Curated Stories Apr. 13, 2010

In a dense, 87-page report, Morgan Stanley analysts have charted the most important online trends and predicted the future of the Internet. In addition to forecasting more online shopping and showing the geogr…

Just as the Web allows small businesses to have a big online presence, social media gives small businesses a chance to stand out. …

I’m not a person who likes new technology (I seriously had an iPod for over a year before I learned how to use it.) When Twitter first came out, Marc had to bug me for months to get an account.
So, when I sta…

Sold At The Top submits:
Back in the 1970s and 80s the “Misery Index” was popularized as a measure that accurately captured the misery and malaise of the time.The original Misery Index was a bit too simp…

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, whose experiments with how people value “free” we’ve discussed before, has a fascinating column in the Harvard Business Review, explaining why companies don’t experiment, where…

After being an entrepreneur for most of my adult life, I’ve now been a part-time angel investor for 5 years and a full-time venture capitalist for the past 9 months. During that time, I’ve come to apprecia…

Klout, a startup that measures influence on Twitter, is releasing a new version of its API today. Klout’s API is currently being used by more than 250 companies, including CoTweet, HootSuite, and the newly-la…

The microblogging service plans to link keyword searches with advertising and show users relevant promoted posts.

Long-awaited Promoted Tweets program makes brands’ presence on the microblogging service official, bringing paid tweets to search results and eventually users’ activity streams.

If you don’t care about Twitter news, you may as well rejoin us next week. Over the next few days, Twitter is going to dominate the airwaves — and it starts tonight. In advance of his keynote at the Ad Age…

The blogosphere is buzzing about the new social media measurement platform SAS Institute Inc. announced yesterday. Is there a place for yet ANOTHER social web monitoring tool in a crowded market? And what…

Chris Rodriguez submits:

I just got this email and had to share. There are some pretty amazing facts about Wal-Mart (WMT) here (assuming all are true). 1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart every hour o…

(image from Ad Age) The NYT has broken news of Twitter’s initial version of its native ad platform, which it is calling “Promoted Tweets.” I will acknowledge being briefed on this news prior to its breaking, an…

Why do people care how Twitter will make money? “We won’t know where we, the users, fit in — until they tell us how they’re going to make money,” Dave Winer wrote a year ago this week, “And when they tell us,…

The upcoming Chirp conference organized by Twitter is bound to interest a new group of developers. Getting up to speed with a new API can take some research, but Twitter makes it easy with a handy list.
The Thi…

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber has unexpectedly emerged as a central figure in the Apple-Adobe fiasco. It was his treatise on “Why Apple Changed Section 3.3…

Today, a cartoonist for SFGate.com, the online arm of the San Francisco Chronicle, and an investigative journalist at ProPublica won Pulitzer Prizes for their work. The reason we’ve dubbed these wins “hist…

Venom-filled anonymous internet comments are often a favorite target for politicians, writers and plenty of other folks who use them to represent everything that’s wrong with the internet. Many sites have a lov…

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — In the four years since Twitter launched, two questions have hung over the micro-blog service: Can it make money? If so, how?
Twitter is expected an answer to both questions on Tuesday i…

Paul McDonald, the founder of ÜberTwitter, a popular Twitter app for the BlackBerry, has said that Twitter’s newly released BlackBerry app uses closed APIs that other apps can’t use, in a comment to Loic Le Me…

Which is the real home?
Imagine yourself standing inside your home (be it an apartment, condo, house, or other place to live) and looking out the window. See the world as it passes by, see the seasons come and…

Gross margin is an often confused concept but a powerful tool in figuring out how to market your business (and decide what to make, who to hire and how to fund it). Few people understand it, while others use a…

In her BlogWell San Diego case study presentation, Joyce Munoz, group manager of interactive marketing for Avery Dennison, explained how they got their social media program off the ground.
L…

Jim Carrey tweeted:”No wife is blind enough to miss that much infidelity. Elin had 2 b a willing participant on the ride 4 whatever reason. kids/lifestyle ;^)”Tiger Woods owes nothing 2 anyone but himself. 2 pl…

I have written a lot about digital curation because I believe, in a world of infinite noise, it’s the next big thing. Twitter in particular needs a lot of curating since it’s hard to find the art in the junk….

While incorporating social media into marketing strategy is becoming standard practice, many organizations still struggle …

What is Comment Management? Virtually all blog software offers commenting functionality, so why would you need a 3rd party comment management service? Many of the comments and “reactions” to content pos…

Ducati is a pretty old brand. It was founded in 1926. As my friends at Ninja Marketing write, the company was close to folding when Federico Minoli, representing Texas Pacific Group, a US investment fund, bou…

Who Influenced You?All of us have influences. People who have educated, inspired, engaged, supported us. Or maybe just kicked us in the ass when we needed it.Tell me in the comments who influenced you and why,…

I can’t be the only person on Earth who, when I need information, heads to Good Ol’ Google and is sometimes frustrated by the results I get. Of course, there are other research tools I can use, too — soci…

Did the title of my post get your attention? Believe me, I wish texting and driving couldn’t destroy your business, but it unfortunately has the potential to. In this month’s post, I’m taking a b…

Microsoft’s Bing has started to show tweets in search results in an effort to improve its ability to respond to queries about breaking news.Writing on the Bing search blog, Microsoft says, “Bing now pulls…

Are you a cord-cutter, or do you want to be? Have you had enough of paying your cable company through the nose for 800 channels, when all you really watch is maybe 20 or 30? With an increasing selection of h…

Now that Twitter has launched an ad product and moved on plans to provide Twitter users “official” versions of services third-parties used to provide (photo-sharing, URL shortening and mobile apps), a whole lot…

I sent my colleague Amadeo Plaza to PSFK Conference 2010 last week and he has repaid me by suggesting I bust out my synthesizers and cut some new tracks. Well, sorta… Over on his blog (you
should subscribe…

How much is a Facebook “fan” worth? $3.60, according to AdWeek.Join the conversation about this story »

There’s a whole bunch of new stuff in Google Docs, including real-time editing, a drawing tool, and a new look and features for spreadsheets and presentations….

If you’re in print media, hemorrhaging revenue and done nothing you still need to rethink your business model. The iPad, DRM or other closed platforms are not your savior. And merely putting your content o…

Michael Bettiol / Boy Genius Report:
HTC Incredible specs — One of our Verizon connects just came through for us in a huge way by passing along the entire spec list for the fast approaching HTC Incredib…

In February, visitors to the web video site Hulu each watched an average of 2.4 hours of video on the site — a new record. That’s just one bit of data from comScore’s most recent “Video Metrix” U.S….

A TUAW reader posts the following video stating that a new interface found in iPhone OS 4 allows for navigation that would be optimized for automobile use.
Our source says that information bundled into the appl…

An anonymous reader writes “Apple’s iron-bound determination to keep Adobe Flash out of any iWhatever device is about to blow up in Apple’s face. Sources close to Adobe tell me that Adobe will be suing Apple wi…

Ever since Oracle’s acquisition of Sun, MySQL users have been nervous about Oracle’s commitment to the open source database, given Oracle’s own database product line.

The Altimeter Group was pre-briefed by Twitter COO Dick Costolo last week about this upcoming launch, we’ve had some time to think over what it means to the industry. Help your boss fight through the clutter…

We saw it at CES. It exploded at SxSW. People checking in everywhere, all the time. While tools like Foursquare are great for social media users like myself, the question I always ask myself is whether or not…

Beats Me, but There Are a Ton of Things to Figure Out Before We Settle on the Answer
Advertising Age, April 12, 2010 — So who the heck owns social? Thats a tricky question, not only because every business…

The iPhone OS 4 SDK was released last week, but it’s not all good news
for iPhone (and iPad) developers. That’s because Section 3.3.1 of the iPhone Developer
Program License Agreement comes with a new catch:…

Click to see a larger version of this ad.
The long copy vs. short copy debate has been raging for decades.
And it rages on today.
On one side are the traditional direct marketing people who look at history and…

by Josh BernoffThe New York Times and Advertising Age report that Twitter will be adding advertising tweets to searches.First, to all the Twitter lovers out there: this is the first sign of the apocalypse. Of a…

Image via Wikipedia
At a recent conference, one of the speakers iterated “Your brand is not your logo!” Many people reacted with surprise. As we start this series, it’s important to appreciate the …

Make no mistake about it: I am an Apple fan. I own several Mac laptops, iPhones, and iPods. I even bought an AppleTV—and love it. When the iPad was announced, I watched Steve Jobs’ announcement and the onli…

Now that Twitter finally revealed details about its plans to launch advertising with “promoted tweets,” people on Twitter are reacting. Not surprisingly, most of them don’t like the idea of ads being in…

Im torn.
It would be so easy to pontificate a right answer, but,
pragmatically, I know there isnt one.
After finishing a re-read of Clay Shirkys prescient piece from 2000,
entititled R.I.P.
The Consumer (19…

Flip Video has released a new pocket camcorder, the SlideHD, which features a large 3-inch touch-screen display that tilts and enables you to more easily share videos with friends and family while traveling.

Twitter is asking you, its users, if you have 140 seconds to answer seven simple questions about its service. Now, in calmer times, a simple user survey might just pass by unnoticed, but with all the hubbub ove…

Understanding how the brain perceives the passage of time could lead to treatments for mental illnesses. Why does time seem to slow down during a life-threaten…

Having a social media strategy is no longer enough in today’s digital world. Companies need to prove that they are capable of making large corporate changes based on the new feedback they’re getting from consum…

Google has announced a major overhaul to Google Docs.
Some Docs products have been tweaked, some have been completely redone, and a few new ones have been added.
Here’s what you need to know:

The word process…

Last week, I wrote a blog post about finding the right mix of listening and creating content for online communities or social media programs, and this week, I wanted to talk more specifically about …

A few years ago, when Twitter was starting to take off, we questioned whether or not Tweets were covered under copyright. While technically tweets could definitely be covered by copyright, it’s still a little…

With the right strategy and execution in place, digital media has proven very cost-effective. It scales and caters to a larger volume with faster go-to-market capabilities. Which brings us to the issue of prope…

Whether folks are coming to your website to read about products and services, complete a purchase, obtain customer support, or find out where you’re located, you have invested to get them there. Now you need to…

Once you have your page set up, how do you maximize your fan base and get the most out of your page? Some social-media gurus think that “old-school” marketing techniques have gone the way of the dinosaur and wo…

The IRS plans to make more audits this year in order to make up for budget deficits. Rather than immediately surrender to the audit, the Wall Street Journal of…

I am about halfway through a box of Roasted Garlic Triscuits as I type this, and I better slow down or the second box in the cupboard (Rosemary and Olive Oil, I think) will be gone by late afternoon.
But I wond…

Taxpayers across the U.S. owe public school teacher retirement accounts about $933 billion, nearly triple the amount reported by the plans themselves, a study says.

John Siracusa:

Apple’s decisions regarding its mobile platform in particular have
been extremely protective from the very start. Cumulatively, these
actions represent a huge bet placed by Apple. The p…

submitted by estherschindler [link] [comment]

Nearly half of all Americans pay no income taxes on April 15, including some people who are millionaires. Is this fair? A look at who pays what on tax day.

Chalk up another point for online reputation building. Increasingly it’s looking like news publications are taking moves away from letting vocal readers remain anonymous on their sites.
The Washington Post, New…

If you manage a small to medium sized non-profit chances, are that you’ve never considered Macs for your organization, or that if you have, you’ve quickly been turned off when you see that the cost of entry…

A new study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) shows that despite a growing federal deficit, IRS audit efforts aimed at the nation’s largest corporations have precipitously declined in t…

The popular location-based services Foursquare and Gowalla were launched at the 2009 SXSW, and one year later, many proclaimed the 2010 SXSW to be the year of “location, location, location”. With almost 350,00…

Social media is now mainstream and quickly approaching necessity. If you’re a business and you’re not engaged in some form of social outreach, you soon will be viewed the same way that a business wi…

There’s always a lot going on in the social search space. I’ve scoured my favorite tweets from this week to present you with 5 news items or blog posts that I wouldn’t want you to miss:

1. Sea…

It’s important for a brand to understand their new role as a Publisher. It’s important for a brand to understand that nothing happens unless they are interesting. It’s also important for a brand to understand t…

Ryan Tate / Gawker:
Google CEO Disses Blogging — Eric Schmidt runs the biggest single blog network in the world, which makes it all the more bizarre that the Google CEO was insulting bloggers at a newsp…

It’s hard to believe, but it looks like we’re finally out of the doldrums of winter. For those who live in climates with more distinguishable seasons, April bears witness to the emergence of the warmer sun…

Lately, it seems that most media outlets are up in arms over Google and other news aggregators using their content. So, it’s somewhat ironic to hear veteran journalist, Robert X. Cringely, complain that he has…

I think it’s possible today to run a news organization — up to the point of publishing — from the cloud, changing not only the production process of news but also its culture. John Paton, CEO of Journal R…

If you run a business and are not yet sold on the value of social media, then getting a mentor is a truly great way to get into it. You don’t need to be part of a formal scheme like I am; look aroun…