Curated Stories December 6, 2010

Photo by Tammy Cadence Tso
The current issue of The Economist features a short piece in its Business Finance section entitled, “The Pivotal Moment: Bet on a boss who can twirl on his toes.”
In it, ventu…

While most Facebook users are just beginning to get used to the new profile design, one clever Facebook user has come up with an extremely creative use of the new profile layout.

One of the readers of our blog…

There’s one great big difference between Internet TV and good, old cable television. Cable television, even at its most complex, is simple – you either subscribe to a channel or you don’t. Once you make up your…

The iPhone is great, I often joke, right up until you have to make a phone call. Frustrations with dropped calls, missing text messages and overall shoddy ATT service are legion.

Those frustrations are refle…

Race, place, and gender appear to be strongly associated with high blood pressure, a major risk for heart disease and stroke, according to new data.

Paul Myers is the CEO of Bappz, a specialist developer of applications for iPhone, iPad, Facebook and other mobile devices.The way that people choose, buy, access and use mobile apps is, in many ways, fundament…

According to my buddy John M. Roberts, who’s created a book and a whole series of lectures around the idea, empathy is one of the most crucial survival skills of the 21st century, and becoming more important…

Much has already been written about how Loopt was perhaps a bit too early to the location game for their own good. But that doesn’t mean they’re not out there still trying new things to keep their over 4 mi…

I’ve followed the activities of Margaret Parkin, especially her masterclass workshops in business storytelling, for quite a while. I’ve been hoping for a long time that she would participate in the QA ser…

Here’s one for you, folks: A few folks “in the know” told me that a company is thinking about doing something with another company, but that second company has no idea about it, and in order for the whole thing…

Amazon’s $175 million strategic investment in LivingSocial is certainly nothing to sneeze at. But it’s fair to ask why the company didn’t go a step further and buy the startup outright.
The price tag wouldn’t h…

Loopt is releasing version 4.0 of its location-based iPhone app today. The update comes with a refreshed design and feature set that aims to better help users find friends and places.Most notably, the new Loopt…

William Fairbanks submits: The Federal Reserve’s monetary policies have no doubt been a positive factor for the stock market. We’re barely a month into QE2 and already there is talk of unlimited QEs to co…

We’ve written extensively about the benefits of coworking — the growing movement of independent café-like collaboration spaces for freelance professionals — here on WebWorkerDaily. But how much does it c…

Just in time for Dreamforce, occasional ReadWriteWeb contribute Pete Warden has released ForceMapper. ForceMapper is an OpenHeatMap based tool for displaying leads from Salesforce.com on a heat map. When used…

In a letter Monday to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Sen. Bernie Sanders asks about potential conflicts of interest between bank executives and Fed officials, and he wants a more detailed accounting of who got what…

An anonymous reader writes “So, he or she has cheated on you for the umpteenth time and their only excuse is: ‘I just can’t help it.’ According to researchers at Binghamton University, they may be right. The pr…

Popular ratings and reviews magazine Consumer Reports today announced the release of its latest report on cellular service providers in the United States, unsurprisingly demonstrating wide customer dissatisfac…

Google Books finally went live in App Store and we here at TUAW couldn’t wait to give it a try. Unfortunately, we should have. Google should have spent more time refining and polishing this app before releasing…

It seems everyone is raving over this new merchandising phenomena called group coupon buying from sites like Groupon and its many clones. Groupon, considered by Forbes to be the fastest growing business ever, r…

ClickZ reported on a denim jeans company that that sold 2,000 Groupons in the New York City area by 5 p.m., with seven hours still left in the campaign. They hailed it as a success.
The discount was set at 60 p…

Just in time for holiday shopping, heres my list of 11 retailers whove been creative with social applications. What I like here is the diversity — weve got bricks and mortar, online only, direct sellers, and a…

Samsung’s Nexus S brings with it the latest tasty version of Android, Gingerbread. But the phone also comes with another technological bonus baked in. Here’s w…

I’ve always said that I see very little value in LinkedIn – I don’t need a resume and a bunch of people kissing your ass in recommendations to tell me to hire you or not. Additionally, the groups serve ve…

I’ve been using a smartphone for around four years now, and I have a confession to make: I’m fairly sure that during that time, my cellphone usage has, if anything, become far less productive than it had be…

How do you measure the number of people your digital marketing efforts reach? More specifically for those of you using content marketing, blogging or similar activities on your website, how are…

It was a banner year for social media growth and adoption. We witnessed Facebook overtake Google in most weekly site traffic, while some surveys reported nearly 95% of companies using LinkedIn to help in recrui…

If you want to connect with your blog audience, get naked.
No, pull up your pants! Not that kind of naked!
What I really mean is, tear down your protective armor and share the unvarnished truth about your life…

I sent out this tweet yesterday:

I got a bunch of replies suggesting that Apple will remain the market share leader when measured in dollars and I really wasn’t focused on that. I don’t own Apple stock…

Tim Iacono submits: After hearing talk over the weekend about last Friday’s Labor report and how the unemployment rate for the college educated had reached an all-time high at 5.1 percent, it seemed like a go…

FRED WILSON: It’s time for mobile developers to backburner the iPhone and focus on Android (which will be the clear No. 1 mobile platform in a year).Join the conversation about this story »

Google has launched its long-awaited e-bookstore, Google E-books, bringing more than 3 million books — many of them free — to any device with a web browser in the U.S.The initiative, previously known as Goo…

One of the most engaging features of the blogging platform is the commenting system.
Many bloggers believe there is as much or even more value in the discussion than the posts they write themselves. Comments…

If you or your employees use iPads for work, here are the productivity apps that you should install on them

I feel that I can speak from experience (and from the heart) on the topic of building a strong and supportive community. Building #PRStudChat with @valeriesimon is one of the most rewarding initiatives in my…

In my career I can remember countless occassions then the PR program was derailed by the client Sales team’s need for good news that they could take to their prospects.
“I know we agreed that we’d get the…

Why Google Wanted Groupon and What It Means to Your Local BusinessThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Local buying of products and services is starting to look a lot like this:

A person wonders where to fi…

As as I say at the beginning of this interview, I don’t even know where to begin, so let’s just go ahead and jump right in. In a special three-part series, I’m joined by none other than Katie Couric, an…

Google today launched its long-awaited electronic book store, called simply Google eBooks, with more than 3 million titles and 4,000 publishers participating as partners, including most of the major industry n…

Now that Google has launched its ebook store, it’s time for book publishers and authors to learn a little SEO (search engine optimization).

If you sell shoes or cellphones online, you already know SEO, or you’…

A Celebrity Doesn’t Humanize a Brand

I don’t watch TV much, but lately when I do this Hanes commercial with Michael Jordan keeps cropping up.

Does this commercial “humanize” Hanes? Of cour…

A couple of weeks ago, Jon Henshaw and I were interviewed on the WebmasterRadio show State of Search. During our interview, we were both asked a question that was posed to the host of the show at a recent confe…

Like it or not, history shows Ben Bernanke is right to say inflation isn’t knocking at the door.

Why Groupon’s rejection is good for the universe. AOL “actively exploring” a breakup, merger with Yahoo? Wall Street bonuses could come early.

Marketers and publishers are excited about the tablet boom. But there are signs that tracking audiences (and ads) across all these mobile devices will be more difficult than initially thought.
There’s already…

Last week on December 1st to support World AIDS Day, a small group of celebrities with millions of fans led by Alicia Keyes decided to sacrifice their digital lives to try and save real ones. The campaign, cle…

Unless you’re the NHS, police or a major retailer, your
workforce is probably going to relax a bit over the festive period. For around two weeks, many companies will operate with a
mere skeleton staff and th…

Mike Isaac / Social Medium:
Mark Zuckerberg’s 60 Minutes Interview: Best Piece of Facebook PR Yet — Since David Finchers The Social Network was released, odds are that the general publics view of Mark Z…

One of the most challenging aspects of publishing a blog is finding ways to showcase the material that deserves to be seen, but risks getting lost in your archives.
This was one of the things that was uppermost…

Last month saw the first-ever “Small Business Saturday” (at least according to American Express, the initiative’s sponsor). Small business get plenty of attention in terms of their finances, but what abou…

Was Groupon crazy to turn down Google’s $6 billion offer, or will it be worth several times that amount a few years from now? Of course, it is impossible to know right now. But if the recent acquisition da…

Let’s say that you have a regular blogging schedule set up, one that is designed to entertain, inform and delight your readers.
Now, let’s also suppose that, for some reason, one particular morning, you jus…

Larry Kramer submits: Suddenly there are a lot of moving parts on the media landscape. And what’s really interesting is that they all seem to be moving in the same direction. We have old media coming towa…

Finding (or becoming) an influencer is often seen as one of the core
goals for businesses utilising social media, and the search and
measurement industry is rushing to fulfil this need.
Finding a great
expo…

Big box retailers like Target and Walmart have marketing down to a science and rarely do they stray from these tried and methods. It’s worth it to take a look at these successful retailers to see what strat…

The holiday season can be a time of information and activity overload for many people making it difficult to get your marketing messages noticed. This year, I propose going again the flow in your holiday mark…

When two people know, it’s not a secret anymore. What happens when a message or a story gets passed on from one person to another? Does the final story resemble the original one? Or does it take on the assump…

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said U.S. unemployment may take five years to fall to a normal level and that Fed purchases of Treasury securities beyond the $600 billion announced last month are possi…

On the heels of a disappointing jobs report, the country’s top economist told 60 Minutes the outlook isn’t much brighter.

Home | Business Today we are witnessing the impact of the Internet, the impact of a truly global economy, the impact of the baby boomer generation, and the impact of excessive government spending on our lives….

“The iPad is for consuming content, not creating it.” iPad skeptics have been repeating that mantra for months now. It’s become clear that the rap is a snippy, simple-minded exaggeration of two more speci…

Today I wanted to share an observation about a common mistake PR and marketing professionals make when focusing efforts in social media. In essence, most companies don’t focus on growing opt-in at the source…

Later today the first ever ProBlogger Academy short course, “Creating Killer Content for your Blog,” goes live. Have you joined yet?
It’s going to be an exciting week. Chris Garrett and I have put togethe…

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 b…

I talk to a lot of bloggers. In fact I speak to some blogger somewhere almost every day … supporting, encouraging, listening, and helping where I can.
And I think I’ve determined the biggest hurdle that…

Facebook announced the new profile page, updating how member profiles are shown. I was pre-briefed last week by Peter Deng, the product manager in charge of the project, about the changes.
In a nutshell, the p…

jamie links to news that the FTC is talking with Adobe about persistent Flash cookies. “Flash isn’t actually necessary to watch YouTube videos, but the rest of this article is interesting.” Read more of this st…

Jack Holt at recent SNCR NewComm Forum. Photo by KD Paine.

[This is a restart of my social media global report, an ongoing series of interviews with people from all over the world on how they use social me…

Background: My Complaint About Early Magazine Apps
Bells, whistles and the kitchen sink

Surprise (I know I am): This is a positive post about a “magazine app” for the iPad. The app was not developed by a g…