Mashable: Latest 17 News Updates - including “Amazon Moves DNS Into The Cloud With Route 53” |
- Amazon Moves DNS Into The Cloud With Route 53
- WikiLeaks Now Has Hundreds of Mirrors
- Zuckerberg Talks Privacy, “The Social Network” on “60 Minutes” [VIDEO]
- Tumblr Is Down
- What Do You Think of the New Facebook Profile Design? [POLL]
- 6 Reasons Why Social Games Are the Next Advertising Frontier
- Let Your Friends and Relations Choose How to Use Their Gift Cards This Holiday Season
- Designers: Here’s the Brief for Project Magazine’s iPad Cover Contest
- New Facebook Profiles Now Available [SCREENSHOTS]
- Burberry Brings Interactive Video to Fans’ Facebook News Feeds
- Disney Celebrates 100 Million Facebook Fans
- The Mobile Photo Sharing Boom Is Here
- Facebook Pages Getting New Design and Checkins [SCREENSHOTS]
- Mark Zuckerberg to Unveil New Profile Pages Tonight on “60 Minutes”
- The United States of America According to Google Autocomplete
- State Department Warns Students Against Discussing WikiLeaks on Facebook, Twitter
- This Weekend’s 3 Biggest Stories in Tech & Business
- 5 Merry Musical Contests for the Holidays
| Amazon Moves DNS Into The Cloud With Route 53 Posted: 06 Dec 2010 03:46 AM PST      Amazon has launched a new service called Route 53. It’s a “programmable” DNS service that lets users create, modify and delete DNS zone files for any domain they own. For most users, DNS is something you set up rarely – when you purchase a new domain name and link it to a website – and then forget about it. However, long propagation times, which sometime make you wait two full days before the website goes live at the designated domain name, are a nuisance most users have encountered. Amazon’s Route 53, which is a part of Amazon Web Services, promises to take care of that problem. From the Route 53 FAQ: “Amazon Route 53 is designed to propagate updates you make to your DNS records to its world-wide network of authoritative DNS servers within 60 seconds under normal conditions.” Of course, the DNS resolvers cache resource record sets based on their time to live (TTL) entry, which can slow the process down, and this is outside Amazon’s control. Route 53 (named after port 53, where DNS queries are usually handled) also promises high availability, low-latency query resolution and the ability to give unique credentials and permissions for users within your AWS account and specify what parts of the Route 53 service they can access. The pricing, as with other AWS services, is scalable and depends on how many queries your domains receive. You pay $1.00 per hosted zone per month, and $0.50 per million queries for the first 1 billion queries per month, and $0.25 per million queries after you cross that limit. More About: amazon, DNS, DNS servers, Route 53 For more Dev & Design coverage:
|
| WikiLeaks Now Has Hundreds of Mirrors Posted: 06 Dec 2010 01:59 AM PST   WikiLeaks is currently not available at WikiLeaks.org. It recently lost its DNS service provider, and the site itself has been battered by DDoS attacks for more than a week now – ever since it first started releasing secret embassy cables. However, when highly coveted information once spreads on the web, there’s no stopping it. Case in point: WikiLeaks currently has several hundred mirrors, and although some of these mirrors are incomplete, slow or perhaps even completely unavailable, it’s highly unlikely that any effort will be able to exterminate them all.  Obviously, WikiLeaks was never about one website. As large U.S. companies such as Amazon and PayPal fold under pressure, refusing to give service to WikiLeaks, thousands of enthusiasts help WikiLeaks out by hosting a mirror of the site, uploading a torrent with the latest cables or by donating to the site. Some of them do it because they are advocates of free speech, some of them do it because they support the cause, and some do it just for the heck of it. And with simple instructions on how to set up a WikiLeaks mirror readily available, anyone can do it. The result? Regardless of what any nation, company or organization wants, WikiLeaks isn’t going away. For more Tech coverage:
|
| Zuckerberg Talks Privacy, “The Social Network” on “60 Minutes” [VIDEO] Posted: 05 Dec 2010 06:05 PM PST   Earlier this evening, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a return appearance on the news program 60 Minutes. Zuckerberg showed off Facebook’s new profile pages and talked about the evolution of the platform and company. Zuckerberg was first interviewed by 60 Minutes in January of 2008. Since that time, the profile of the company — and its CEO — have exploded. In addition to showing off the new profile pages, Zuckerberg was also asked about his thoughts on the film, The Social Network. 60 Minutes played a clip of the movie, in which the fictionalized Zuckerberg retorts, “Is that a question?” against a clip of the real Zuckerberg uttering those same lines on 60 Minutes back in 2008 — an interesting juxtaposition, to say the least. You can watch both portions of the segment below. Photo courtesy of 60 Minutes More About: 60 minutes, facebook, mark zuckerberg, television, the social network, tv For more Social Media coverage:
|
| Posted: 05 Dec 2010 04:25 PM PST   Two hours and counting and the blogging platform is still down. Whatever are we to do without The Daily What and all those other delightful blogs? According to The Next Web and CenterNetworks, Tumblr has been down for two hours now, causing a lot of derision among folks on Twitter. Tumblr has taken to Twitter to inform followers of what’s afoot: “We’re working quickly to recover from a major issue in one of our database clusters. We’re incredibly sorry for the inconvenience.” As those who regularly use the platform know, Tumblr going down is no unique occurrence. Still, two hours is a rather lengthy stretch of time — especially for a company that’s been rapidly growing and garnering funding of late. Reviews: Tumblr, Twitter More About: social media, tumblr For more Social Media coverage:
|
| What Do You Think of the New Facebook Profile Design? [POLL] Posted: 05 Dec 2010 03:50 PM PST   In a whirlwind of a day, we learned that Mark Zuckerberg would be appearing on 60 Minutes tonight to chat about a Facebook Profile redesign, only to see said redesign roll out mere hours later. Now we’re wondering what you, the readers, think. Facebook has changed a lot this past year, what with the Open Graph, revamped messaging system and the addition of Places (to name a few alterations), so it should come as no surprise that the social networking site would give itself a touch-up as well. We know that everyone out there has strong opinions about Facebook’s new look — it’s like New Twitter all over again — and we want to know what you think. So take our poll below and elaborate in the comments. Reviews: Facebook More About: facebook, poll, profile, redesign For more Social Media coverage:
|
| 6 Reasons Why Social Games Are the Next Advertising Frontier Posted: 05 Dec 2010 02:39 PM PST   Ad spending on social gaming increased 60% since 2009, according to eMarketer. No doubt advertisers have noticed that 56 million Americans are playing social games and that the branded virtual goods market is booming. But more than just social gaming’s growing popularity has gotten attention from advertisers. Social games also represent an environment that is largely conducive to advertising. “Media buyers and advertisers are recognizing that this is what they want,” explained Robert Tomkinson, Playfish’s senior director of global marketing. “What they want is massive reach, they want targeting, they want performance. And you can have all of these by forming branding opportunities in the right way.” Tomkinson and other leaders in the social gaming industry recently spoke at the Social Gaming Summit about the huge opportunity that social games represent for brands. Here are five reasons they gave for why social game advertising is a growing success: 1. Advertising in Games Is About Engagement, Not Eyeballs Back in July players of the the most popular Facebook social game, FarmVille, had for the first time an option to plant a specific branded crop — Cascadian Farm blueberries — on their virtual farms. In more than 500 million cases, players chose to purchase and plant the branded blueberries instead of something else. According to Zynga, unaided brand awareness increased 550% as a result. Volvo, H&M and MTV Networks have also experimented with branded virtual goods that users can choose to purchase or acquire through interaction with the brand. Another common strategy for brands in social games is an “offer wall” inside of many games. Brands can exchange virtual rewards for engagement, like taking a survey or watching a video about a new product. "In both cases you're actually engaging with the brand,” explained Peter Wexler, the director of strategic partnerships for transactional advertising platform TrialPay. “This is different than in traditional ads within TV and print and on the side of the bus that flies by on Eighth Avenue. That's all sort of eyeballs, so how many eyeballs do I have on a magazine, on a paper… you can vary on actual engagement." 2. Social Games Reach the Facebook Audience When online, the average American spends more time on Facebook than on Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Microsoft, Wikipedia and Amazon combined. A significant part of that interaction includes social games, making them an ideal alternative to display ads for advertisers who want to reach Facebook’s giant, 500 million-person user base. “If you talk to advertisers, and you talk to them about Facebook, every single one of them, whether it’s an agency or the brand, they’re all extremely interested in participating in the Facebook platform,” explained Wexler during his presentation. “And most of them are pretty unsure of how to effectively do that… this is where consumers are available.” 3. Some Games Have Bigger Audiences Than Prime Time TV Advertising in social games might not be solely about eyeballs, but there are definitely a critical mass of people who are playing them. About about 30 million players per day play the most popular social game, FarmVille. The most popular prime time television show last week, Dancing With the Stars, had about 24 million viewers. Social gaming is becoming just as accessible, if not more accessible, than television. While most gaming platforms in the past have required expensive consoles and other barriers to entry, most social games are free to play. “[The] iPhone put a gaming device in everybody’s pocket and massively expanded the market,” explained Tomkinson during his presentation. “And of course, free-to-play social games massively expand the market to bigger than all the console games combined. This is something that anybody can use.” In addition to broaching television’s audience size, social games are also broadening the niche that is often associated with gaming. Most games are fairly easy to learn. Zynga game tutorials, for instances, are shorter than three minutes. Zynga’s director of brand advertising Manny Anekal said in a presentation that he hates the term “social games” because the experiences that his company creates are “just fun with your family friends. Simple as that.” Being such, social games can easily reach demographics far beyond the typical “gamer” profile. 4. Advertising With Social Games Isn’t Restricted to Virtual The branding potentials for social games need not remain online. About six months ago, 7-Eleven straddled the space between virtual and physical worlds by tying products like iced coffee and slurpees with FarmVille Games. When a customer bought a promoted product, he or she was directed to perform a task in the game to unlock a 7-Eleven virtual good. The campaign ran in 7,000 stores for six weeks. The branded ice cream surpassed the brand’s sales forecast within the first week. More than 3 million codes were redeemed, and water had a 60% redemption rate. Green Giant also explored the space in between virtual games and the physical world by giving away FarmVille Cash with select produce purchases. 5. Brands Can Be Part of the Experience In “virtual world” games, brands can do more than hang out on billboards (though that is an option, too). They can become part of the game. One way brands have done this is to add an element to the gameplay itself. When State Farm Insurance branded a blimp in the FarmVille game, for instance, players who chose to put it on their farms had their crops protected during the 10 days of the promotion. The branded blimp continued to float over their farms even after the promotion was over. Another way brands become part of the experience is by adding an interactive component to the landscape. On Black Friday, Old Navy launched a virtual store in CrowdStar’s social game, It Girl. Players could purchase Old Navy virtual clothing or gift it to their friends. The virtual store displayed real-world offers, and players could also complete quests that would earn them virtual currency. "They've very much integrated their brand into the game experience,” Wexler said about the integration. “It's not so much about transactions and direct revenue for Old Navy in this situation, it's about putting the brand in front of their customer base.” 6. Brands Can Reward Players for Interacting With Them Purchasing the State Farm Insurance blimp gave FarmVille players protection, completing quests in the virtual Old Navy store gives CrowdStar players virtual currency, and watching videos or taking surveys on offer walls will earn virtual currency or goods. In some cases, players can choose between paying to play or engaging with a brand in order to play a game for free. "The player gets the reward by interacting with the brand. This isn't about showcasing, it's about engagement,” Wexler explained during his presentation. “And that's the value to advertisers." More Business Resources from Mashable:
Reviews: ELEVEN, Facebook, Google, Wikipedia, YouTube More About: advertising, brands, business, CrowdStar, facebook, facebook games, farmville, playfish, social games, Zynga For more Business coverage:
|
| Let Your Friends and Relations Choose How to Use Their Gift Cards This Holiday Season Posted: 05 Dec 2010 02:12 PM PST   This post is part of Mashable's Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Quick Pitch: Say bye-bye to a wallet full of unused gift cards — the Tango Card allows the recipient to shop where he/she wants, donate any portion of the balance to charity or even redeem it for cash. Genius Idea: Oh, awesome. Your grandma gave you a gift card this Christmas that will score you $50 worth of meals at the local Rib Shack, and you’re a staunch vegan. Re-gifting, anyone? Although gift cards make pretty good presents, it can be hard to choose the right one for any given friend or relation. That’s where the Tango Card comes in. This gift card allows the recipient to choose where they want to shop, donate money left on the card to charities (including America Scores, Grameen Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, InSTEDD, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, National Park Foundation, Summer Search, USO) and redeem any balance left on the card for cash. Yes, there are a limited number of locations you can choose from when it comes to shopping, but two of the top three most-wanted cards are included in the mix: Target and Amazon. The rest are Gap, Home Depot, Nike, Pottery Barn, REI, Rixty, Spafinder, Starbucks and Zappos.  Recipients can even download a free iPhone app [iTunes link] that will help them keeps tabs on card value and store card info for online shopping. Like Cardpool — an online marketplace for users to buy, sell and trade giftcards — Tango Card aims to make the gifting process easier and more rewarding for everyone involved. It’s a simple solution, but one we think will certainly come in handy this holiday season. Image courtesy of Flickr, mmlolek Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
Reviews: Flickr More About: apps, Gifts, iphone, MARKETING, money, spark-of-genius For more Startups coverage:
|
| Designers: Here’s the Brief for Project Magazine’s iPad Cover Contest Posted: 05 Dec 2010 01:49 PM PST   As part of its launch on Tuesday, Virgin’s first iPad-only magazine, Project, announced a contest to redesign the magazine’s animated cover. In order to get ahold of the brief and assets for the contest, however, designers (or their unemployed friends) had to locate one of four paper mannequins (with Sir Richard Branson, pictured above) touring New York and San Francisco, each of which held the coordinates of USB sticks containing the brief, earlier this week. I’ve since gotten ahold of a .zip file containing the outline and assets for the cover contest, which you can download from my personal Dropbox account here. You can watch a video outlining the challenge below, and enter your design at facebook.com/project. There’s no monetary prize for the contest, but the winner will get to design the front of cover of an entirely crowdsourced issue slated for next year, and retain full ownership rights of his or her work. The BriefMagazine PreviewReviews: Dropbox More About: ipad, media, project magazine, Virgin, virgin group For more Dev & Design coverage:
|
| New Facebook Profiles Now Available [SCREENSHOTS] Posted: 05 Dec 2010 12:57 PM PST   Well, that was fast! The new Facebook Profile Pages are now available to try out — Facebook has just heralded their arrival via Twitter, mere hours before founder Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance on 60 Minutes. We were expecting the new Pages to go live tomorrow, but it seems they’re up and running now. Simply click on Facebook’s announcement to activate yours and check out all the new features, including revamped personal info, more prominent pictures, top interests showcased as images, more descriptive relationships and more. Check out Facebook’s video and our walkthrough below: The New ProfileA New You Your profile now has a little "About Me"-esque section at the top, including where you work, where you went to school, where you live, etc. The option "Languages" has also been added. A Photo Introduction Now a row of the most recently tagged snaps of you appear at the top of your profile. Luckily, you can click the "x" on the corner of the photo and take certain snaps out of the spotlight. Not sure I want my Halloween pictures to be the first introduction people get to me on the web… More Organized Navigation No more tabs. You can surf around your profile via links under your profile picture now. Also, under "Info," "Philosophy" has been added, which groups together religious views, political views, favorite quotes and the newly added "People Who Inspire You." More Detailed Work/Education Info Let people know more about where you work and the people you work with by adding projects you worked on (at work) as well as classes you took. You can also add co-workers and classmates. This will be a nice way to keep contacts arranged in one place. Also, it should be useful for networking. More Visual Interests Now your interests are much more visual, making the profile itself pretty visually appealing and easy to navigate. The option "Sports" has also been added. Group Your Friends Instead of just having friends, relations and significant others, now you can group friends into categories, like "Best Friends," "Work Buddies," etc. This seems to be another move in Facebook's efforts to depict users' relationships. Friend search has also been revamped to be a much more visual experience. More About: facebook, social media, trending For more Social Media coverage:
|
| Burberry Brings Interactive Video to Fans’ Facebook News Feeds Posted: 05 Dec 2010 12:37 PM PST   Since Facebook launched its Pages product for brands in 2007, many have used the service to share photos and (even live) video content with fans via their News Feeds. Burberry, which has emerged as one of the leaders in digital marketing this year, took matters a step further Friday by releasing an animated, interactive product shot on its Facebook wall — the first of its kind we’ve ever come across. It allows users to rotate the video for a more comprehensive view of the product directly from their News Feeds, closely mimicking the beautiful interactive video graphics the fashion brand installed on its website earlier this year. Although the animation is a bit rough, the experience promises a new level of engagement that users can expect to see across many brands’ Pages in the future. You can try it out for yourself at facebook.com/burberry.  Reviews: Facebook, pages More About: burberry, facebook, fashion, MARKETING, social media, social media marketing For more Social Media coverage:
|
| Disney Celebrates 100 Million Facebook Fans Posted: 05 Dec 2010 12:11 PM PST The Walt Disney Company hit a major marketing milestone at around 8 p.m. PT Saturday night: 100 million Facebook Likes across its more than 200 official brand, property and character Pages. The company began posting regularly to Facebook in August 2009, and managed to gather 60 million Likes across its Facebook properties in the first year. Those properties now attract about 5 million new fans per week, most of whom receive regular news about the company or one of its creations through their News Feeds. To celebrate the news, which is scheduled to hit the wire in time for Walt Disney’s 109th birthday on Monday, the company put together the video above, which highlights the history of the company’s involvement on Facebook. It also reveals a few interesting facts about its fans, such as that more than 70% of fans are female, and more than 60% live outside the U.S. Reviews: Facebook, pages For more Social Media coverage:
|
| The Mobile Photo Sharing Boom Is Here Posted: 05 Dec 2010 12:01 PM PST   New mobile photo apps such as Instagram, Picplz and Path represent the next generation of photo sharing — where high quality photos are snapped and shared in seconds on your mobile device. Instagram and Picplz focus on the instantaneous point-and-share functionality of smart phones while providing users with filters to fancify and enhance photos and the tools to share them with the world. Path makes the same bet that users will capture important moments in their lives on their mobile devices, but instead assumes that users prefer to share these intimate memories with just friends and family. Each aims to capitalize on the convergence of key mobile and social networking trends with a closed-loop approach: users take, share and view photos entirely on their mobile device. Some History The online photo sharing movement can be looked at in three distinct product cycles: photo-only sites, social networks and now mobile. In the early and mid 2000s there was a measurable boom in online photo sharing services. That boom brought us Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, ImageShack and dozens more. It also led to key acquisitions — Yahoo purchased Flickr, Google bought Picasa and Fox Interactive snatched up Photobucket — and a widespread user interest in using the web to share photos. The trend was also fueled by the prevalence (and falling prices) of digital cameras. In the late 2000s, social networking has dramatically grown in popularity and photo sharing has become standard fare on Twitter and Facebook. These two services alone served as a catalyst for the second photo sharing boom, which had a slightly narrowed focus on instantaneous sharing to friends and followers. As of July of this year, Facebook now sees more than 100 million photo uploads every day. In 2008, TwitPic kicked off the Twitter photo sharing phenomena and dozens of copycats hurried to pile on in the hopes of a building tools for users to quickly share photos on Twitter. This instant photo sharing trend is still on-going and has mutated to include a vast array of services that have added support for posting to Twitter and Facebook, Posterous and Tumblr included. Now in 2010, mobile photo sharing products from Picplz, Instagram and Path represent the next boom in photo sharing. These startups are strategically focusing on mobile first and aiming to capitalize on both the ever-improving quality of smartphone cameras and users’ desire to snap and share with ease. The Trend in Action Mobile phone cameras have been around for years, but until recently poor photo quality was a deterrent that prevented device owners from using their mobile phones as their primary cameras. That’s no longer the case. Now there is a vast array of smartphones available capable of producing photos that are as good, if not better than, the many digital cameras. As a result, more and more users are opting to use their mobile device to capture, save and share stunning photo memories. The common belief is that mobile users want a friction-free way to capture and post photos, minus the clunkiness and time commitment usually required when transferring photos from mobile device to desktop to web. Entrepreneurs and investors are just now starting to build or invest in mobile-only applications specifically designed with these users in mind. Path, for instance, was generating buzz long before its launch thanks to the pedigree of its founders and its all-star cast of investors, including Ron Conway, Keith Rabois, Paul Buchheit and Ashton Kutcher. It’s unclear how well its private approach to mobile photo sharing is catching on, but its existence suggests there may be other unexplored roads entrepreneurs can traverse to capitalize on mobile photos. Picplz founder — and former Imeem creater — Dalton Caldwell is making an educated bet that mobile photo sharing will become big business. The startup landed $5 million from investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, which clearly shares the same vision. And then there’s Instagram, the two month-old, hit iPhone app that signed on more than 100,000 users in its first week and is now seeing two to three photo uploads per second. Some Predictions As more mobile device owners upgrade to smartphones — and there’s still plenty of room for growth here — and mobile cameras continue to improve in quality, more startups and businesses will form to cater to the modern conveniences that instant mobile sharing affords users. They will build for mobile first and web second, if at all. Plus, since history tends to repeat itself, we can expect Google and Yahoo to make acquisitions to stay competitive in the mobile frontier. Of course, Facebook — particularly keen on improving its photos offering — will also continue to make strategic acquisitions to maintain its place in the photo sharing market. More Mobile Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of Flickr, Michael.Sutton, nicolasnova, Isobel T Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Google, ImageShack, Path, Photobucket, Picasa, Posterous, Tumblr, Twitpic, Twitter, imeem, instagram More About: digital cameras, instagram, iphone, mobile phones, mobile photo sharing, Path, photo sharing, Photos, picplz For more Startups coverage:
|
| Facebook Pages Getting New Design and Checkins [SCREENSHOTS] Posted: 05 Dec 2010 11:37 AM PST   Facebook appears to be on the verge of launching a new design of its Fan Pages. This change seems to include the site’s location-based Places checkin functionality, enabling “likers” of the page to check in to it. Although Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg is said to be giving a sneak peak at the new Profile Pages design on 60 Minutes tonight, it seems that more change is in store; you can already see the new Pages design in action on select pages, such as Ellen DeGeneres’s Fan Page. On Ellen’s page, you will notice a count for the number of checkins the Page has. According to Facebook Spokesperson Meredith Chin, the Ellen Page is a merged page that includes the functionality for checkins available shortly after the feature launched a few months ago. Basically, your brand page will then take on the Places page designs, which appears to be the inspiration for the new profile pages that are to be released as well. “As long as the address of the official page and the place page match, it should show you a prompt and ask you if you want to merge them,” Chin said. You can see screenshots of the new design below. Current Pages Design The current Pages design, similar to Profile Pages, has the Page navigation tabs (Wall, Questions, Photos) at the top. The New Pages With Checkins The new Pages design includes checkins, profile information (which includes some basic information about the page and the Wall postings below it), a narrower left column and more. New Tabs The new Pages also feature the navigation tabs on the left-hand side. Reviews: pages More About: facebook, facebook pages, Facebook Places, mark zuckerberg, social networking For more Social Media coverage:
|
| Mark Zuckerberg to Unveil New Profile Pages Tonight on “60 Minutes” Posted: 05 Dec 2010 10:56 AM PST   It looks like Facebook is getting, well, a facelift. All week we’ve heard buzz about Mark Zuckerberg’s impending appearance on 60 Minutes, and now it’s come to light that he will be showing off the social networking site’s new Profile Pages tonight on the news show. This morning, 60 Minutes released a preview of the show that will be airing tonight at 7 p.m. EST. We’re embedding that video below. You can’t see that much from the blurry screenshot above (or from the quick shots in the vid), but it appears as if the oft-forgotten “Poke” has been moved to the top of the page (maybe Zuckerberg listened to our rallying cry a few months back) next to a more visible “Message” button. Photos have also been given more prominent placement under basic info about the person in question, and the “You and [Insert Name Here]“ feature has been given a more fleshed out box on the right (the ads underneath it also look wider than before). In perhaps the most dramatic change, tabs like “Wall” and “Info” are now located to the left of the page under the profile picture, instead of at the top of the page. We’ll all have to tune into 60 Minutes tonight to see just how different the Profile Pages will be. In the meantime, let us know what you think of this sneak peek in the comments. Reviews: Facebook More About: 60 minutes, facebook, mark zuckerberg, trending For more Social Media coverage:
|
| The United States of America According to Google Autocomplete Posted: 05 Dec 2010 09:25 AM PST  Ever wonder what a map of the U.S. would look like if all of the states’ names were altered to match the suggestions offered by Google’s autocomplete search algorithm? Wonder no longer. Some — like “Washington Post,” “Kentucky Fried Chicken” and “Arizona State University” — came as no surprise. But I couldn’t have guessed that “Utah Jazz” and “Hawaii Five O” would have made the map, and I’ll admit to looking up “Missouri Compromise” on Wikipedia. (It was an agreement passed in 1820 that effectively prohibited slavery in the northern part of what was then called the Louisiana Territory, except within the borders of the proposed state of Missouri. In case you were wondering about that, too.) [via Very Small Array] Reviews: Google, Wikipedia More About: Google, google autocomplete, google search, us map For more Entertainment coverage:
|
| State Department Warns Students Against Discussing WikiLeaks on Facebook, Twitter Posted: 05 Dec 2010 08:04 AM PST   A State Department official warned students at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs this week that discussing WikiLeaks on Facebook or Twitter could endanger their employment prospects. The official, a former student of the school, called the career services office of his alma mater to advise students not to post links to WikiLeaks documents, nor to make comments on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, as “engaging in these activities would call into question [a student's] ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government,” he was quoted as saying in an e-mail sent to students by the career services office on Tuesday. The warning coincided with WikiLeaks’s release of thousands of secret U.S. embassy cables on Sunday, November 28. The site has since been plagued by multiple DDoS attacks, and termination of service notifications from its DNS provider, EveryDNS.net, its temporary website host, Amazon, and PayPal, which handled many of the donations the organization received. Student Issandr El Amrani posted a copy of the e-mail on his blog on Thursday, the same day Senator Joseph Lieberman and other lawmakers proposed legislation that would hold those who publish the names of any U.S. intelligence sources “criminally accountable.” A full copy of the e-mail, which the career services office has since confirmed sending, is pasted below:
According to an e-mail sent by spokesperson Phillip J. Crowley to The Huffington Post, the warning does not, however, represent a formal policy position. “We have instructed State Department employees not to access the WikiLeaks site and download posted documents using an unclassified network since these documents are still classified. We condemn what Mr. Assange is doing, but have given no advice to anyone beyond the State Department to my knowledge,” he wrote. Employees in the State Department are among the many government workers who were told by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget not to view the leaked documents without the required security clearance on Friday. Although you may not be going for a job at the State Department any time soon, does the warning nevertheless make you wary of discussing WikiLeaks on public forums such as Facebook and Twitter? Reviews: Amazon.com, Facebook, Twitter, Wikileaks More About: columbia university, facebook, social media, trending, twitter, wikileaks For more Social Media coverage:
|
| This Weekend’s 3 Biggest Stories in Tech & Business Posted: 05 Dec 2010 07:05 AM PST   Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world. We're keeping our eyes on three particular stories of interest today. Groupon Turns Down Google’s $6 Billion Offer According to Chicago Breaking Business and Bloomberg, Groupon has rejected Google's massive $6 billion acquisition offer and intends to stay independent. WikiLeaks Cables Appear to Confirm China Attack on Google WikiLeaks’s latest set of leaked documents reveal that Chinese leadership turned against Google upon discovering search results critical of the country, the government and specific party members. Some sources confirm that the government was, in fact, behind the attacks. PayPal Permanently Restricts WikiLeaks Account PayPal has “permanently restricted” WikiLeaks’s PayPal account, which the organization used to receive donations, because it “encourage[s], promote[s], facilitate[s] or instruct[s] others to engage in illegal activity,” PayPal announced. Earlier this week, WikiLeaks’s domain name systems (DNS) provider, EveryDns.net, and website host, Amazon, terminated their service contracts with the organization as well. Further News
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59 Reviews: Amazon.com, App Store, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Wikileaks, iStockphoto More About: friendly, Google, groupon, paypal, wikileaks For more Tech coverage:
|
| 5 Merry Musical Contests for the Holidays Posted: 05 Dec 2010 06:00 AM PST   ‘Tis the season… that the holiday music playing in stores and supermarkets ad nauseum since October has just about driven us insane. Well, dear readers, it’s time to regain a little holiday cheer with this list of five music-themed contests to snap you out of your holi-daze. We’ve assembled a truly nondenominational list below — i.e. there’s something in there for both musicians and music fans. Let us know if you score any prizes, and please do link us to any holiday jams of your own making — if we hear “The 12 Days of Christmas” one more time, we’re going to lose it. 1. Fans: Score Free Jams First stop, our favorite music subscription service roundup — next stop, your desktop and mobile device. Super social music streaming app Rdio is giving away one free account every day until December 25. All you have to do to get in the game is “Like” the app on Facebook and click over to the “Sweepstakes” tab to enter your info. Not only is this a great way for the service to garner new fans, it’s also a pretty easy way to score an entire year’s worth of free music, which should come in handy when you’re stuck between a flock of screaming children and cackling teens on a bus back to your parent’s place. Ohhh, the holidays… 2. Enter a Battle of the Bands Here’s an idea: Instead of ruthlessly fighting with your siblings for your parent’s love and approval this holiday season, why not enter a battle of the bands? (Let’s face it: if you’re in a band in the first place, you’re probably not going to win that war. Why, oh, why didn’t you go to law school like your father suggested?) Shure, maker of high-quality audio gear, recently kicked off its SM58® Give It Voice Tour, which aims to get undiscovered musicians the fawning attention they so desire. You have until December 10 to register for the competition, but we’re shure (hehe) you have some songs kicking around the old Bandcamp account, which, incidentally, you will need in order to enter the contest. Fans will cast votes for their chosen tunes, which will determine who will make it to the semi-finals, and, ultimately, win the Shure SM58® Vocal Microphone at the RedGorilla Music Fest in Austin, Texas. You’ll also nab $10,000 worth of Shure gear if you win, which will come in handy come gift-giving time, seeing as how you spent that last paycheck on a pack of new strings and some ramen. 3. Remix It Up What’s your least favorite holiday jam? Mine is “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” Music collaboration platform Indaba recently launched a holiday remix contest, in which it challenged musicians to spin classic holiday songs into brand new jams. The contest resulted in two EPs, one of which features modern remixes and one which includes electronic re-imaginings. The winners share in the sales and publishing of the songs they submit. You can check out all the winners on Indaba’s site or purchase the albums on iTunes. Even though it’s too late to fulfill my dream of turning “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” into a Go-Go-inspired dance hit, Indaba still has a ton of contests that you can enter this holiday season, including a call to remix John Legend and The Roots’ “Shine.” So get thee to your bedroom, er, studio, and start mixing. It’s too cold to go outside, anyway. 4. Become a V.I.P. With Diddy New Year’s Eve is always a huge disappointment, mostly because folks always feel so pressured to have fun. This year, why not kick up that pressure a notch by entering Vevo’s recently announced sweepstakes, for which a night with Diddy is the prize. Yup. All you have to do is fill out a form before December 13 for a chance to win a trip to Las Vegas and an invite to Diddy’s album release/New Year’s Eve Party. Hey, it beats falling asleep on the couch at 11 p.m., clutching a half-empty bottle of champagne and a noisemaker. 5. Share a Memory, Score a Trip to the Grammys Remember when you were 13 years old and your sister gave you Blonde on Blonde on vinyl, effectively sparking your adoration for Bob Dylan? Encouraged by the gusty attitude he adopted when he went electric — much to the chagrin of his fans — you defied all suburban cultural norms to become the first female quarterback on your high school’s football team to also dance the lead in the school’s production of Swan Lake? No? Well, it would be cool if you did, because that would make an awesome story for the National Association of Recording Merchandisers’ (NARM) Give The Gift Of Music contest. Give The Gift Of Music is a website launched on November 1, 2010, by NARM and the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) as a place for music lovers to find gift-giving ideas, create music wish lists and listen to artists talking about their favorite musical gifts. In order to win one of the many prizes — the most enticing being a trip for two to the Grammy Awards — all you have to do is post a favorite memory involving a time you received music as a gift to the site’s “Share Your Memories” page before December 17. We all know my favorite musical-gifting memory (if only it were the one above). What’s yours? Let us know in the comments! More Social Music Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, LuckyBusiness Reviews: Facebook, iStockphoto More About: Christmas, Contests, diddy, grammys, Holidays, Indaba, music, NARM, rdio, shure, social media, vevo For more Entertainment coverage:
|
Name: 
| You are subscribed to email updates from Mashable! To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar