evans, uses this format. All questions are submitted by participants and numbered. Any topic goes, as long as it’s related to PR, Journalism, and Social Media.

3. Single Topic, Freeflow

This is how Mack Collier runs #blogchat. He chooses a topic, and just lets the discussion take a life of its own. This chat runs for 2 hours.

4. Q&A

Jay Baer runs a different kind of chat. He brings in a guest to answer 20 questions over 90 minutes. While the focus is on the guest, many people follow along and share their thoughts on the questions as well.

5. Free For All

No specific question, just bring everyone together and let them ask whatever they want. It’s a bit messy and I haven’t seen any chats adopt this format permanently, but I’ve seen a few try it for one week and the results have been great.

3. Launch the Chat

Of course, this will be easier for some than for others, depending on how engaged you are with the audience that you’d like to participate.

Promote it to your community leading up to the chat. Let people know beforehand when they can join and how the chat will be run. It may be smart to reach out to a few key people personally and ask them if they’d be interested in participating.

Be prepared for a slow start. Like any community, a Twitter chat takes time to build participation.

4. Tips to Help Your Chat Grow

Whether you’re starting a chat for business or for fun, I can tell you that it is an extremely rewarding and exciting experience. It’s an opportunity to bring people together and engage in valuable and insightful discussion.

If you’re starting it for a business, it is best to choose a general topic that relates to your business, and always keep in mind that these chats are for the community, not for the hosts. If you’re too promotional, your chat will fail.

Here are a few tips to help make sure your chat is a success:

* Stay open to new formats. #journchat got so popular that Sarah Evans began to look for new formats to host the chat, including video streaming, and even a country-wide live event. Always stay open to changing things up based on the community’s needs.

* Bring in guests. Every chat I’ve seen has at some point, brought in a guest moderator to host the chat, or a guest expert to take questions. It’s a great way to bring in a lot of new people and bring credibility to your chat.

* Take the chat beyond Twitter. A monthly chat for public relations students called #PRStudChat created a LinkedIn group for their chat, for example. They use it as a forum for the community to interact, and for them to share announcements and ideas.

* Consider multimedia. The weekly #DesignChat streams its chats live on video each week. The chat’s host and guests interact with participants over Twitter and answer questions on video. Video services like Tinychat and Ustream integrate with Twitter, making them ideal platforms for Twitter chats.

Disclosure: #DesignChat streams live in the Mashable Lounge, which is powered by Tinychat.

* Promote your participants. At #u30pro, we send out a weekly digest every morning after the chat, in which we announce a “featured participant,” share 5 blog posts from the u30pro community from that week, write a recap of the chat, and more. Highlighting community members and the things they’re doing gets people more engaged.

* Keep it up! Luckily, Twitter chats are inherently viral. Because when someone participates in your chat, all their tweets appear in their stream with your hashtag, and they bring in their followers. As long as you keep to your schedule and keep holding regular chats, the chat will pick up new participants over time.

Which Twitter chats do you participate in? What other tips would you give to those trying to start their own Twitter chat? Let us know in the comments.

More Twitter resources from Mashable:

- The Tao of Tweeting
- How Twitter Lists are Changing #FollowFriday
- HOW TO: Use Twitter’s New Retweet Feature
- 10 Ways You Can Use Twitter Lists
- HOW TO: Use Twitter Lists
- HOW TO: Use Twitter Hashtags for Business

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, tpuerzer

Tags: how to, List, Lists, twitter, twitter chat

AT&T’s New iPhone App Lets You Complain About AT&T par Ben Parr Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

iPhone owners may love Apple’s sexy mobile device, but they absolutely can’t stand AT&T. It ranks dead last in customer satisfaction for dropped calls and spotty 3G service, a sore spot that Verizon has been poking at with new ads.

Now the U.S.’s second largest wireless provider is looking to turn things around, hopefully before it loses iPhone exclusivity rights. Its newest strategy is especially unique, though, because it comes in the form of an iPhone app called Mark the Spot [iTunes Link].

The free customer service app is really quite simple. Whenever you experience a problem with your service (e.g. a dropped call, bad 3G connection, poor quality), you can open up the app and report the issue right where you are. Once you cite the problem and add additional info, it gets submitted to AT&T’s customer support team. The key to the app is that it’s location-based, meaning that AT&T can aggregate this data to find dead spots and trouble areas.

This app is simple but smart — it provides useful data to AT&T while giving customers an outlet for venting about their hatred for AT&T and how they wished the iPhone was on Verizon. Still, it may be too little, too late.

Just don’t try to report a network outage when there’s no network due to an outage; you may just rip open a black hole in the fabric of spacetime.

Tags: apple, att, iphone, iphone apps, Mark the Spot

Popeye Creator E.C. Segar Gets Spinach With His Google Logo par Ben Parr Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

If you grew up watching cartoons like I did, then it’s impossible not to have known Popeye the Sailor, the Olive-loving, spinach-eating hero who used his unusually large arms and magical spinach powers to thwart the evil schemes of Brutus and other cartoon adversaries. But even before Popeye was a beloved cartoon, he was a storied comic book character created by cartoonist E. C. Segar.

E. C. Segar, born on December 8, 1894, created his iconic balding hero in January of 1929, when he appeared in Segar’s Thimble Theatre comic strip. The rest is entertainment and cultural history.

Now, 105 years after his birth, Google is paying homage to the legendary cartoonist with a Popeye Google Logo. This is something Google does on occasion to remember people and events that have touched our culture. H.G. Wells, the Bar Code, Confucius and even Sesame Street have received the honor.

The design for this logo is absolutely fitting; it pays tribute to Popeye’s old comic book roots while capturing his core essence (a.k.a. his beloved spinach). This logo is one of the more nostalgic ones that Google has released. Luckily, E.C. Segar’s character still lives on in reruns and in the Popeye comic strip now drawn by Hy Eisman.

Reviews: Google

Tags: E.C. Segar, Google, google logo, Popeye

Why Facebook Chose to Limit Google and Spare Twitter Search par Ben Parr Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

Google really unleashed a torrent of news and updates today. While events such as the launch of Google Goggles are very interesting, the big news is clearly the launch of real-time search within Google. Now as events unfold, Google will capture the chatter about it in real-time from sources such as Twitter, Yahoo Answers, news media and Facebook.

The inclusion of Facebook in this list of real-time sources is one of the most important aspects of today’s announcements, and it is something that could have major implications for Twitter and its ambitions to become the world’s water cooler. In fact, Facebook held back the opportunity to deal a heavy hit to its microblogging rival. But why?

Facebook Didn’t Treat Google and Microsoft Equally

The new integration of Facebook into Google Search doesn’t actually feed all that much Facebook information into Google search results. In fact, only the updates of public Facebook pages are included in the real-time stream. Profile updates are not part of this deal.

That is a huge detail. Often the most relevant and personal information comes from Facebook profiles, not pages. Pages are primarily controlled by businesses and public figures, making their updates less raw and less personal. You won’t see a lot of companies updating their status with their feelings about the Tiger Woods scandal, but you will see a lot of profiles, even public ones, discussing breaking news about his affair.

There’s also a lot of multimedia in Facebook profiles. They don’t just include status updates, but also photo albums, video uploads and useful links. As more people turn their profiles public (something that could happen when Facebook asks users to update their privacy settings), this data will only become richer. In short, Google is limited in the data it is allowed to pull.

Two Reason Why Facebook Limited Google

You have to ask yourself: Why did Facebook limit what information it is willing to give to Google? After all, Microsoft has access to all Facebook public profiles through its search deal with Facebook for Bing. It’s not a technological problem, and we don’t think Google declined the inclusion of more information into its search engine.

In fact, here are two likely reasons for why Facebook limited its real-time stream to Google. First, Facebook views Google as a direct competitor and threat to its goals. As we’ve discussed previously, the two companies are quietly set to clash in a real-time search war. Not only that, but the two companies are competing to be the gateway to the Web with Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect respectively.

The second reason Facebook didn’t give public profile data to Google is simple: Microsoft is an investor in Facebook. The Windows maker dropped $240 million into Facebook for not only a small piece of the social networking site, but for the right to preferential treatment. As a result, they have inked everything from ad deals to search partnerships. The last thing Microsoft wants is for Facebook to help out its arch rival — especially as an investor. You can bet Facebook factors Microsoft’s wishes into its decisions.

The Twitter Aspect

Facebook could have really showed off its muscle within the results of the world’s largest search engine, but chose not to. Twitter should exhale a sigh of relief.

Here’s what could have happened: Facebook makes a deal with Google that not only lets it have access to public profile data, but allows it to display the images, videos and links that are on Facebook. Rich, multimedia search results become an integral part of Google searches, revealing the limits of Twitter data and Twitter search results.

They could have really punctured and deflated the balloon on Twitter’s real-time search potential. Instead, Facebook determined that Google having access to more Facebook data was a worse option than completely clobbering Twitter in search. The social network had little choice — it couldn’t give Google the same amount of data as Facebook.

Thus for now, Twitter’s real-time search survives as one of the best places to get updates on what’s happening right now. Google’s solution is slick and filled with data, but without Facebook, it’s incomplete.

Facebook pulled its punches with Twitter this time. Don’t expect the story to be the same next time.

Reviews: Bing, Facebook, Google, Twitter, google friend connect

Tags: bing, facebook, Google, microsoft, twitter

Create Radio-Worthy Remixes on Your iPhone par Jennifer Van Grove Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

Name: Flypt

Quick Pitch: Flypt is an iPhone app that allows you to remix your favorite jams with the iPhone’s most advanced effects.

Genius Idea: Most of us music lovers will never have the opportunity to try our hand at professionally remixing popular tracks from our favorite artists. Should you have a secret fantasy to digitally remaster the latest Lady Gaga or Rihanna song, however, then you’ll no doubt flip over Flypt.

The app [iTunes link], which costs $2.99 and requires in-app song purchases for 99 cents, makes remixing tunes child’s play.

Once you pick the song you want to rework, you can then use the prefabricated lyrical phrases to piece together a completely new version, and optionally add in screw, muffle, roll and spinback effects from the left-hand side of the screen.

flypt pitbull

Of course, if you’re unfamiliar with the effects, you can simply experiment with each technique until you happen upon the desired audio effect.

The app has the novelty and appeal of apps like T-Pain’s Auto-Tune iPhone app, which saw 300,000 downloads in three weeks. The really great thing about this particular app is the quality, so if you invest even minimal effort in your creation, your remix could sound radio-worthy.

For a demo of Flypt in action, watch this video that highlights how to remix a Lady Gaga track.

That’s a Long Way Up…

Here’s the basic gist: On January 7, a group of celebrities, well-known figures and social entrepreneurs will attempt to climb to the summit of the 19,340 foot African peak. At every step of the way, they will upload pictures and videos, as well as tweet about their progress.

The goal here is awareness about the 1 billion people that don’t have full access to clean water, but it’s also a fundraiser. For every person that joins the Summit on the Summit Facebook Cause Page or watches a Web video from the climbers, HP will donate $1 (100 liters of water). In addition, for every $1 someone donates, HP will match it, up to $25,000. Intel, PUR, the United Nations Foundation and Eddie Bauer are also partners in the effort.

The money raised will go to several charities working toward bringing clean water to others, specifically Children’s Safe Drinking Water, UNHCR and PlayPumps International.

The entire effort looks to be one giant social media blitz. Facebook Causes, Twitter, online video and blogs are in full effect for their campaign. Combine that with some all-star personalities, a tough challenge, and a worthy cause, we think Summit on the Summit could really make a lot of noise.

If you’re interested in learning more about the initiative, you can check out the Summit on the Summit Web site and the project’s Facebook Causes page.

Reviews: Facebook, Twitter

Tags: facebook, HP, intel, social good, social media, Summit on the Summit, twitter

Boxee Beta Promises to Be Bigger, Better and Boxeeier par Christina Warren Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

boxee-beta-sm At the Boxee Beta Launch event tonight, Boxee showed off a ton of new features and enhancements for its media center with a social twist. Boxee officially launched in June of 2008, but it’s really been in the last year that the software — and the company — has picked up some major, major steam.

Although I couldn’t be at the event in person (Adam Ostrow is representing for Team Mashable), I got a look at some of the new features and changes headed towards the platform. Boxee in beta is more streamlined, optimized to run on less powerful hardware and better integrates with digital content from multiple sources. Select users will start getting invites soon and the beta will open up to everyone at CES.

Local and Online Content Come Together

Boxee is a great media center, but one of the areas that has always been problematic is system-wide searches. If you’re like me, you have 4 TB of local media data running on a media server, but you also want to access your online options. Before, you used to have to search through everything separately, but the Boxee beta will let you search for content both local and online.

Boxee_Beta_TVShow_Library_Sidebar

Plus, you can now create a watch list for your TV shows or movies, and the next time Boxee finds content either online or in your local repository, it’ll add it to your queue for easy playback.

New Design

The Boxee beta has received a big overhaul in the UI department. Apps can still designate their own look and feel, but TV shows, movies and photos have been redesigned, and the new look does a better job of taking advantage of a wide-screen.

In addition, the Boxee beta will introduce a global menu and shortcuts so that you can access your favorite shows or apps and also go to places quickly, with the click of a mouse or remote.

Better Performance

Right now about 85 percent of Boxee’s userbase is on the Mac. This makes sense, as Mac OS X was the first platform to support Boxee and the Apple TV was given new life as an inexpensive media box thanks to the ability to run Boxee via a patchstick.

Still, Boxee’s big goal is to be able to run on anything and everything. To that end, they have worked hard to make the Windows version of Boxee run better and on lower-performance hardware. Boxee switched its graphical backend form OpenGL to DirectX in order to take advantage of Direct X Video Acceleration. This means that the hard work can be put off on the graphics card instead of the processor, yielding better performance.

Boxee also worked with NVidia in order to make the beta fly on the ION platform, taking advantage of DXVA and Flash 10.1. This means that you’ll be able to run Boxee in 1080p on netbooks and other lower-cost devices.

The big hurdle with getting reliable Internet video on Atom processors has always been getting GPU accelerated support. Thanks to Flash 10.1, Flash should finally perform better. The fact that Boxee worked with NVidia to ensure that Boxee and ION will work great together means that the number of potential homemade Boxee Boxes just got really big and really inexpensive.

Coming in January

We know, we know — we want to play with the new Boxee Beta now, too. However, if you aren’t lucky enough to be part of the experimental release program, you’ll be able to play with Boxee Beta in full when it officially launches at CES 2010.

Reviews: Boxee

Tags: boxee, boxee beta

Google Wave Opens Up to 1 Million Users par Jennifer Van Grove Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

When Google asked what you liked and disliked about their new real-time communication application, you unquestionably said that you wanted more invites to share with friends and family. Problem solved.

Today, Google decided to play Santa with Wave invites. It has just doled out significantly more invites to existing users.

In conjunction with the invite rollout, Google is also hinting that they’ll soon reach the one million user mark. The title of their post suggestively indicates that “a million stamps” have been licked, which we take to mean that they’ve now opened up Google Wave to a million users.

While invites may be more readily available, be forewarned: Google is still not ready to graduate the service from preview phase to beta stage. Still, we’re excited that more of you can get in on the shared experience that is Google Wave.

Reviews: Google, Google Wave

Tags: Google, Google Wave, trending

Apple Gets Tough on Cheaters, Nukes 1000+ Apps par Christina Warren Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

iphone_3gs The sheer size of Apple’s app store makes it difficult for independent developers to stand out from the crowd. Some developers come up with creative concepts to get the word out, others rely on scamming and gaming different iTunes policies.

Fortunately, Apple has decided to kick the scammers out of the app store. As first reported by iPhoneography, Apple has thrown app developer Molinker out of the app store after receiving an e-mail from the community regarding fake application ratings.

Gaming the App Store, a How Not-To Guide

One of the easiest and most targeted ways for developers to “game” the app store is to manipulate the search and ratings process. From practically the minute the app store opened, developers were already employing tricks in the names of their apps to make them show up higher in the list when users were browsing by application title. People figured out how to hide the first character, making it appear that an app was called “Solitaire for iPhone,” when it was really called “+++++111AAAASolitaire for iPhone” or something like that.

It took a while, but Apple finally closed that hole. Originally, Apple also let anyone review an app in the store, whether they purchased it or not — just like with the music and movies store. After push-back from the development and user community indicated that this just made the review section meaningless, Apple adjusted this aspect, too, and made it necessary that people actually purchase or download the application before being able to review it.

That hasn’t been the end of the transgressions, of course. More than one developer has been publicly blasted for using Mechanical Turk to try to get 5-Star app reviews. The idea being that if something can make it into the “highest-rated” category for that particular application, that exposure will lead to sales that will offset any bribery costs.

In the case with Molinker, it appears that almost every single review on every single Molinker app was fake. The script is pretty easy to figure out: poorly written nondescript positive review and five stars. One iPhone user, who goes by the name SCW, investigated the matter even further, finding that many of the reviewers had only reviewed one application or, in some cases, multiple applications — all by Molinker.

The whole process bothered the user so much that he sent an e-mail to Phil Schiller at Apple demanding action. Action was taken.

Rule of Thumb: Don’t Get Caught Acting Up

What makes the Molinker story interesting is the sheer number of apps this developer was responsible for making. More than 1,000 apps — or nearly 1 percent as App Advice noted — were immediately pulled from the store.

In August, Apple did something similar when it kicked out developer Khalid Shaikh for violating copyright and trademark violations. Shaikh had over 900 apps in the store.

Apple might not always act as quickly as it should, and playing the role of arbitrator has its its own set of challenges, but if we can take anything away from this lesson it’s that if the community pipes up and speaks out against flagrant abuses of the system, Apple will take corrective action.

Reviews: STAR

Tags: app store, apple, iphone, review scams

Google Analytics Adds Goodies for Data Geeks par Jennifer Van Grove Mardi 8 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

annotations On the consumer side of things, Google has just released a bevy of new features like Google Goggles and real-time search. But the search giant hasn’t forgotten about its business users. For you they offer up a holiday present.

Now Google Analytics users can add annotations to dates in order to better document spikes in traffic, use custom variables in advanced segments and view them in custom reports, and even use a super simple analytics tracking code wizard for setting up specialized situations.

Google also took to their Analytics blog to announce that a new version of the Analytics API is coming soon and will support advanced segmentation.

Annotate Your Graphs

The majority of Google Analytics users will get the most value out of annotations, especially since the notes can be used to designate why there were peaks or dips in traffic, campaign launches and other information to help team members process traffic data.

To use the annotations, simply click the tab below the date on the graph. The tab will expand to include a date field and text entry box for your note, which will be attributed to you once you save. You can also save your note as private or edit previous annotations.

As the post points out, the use cases for annotations are manifold:

“Annotations can become your central repository, or logbook, for all online marketing and website design actions within your business. So even if you have multiple marketing teams, agencies, or webmasters, or if you have employee churn or other disruptions, you can always see which events may have caused conversions to increase or decrease.”

Go Custom: Advanced Tools for Tracking

If slicing and dicing data is your thing, the refreshed Google Analytics also offers up custom variables in advanced segments plus specialized variables in custom reports. This means that “if you’ve created a Custom Variable such as ‘Logged-In Member,’ you can also create an advanced segment based on that variable and see it across all of your reports.”

code wizard

Should comprehensive traffic tracking be more your style, look no further than the new tracking code set-up wizard. The wizard will automatically generate the right tracking code for your site profiles, so you can more easily track cross-domains, multiple sub-domains, mobile sites and the like.

On the whole, the new Google Analytics features are perfect for data-crunchers and Web site admins looking to better understand their site metrics.

http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/12/holiday-bonus-more-great-features.html

Reviews: Google, Google Analytics

Tags: Google, google analytics

What Real-time Means for Google’s Competitors par Christina Warren Lundi 7 Décembre 2009 :: Mashable! :: RSS

Bing-260 With the announcement of Google real-time search, the world’s most popular search engine has thrown down the gauntlet in a battle it was already winning. Clearly recognizing the threat that the instantaneous nature of Facebook and Twitter represented, Google was smart to sign search deals with both companies, even if those deals aren’t exclusive.

Google’s new strategy has huge implications across a number of different industries. (The advertising and tie-in opportunities — especially in the geolocation space — are mind-boggling.) So what does this mean for Google’s biggest competitors? What does this mean for Google?

What it Means for Bing

Even if it is still a distant third in terms of search rankings, Microsoft’s Bing is Google’s biggest rival. Microsoft is hungry and isn’t afraid to spend money to build up features and technologies.

In its first six months, Bing has made a lot of progress. There are some aspects of Bing — like product search, the new Bing Maps beta and mobile optimization — that rival or best Google’s offerings. And like Google, Bing signed deals with Facebook and Twitter. Now, however, Bing has to face the problem that many businesses attempting to challenge the market leader inevitably face: a constantly moving target. Google isn’t sitting on the sidelines waiting for everyone else to play catch-up, Google is innovating too.

With real-time search, Google has laid down its ace. At the end of the day, no matter how many additional features Bing adds, if it can’t compete head-to-head in search, Google is going to win. Because of Twitter and Facebook, users now know the advantage of real-time search. We want our information and we want it as fast as we can get it. And Google is giving it to us.

That isn’t to say Bing should give up hope. While Google is first to the table and they probably have a better infrastructure of sources (that go beyond, say Twitter and Facebook and MySpace), real-time is still new. How well it is executed — especially on mobile devices — will be the real test.

If Bing can offer a better real-time experience when it inevitably launches its own venture, it might be able to offer the Big G some competition.

Yahoo and the Waiting Game

Yahoo is in an unenviable position. Sure, at long last, it finalized that search and advertising deal with Microsoft, but the deal will likely take at least another year to actually go through. In the meantime, Yahoo is faced with a dilemma: update its search capabilities — even though the investment is going to be extremely short-term — or do nothing and risk losing users to competitors.

Yahoo’s strategy seems to be: Work just hard enough so as not to seem archaic without actually excerpting a lot of unnecessary capital. In that regard, they are adding integration with services like Twitter and Facebook Connect, but they probably aren’t going to a big player in real-time search.

Real-time search doesn’t necessarily impact Yahoo to a significant degree, unless it could also be integrated with Google services — like Gmail — which could steal away users from Yahoo. As always, Yahoo should focus more on being a service provider and not a search engine.

What it Means for Google

Once again, Google has demonstrated why it is such a behemoth. It was telling that the importance to mobile was reiterated several times at today’s event. Mobile is where this technology can really shine and it is undoubtedly the battleground for the search wars of the upcoming decade.

Reviews: Bing, Facebook, Gmail, Google, MySpace, Twitter, Yahoo!

Tags: bing, facebook, gmail, Google, microsoft, Mobile 2.0, myspace, twitter, Yahoo