Curated Stories Feb. 26, 2010

The guessing game surrounding Twitter’s imminent launch of an ad platform just got a little bit more focused. The Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital blog reports that Twitter’s ad plan is tied to…

Buying life insurance can be a pretty confusing affair, what with all the different options and plans available. Finance blog Get Rich Slowly helps sort it all out and explains what to look for in a policy.Phot…

I have been following with interest and concern as a series of articles have raised doubts about methods and credibility of global warming research and reporting by the erstwhile prestigious International Pane…

The exponential growth of the internet never fails to amaze me.
Every year, you think it couldn’t possibly be more influential, or huge, or humanity uniting, and then you see videos like this one. Plus, it�…

But Robert Siciliano, chief executive officer of IDTheftSecurity.com, said on the broadcast Friday the public is “in the dark” about social media and the …

26/02/2010 By Alison Woo, New Media Mavens Recent news reports show that small businesses have flocked to Twitter in larger numbers than big businesses. What I’m amazed about is how this tool, that only a few…

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.Just when you thought you had soci…

Daryl Montgomery submits: Consumers are the key to any U.S. economic recovery since they account for around 70% of GDP. Revised 2009 fourth quarter GDP figures just released indicate that consumer spending rose…

I am in Tampa waiting to fly back home to New Jersey and, thanks to the snowicane but rather than sitting in the usual information vacuum to which airlines subject us, I am watching as Continental shows us the…

You dont get medals for common sense — but perhaps you should get a pat on the back.

Edwin van Calker, driver on the Dutch four-man bobsled team, told his coach that he would not pilot the bobsled down the i…

There have been lots of negative comments in the press recently about Twitter and that’s a shame. What they don’t realise is Twitter is a not always a natural, instant thing; to get Twitter you need to hang…

Next Monday I am moderating a panel on “Entrepreneurship” at RSA Conference, the world’s largest IT Security tradeshow (and a long-time client). In preparation for the session, I’ve been having some b…

The exponential growth of the internet never fails to amaze me.
Every year, you think it couldn’t possibly be more influential, or huge, or humanity uniting, and then you see videos like this one. Plus, it�…

But Robert Siciliano, chief executive officer of IDTheftSecurity.com, said on the broadcast Friday the public is “in the dark” about social media and the …

26/02/2010 By Alison Woo, New Media Mavens Recent news reports show that small businesses have flocked to Twitter in larger numbers than big businesses. What I’m amazed about is how this tool, that only a few…

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.Just when you thought you had soci…

Daryl Montgomery submits: Consumers are the key to any U.S. economic recovery since they account for around 70% of GDP. Revised 2009 fourth quarter GDP figures just released indicate that consumer spending rose…

I am in Tampa waiting to fly back home to New Jersey and, thanks to the snowicane but rather than sitting in the usual information vacuum to which airlines subject us, I am watching as Continental shows us the…

You dont get medals for common sense — but perhaps you should get a pat on the back.

Edwin van Calker, driver on the Dutch four-man bobsled team, told his coach that he would not pilot the bobsled down the i…

There have been lots of negative comments in the press recently about Twitter and that’s a shame. What they don’t realise is Twitter is a not always a natural, instant thing; to get Twitter you need to hang…

Next Monday I am moderating a panel on “Entrepreneurship” at RSA Conference, the world’s largest IT Security tradeshow (and a long-time client). In preparation for the session, I’ve been having some b…

I know I’ve blogged about the concept of Working on your “PR 2.0 Raw” in the past. I remember, as if it was yesterday, when a former journalist (now turned blogger) was asking me a few questions at a tw…

A classified review of the U.S. Secret Service’s computer technology found computers that were fully operational only 60 percent of the time…

To many, Donald Trump is considered to be one of the most successful individuals of our generation. Trump is an American business entrepreneur, author, socialite and television personality. He is the Chairman…

Kimball Corson submits:
The trick for bankers is to appear reformist, and have their agents in Congress appear to be so too, while all the while making very sure any real reform is left to the discretion of so…

Brilliant post on the value of thank you pages how they affect community uptake – #UX – http://bit.ly/9UojtS (@carsonified)

As social media continues to grow at an exhilarating pace, it can become challenging for marketers to balance the time-consuming demands of today’s social media marketing landscape with their career’s core…

This is a report from our premium subscription research service The Internet Analyst. The service is currently in free beta. To sign up, please submit your name and email address here.

The growth of e-tex…

As bloggers, we put a lot of effort into telling our readers how to do things.
We believe that if we can just give them enough informative content that they’ll subscribe to our blog and never leave. We try t…

Sometimes it’s good to get feedback straight from the horse’s mouth — namely, your customers and clients. But doing so via email can be a pain to organize and manage; that’s why the five solutions in th…

Just returned back from Online Marketing Summit 2010 where the statement “brands as publishers” almost seemed overused. Although we’ve been talking about that on this blog for three years now and in more d…

When your boss comes blowing into the room demanding that you make an immediate splash in social media, deflect any attempt at forcing an ill-conceived …

Today I’m privileged to feature a wonderful social web success story from my friend Imad Naffa. He recently told me about being re-tweeted by Queen Rania of Jordan and how he increased his business by 25 pe…

There’s no question that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has hit the mainstream for companies of all sizes. The last five years have seen an explosion of interest in CSR (or Corporate Citizenship), dr…

Since I’m speaking at the New Comm Forum (see sidebar) on the topic of Social CRM (SCRM), I thought it would make sense to put together a list of SCRM folks that I have been learning quite a lot from. These…

Relevant, Consistently Updated Content + Flawless Technical Functionality User Experience = Perfect Blog Launch
What’s missing from the equation above? You guessed it: blog promotion.
Creating a glitch-free…

There are loads of books and gazillions of web sites and blogs on social media. You could spend the rest of your life reading about it – the data, the theories, the what-have-you.
But if you really want to u…

Mitch Joel recently highlighted the army of clones out there that are all trying to use the same personal brand, thus more or less killing personal branding. He’s dead on. Go search for the number of social m…

Previously, I shared my perspective on the idea of overthinking and how it is the enemy of creatives – it’s an almost instant destroyer of quality work. Something synonymous with overthinking is the idea…

Sign of the Times: For Newspapers to Survive, They Must Put Users First http://bit.ly/cizDx3 (via @fastcompany @mynurealtor)

Ways to use Twitter without worrying about information overload – http://bit.ly/dy3iLE (via @makeuseof)

**UPDATE: This isn’t CLIENT communications. This is friends and colleagues.** I’m frustrated. I just spent about 20 hours without connection to the web. No email. No Twitter. No blog comments. No nothing….

This is a guest post by Mike Hawkins. He is the author of Activating Your Ambition: A Guide to Coaching the Best Out of Yourself and Others and the president of Alpine Link Corporation, a consulting firm speci…

Compliance is simple to measure, simple to test for and simple to teach. Punish non-compliance, reward obedience and repeat.Initiative is very difficult to teach to 28 students in a quiet classroom. It’s diffic…

I had thechance to speak with Lucas Watson from PG last week. He spearheads digital innovation on the marcom side and leads a small team of digital and social experts who work across the brands (Gl…

It seems like the one question I inevitably get from people around the country is, “What’s next?” There’s always an implication that they mean, “Which social network is the next Twitter or the next Fa…

As noted in my recent blog post from Davos, there was a surprising consensus among CEOs that business must prove its positive contribution to society, not merely its returns for shareholders. Indra Nooyi, CEO o…

Social media is not a robot. In fact, there could hardly be a more opposing idea to social media than that of robotic automation. I start this post by sharing that because the idea that any job could be “repla…

So with this whole thing where Apple has removed and banned like 5,000 “sexy apps” from the App Store, I think I’ve figured out the reason why, including why they’re granting exceptions to established n…

By Nicole Yorio Peek into the lives of happy couples and find out how these four love moves will bring the two of you closer than ever. What do couples who describe their marriages as spectacular do differently…

eCommerce is finally a staple of the US economy. Comscore reported a record holiday season with total spending exceeding $29 billion dollars across a two month period. eCommerce continued to grow, despite the…

Geoff Livingston co-founded Zoetica to focus on cause-related work, and released an award-winning book on new media Now is Gone in 2007.Earlier this month, Pew Internet released its annual Future of the Intern…

A really smart process for designing UI’s for business web applications – http://bit.ly/cSBROF (via @smashingmag)

Like this post reminding you about 10 things that NEED to be in every digital brief – http://bit.ly/9oDAcb (via @boagworld)

If youre good at something and your friends know it, it can get boring—and time consuming—to answer the same question over and over again. Blogger Brett Kelly suggests creating a web page that answers the q…

Facebook has been granted a patent on the Newsfeed, “displaying a news feed in a social network environment.” Nick O’Neill at AllFacebook found the patent first and says it could be “one of the most significan…

Ever wanted to Facebook friend someone you just met right on the spot? Until today, that wasn’t easy. But now, if you have an iPhone, all it takes is a single bump, courtesy of the Bump iPhone app.For thos…