Curated Stories July 6, 2010

Rumors of social media monitoring and analytics startup Sysomos’ acquisition by Marketwire swirled in the blogosphere yesterday, but today it’s been made official. In a blog post on Sysomos’ site today, t…

Looking at life through rose-colored glasses? How about walking through your town and seeing it as the Huffington Post or the Independent Film Channel sees it? IFC announced a new campaign this morning with…

A large majority of companies are moving away from job boards and toward social media as their primary recruiting tool, according to annual survey results released by social recruitment software company Jobvite…

The use of logos or insignias to symbolize a product, service or company is one of the oldest ways for a brand to stand out from competitors and similar products. These days, laws protect the misuse or copying…

Hank Wasiak is a partner at the creative firm The Concept Farm, and the best selling author of the Asset-Based Thinking book series. He is a three-time Emmy award winning TV host, a teacher at USC’s Graduate…

Geolocation service Loopt has just launched a feature that lets you access the last 30 days of your location history as a downloadable KML file.KML, which was developed for Google Earth, is a file that includes…

The Role of Advertising on Facebook by Sheryl SandbergJoin the conversation about this story »

Kraig Swensrud is senior vice president, product marketing at salesforce.com, where he is responsible for marketing strategy and execution across all products, including Salesforce Chatter. You can follow him o…

Insightful post – 5 Ways to Accidentally Lose Your Customer’s Trust Online – http://bit.ly/9y18BF (by @rohitbhargava)

Foursquare has partnered with the Independent Film Channel (IFC) to create a crowdsourced virtual travel guide dubbed, “The IFC Always On. Slightly Off. Guide to America.”Much like Mashable’s own Foursqua…

That parents hate parenting is verified by study after study, but most parents think the opposite is true.

From the perspective of the species, it’s perfectly unmysterious why people have children. From the pe…

When advertisements first started appearing on Facebook, the most popular online social network in the world, users immediately recognized advertisements targeted at them based on their personal information and…

Bad, greedy Twitter client. You are just asking too much of us.
That’s the message Twitter’s central servers have been doling out over the last few days to a hodgepodge of third-party software designed for…

If you’re a bargain hound, here’s a great Twitter account for you to follow: @EarlyBird, the latest official Twitter account from the company itself.It will tweet out time-sensitive and/or limited-quantity…

Last week, we noted that Best Buy was looking into firing the employee that made the hilarious EVO versus iPhone 4 video (and the rebuttal video). The employee, 25-year-old Brian Maupin, was placed on suspensi…

If you look closely at some of the top blogs in the world that have emerged over the last 5 years it is interesting to see what has made them so successful so I thought I would look at what has made Huffingt…

Fastcompany give you a URL and you upload a foto. You then ask friends, family and random stranger serial killers to click on your link. Prove how loved and popular you are. Here’s some tips:…

Most Twitter and Facebook users have gotten used to asking their social networks for tips on which hot restaurants, bars and other spots are worth visiting. Now Foursquare and the Independent Film Channel hav…

Gmail’s Mail Fetcher tool checks POP email more frequently when your email account regularly receives email. Reader maltesh writes in with a clever strategy fo…

There’s lots of speculation going around that Google Me will threaten Facebook. I have my doubts, because Google continues to be among the least social companies and that makes it hard to be a leader in a marke…

While capital markets continue their well-documented convulsions, that doesn’t mean that dedicated entrepreneurs must shelve their startup dreams next to the past few years’ IPO filings.
With the following four…

There are so many reasons to love Woot, including their recent awesome letter and video about their acquisition. But, even better may be that in today’s Woot offering, they mock the Associated Press for its co…

Got your blog up and running? Swell. Now, who’s gonna read it? Who’s going to leave a comment? Who is going to retweet those carefully-crafted posts?
This is where it gets fun. Harken back — as…

Five Random Things You Shouldn’t Do:
5) If you’ve never sent me an email before, or if this is the first time I’ve heard from you in six months or more, don’t make the first email you send one that asks…

A new iPhone application called Doc Sign enables users to manage and sign PDF documents from their phones.

Doc Sign can open PDF files attached to incoming emails, from a public URL or the via Drop.io file sh…

Dealing with detractors is perhaps one of the biggest pain points for companies just starting and even well entrenched in social media marketing. “What if someone says something bad about our…

Flattr is a new startup with an inovative business model, coming out of Sweden. In fact it’s the brainchild of a group of people formerly associated with The [infamous] Pirate Bay, including Peter Sunde Kolmiso…

See a photo of Kindra, her bio, and Part 1 of this QA.

QA with Kindra Hall, Questions 2 and 3:

Q: How did you initially become involved with story/storytelling/narrative? What attracted you to this field…

In a world where crowdsourcing has become a mainstay of politics, a new site from the Democratic National Committee is taking the idea one step further and asking voters to find damaging videos of opposing lawm…

This weekend, Apple opened up a new retail store in Paris, and it doesn’t look anything like your average Apple Store.
Whether you love or hate Apple’s standard glass and steel design, we’re pretty sure you’ll…

The Huffington Post is already getting shredded in the blogosphere for stooping to a new low: A summer swimsuit edition disguised as a feature about eco-chic.
Given how hard it is to survive as an online news a…

Last week, Twitter went down. Again. We’ve all been there before. Many times before. And yet we all gnash our teeth, wring our hands, cry foul, shake our fists at the sky, maybe hop over to Facebook for a spe…

This series is supported by Gillette. Learn more about Gillette and its products at Gillette.com.There’s an implicit pressure on social media enthusiasts to be connected in more than one way. It’s not eno…

If you’ve created music playlists using iTunes, Spotify, Last.fm, YouTube, We Are Hunted, Winamp, Rhapsody, Soundcloud, or even if you’ve simply scribbled a list of your favorite tracks in a notepad file,…

The Daily Deal competitive landscape is an extremely intense land grab for email subscribers. Here we review some of the fastest growing new entrants, and explore the keys to their continued growth.
The Chall…

I’m a Fast Company fan. I’ve been reading for years, and they have some super smart writers and contributors on their team.
But I really think they missed the mark with The Influence Project, in a big way,…

Steve Jobs On Bill Gates: What The Apple CEO REALLY Thinks Of Microsoft’s FounderJoin the conversation about this story »

FaceTime is one of the most highly touted features of the iPhone 4…

We’re leaving this one open to the floor for comment, but would like to note that operating systems must also grow, and development environments must continue to re-invent themselves as rationale to give thi…

Filed under: iPhone, App StoreAs a longtime fan of the pastime of geocaching, I’ve been following the evolution of the official Groundspeak Geocaching app (US$9.99) since the painful early days. With the releas…

I can understand and respect Steve Jobs frustration with Android. Many a person has observed that everything is all sped up these days, and to Jobs the Android story must look a lot like…

This article originally addressed the seven worst marketing mistakes. But seven wasn’t nearly enough. The list grew until it reached unlucky 13. Here are the first four.

What is the process at your organization for leads that come in through a Web form via your website? Do you give them to a sales rep for follow-up? And do your sales reps sometimes complain that those leads are…

One of the most common challenges of business blogging is sourcing content. The range of things that can interrupt content creation are important obstacles to overcome because without content there is little re…

Over at Search Engine Land, Hanan Lifshitz, CEO of local search provider Palore, asks: Do Small Businesses Need A Website? In his post, Hanan offers a case study showing how a New York cardiologist was able to…

The smartphone is the Jeffrey Dammer of the tech world. New models like the HTC EVO 4G, Apple iPhone 3G, Motorola Backflip, and the upcoming Nokia N8 have had a field day destroying other product categories. Wh…

Earlier this morning, I received a research note from UBS Investment Research and a small graphic (left) caught my eye. It showed a stunning divergence in the fortunes of two of the most talked about companie…

PC World – Microstrategy on Tuesday is announcing a next-generation mobile BI (business intelligence) application for Apple’s iPhone and iPad, joining the growing pack of enterprise vendors that are embracing t…

I have always been a story teller. In second grade, I had to stay after school for telling stories, so I switched to non fiction. Eventually, that brought me into a career in journalism, which I loved. But I h…

While there’s no iPhone app that can help you avoid hitting your thumb with a hammer, falling off a ladder or stepping in a tray of paint, certain apps can be a useful addition to your tool kit when attemptin…

Ever notice how everyone on the blogs you read seems to agree on everything?
We all know that content is king, that transparency is good, that sleazy sales pages are bad.
We even seem to kno…

Fever, a gorgeous RSS reader we dubbed one of the top syndication technologies of 2009, is now available in iPad format by way of a new mobile application called “Ashes.” Like its desktop sibling, the Ashes RSS…

Mark Evanier on word processors he’s used over the past quarter century: Word, Wordstar, and one even I don’t remember–Spellbinder.

Filed under: iPhoneI know this sounds like a bit of Voodoo, but it’s worth a try. If you’ve upgraded to the new iPhone 4 and have restored your old software, you may see what appears to be a signal drop-off. Le…

The other side of the debate — I recently published an article arguing that the iPod’s importance to Apple’s overall quarterly revenue has diminished to the point of being almost irrelevant to Apple’s gr…

The maker of the iPhone is scouring downloads from many of its 150 million iTunes subscribers to challenge Google in mobile ads

PC World – Online word-of-mouth marketing widget Tell-a-Friend is likely to be offered as an application for the iPhone, BlackBerry and phones running the Android operating system, according to an executive of…

The Next Web spent the weekend digging up dirt on suspicious iTunes activity. What they found? A number of iTunes accounts had been hacked, with users reportin…

Opening a browser and loading a web site you built yourself is a great moment. If you or someone you know needs some help getting to that point, The Web Book i…

The idea has been batted around before, but now it looks like Google is ready to throw some effort in the direction of creating a Google Wave powered forum.

According to a post on the Google Wave Developer Blo…

We’re embarking on yet another research report to identify how some top brands are using the Facebook platform well.
While no longer a one-off effort, many brands are already using Facebook for customer commu…

In the weeks since the Entrepreneurial Revolution article appeared in HBR, government leaders, business executives, entrepreneurs, NGO directors, heads of institutes, university professors, and foundations have…

This year’s OSCON will showcase a host of new programming languages in the first Emerging Languages Camp. I got in touch with Alex Payne, BankSimple co-founder and the Camp’s co-organizer, to find out why new l…

Online marketplace for outsourcing Freelancer.com, formerly known as GetAFreelancer, this morning announced their findings on the fastest growing online outsourcing jobs in Q2 with the release of the Freelance…

I love this – a website that could’ve ONLY been created by cancer patients. From ThinkAboutYourLife.org:
Find empowerment: Anything you can do to feel like you are taking control of your illness and treat…

Word to the wise: If you don’t stand out in some way, you’re done.
You might be able to exist, you might manage to survive, but that’s all you’ll ever have to look forward to. You can be a one-man show…

When it comes to marketing, few companies take as combative an approach as the budget airline Ryanair.

In fact, over the last couple of years, the company has challenged a rival brand to a ‘chariots of fire…

Social Media Makes Email Even StrongerThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Marketing podcast with Gail Goodman (Click to play or right click and “Save As” to download – Subscribe now via iTunes
This wee…

Social media didn’t invent conversations, it provided us with tools to surface and organize them. Conversations about brands predates the mediums used to connect messages and aspirations with consumers.
The…

Just 4% of consumers find making purchases on their mobiles to be a hassle-free experience, with loading times and product display the biggest bugbears.
The Brandbank M-commerce report is based on a YouGov su…

You’ve just closed the elevator door, and the CMO asks you “What’s so
great about this blogging thing?” Obviously, it’s a pretty broad topic — but you only have 10 floors to the lobby. What do you want h…

A mini-CD is stuck in your laptop. What should you do?

90 degree heat? Check. Sunscreen, sandals and sunglasses? Check, check, check. You are officially ready for the hot winds and bright rays of summer days.With summer already upon us, you’re probably planning…

There are more than 20 million single-person businesses in the United States, comprising about three-quarters of all businesses, according to Inc, citing recent Census data. But despite those numbers, the notio…

Last month, Twitter started promoting ad keywords in its “trending topics” list. With this system, users are brought to a search results page, where the page is topped by a promoted Tweet. But does it work is t…

The Pew Internet and American Life Project has released its report on Internet-based socialization. The conclusions in The Future of Online Socialization segment of the survey are positive.

The online world,…

Wordtracker is a leader in keyword strategy building. It is more than just a tool. With proper use, you may find other and good business opportunities.

Wordtracker – Business – Web Design and Development -…

Here is a great presentation on social networks by Paul Adams (with thanks to Rachel Beaney). Complete with slides and speaker notes, the presentation steps through the marked differences in our behaviours onli…

Killer tip – #UX #SEO – create a “save as PDF” button for your best content – http://bit.ly/987Yys (via @SEjournal)

Replace the word “blogging” with most pursuits.

Marketers fall into one of two categories:A few benefit when they make their customers smarter. The more the people they sell to know, the more informed, inquisitive, free-thinking and alert they are, the bette…

BBC:
Government spends thousands on iPhone apps — BBC News has learnt that the Government has spent tens of thousands of pounds developing iPhone applications. — A Freedom of Information (FOI) req…

Spotlight searching in Apple Mail is pretty good, but what if it could be even better?
Rocketbox is the plugin that delivers that wish — lightning fast, very smart searching, above and beyond what Spotlight…

In the past week or so we covered a few interesting topics with easy to understand visuals (we hope). We looked at the difference between CRM and Social CRM (for those that are new here CRM = customer relatio…

Millions of downloadable app fans can’t be wrong
Since the explosion of Web 2.0, there’s been a sense in the industry that downloadable applications for PCs and Macs are dead. Web 2.0 p…

Just last month Google announced the completion of their new web indexing system called Caffeine.
According to Google,
“Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, an…

Rarely do I see a press release like Apple’s recent admission that they have erred in displaying signal strength of iPhones since, well, like forever.One of the principles of great PR is transparency: a fan…

Guest post by Laura Hall, Managing Partner at PainePR. She leads the agency’s social media group, and has more than 20 years experience in consumer, technology, B2B and social media marketing.As the world con…

Content from major newspapers and news wires is often popular fodder
for blogs large and small. Many, if not most, major news organizations
have not, however, been enthused by the (fair) use of their content by…

ATT, the primary wireless carrier for Apple’s iPhone recently came under fire for the changes it made to its wireless data plans and pricing. These changes came despite complaints about the quality of Ma Bell…

The rumors that Google is creating a Facebook competitor called Google.Me have not been denied. But does Google have to change its own persona to create a social network that can rival the world’s largest?

Gina Trapani points to a Google Accounts Help page that explains part of how Google will allow Google Apps users to access Google services such as Voice, Reader, Buzz and Analytics with their Google Apps accou…

Filed under: Apple, App Store
I wouldn’t have called July 4th weekend as a great time for releasing studies about in-depth App Store information, but it was certainly that, as quite a few studies came to light…

InfoUSA has long been one of the most important places for a local business to have an accurate business listing. The major search engines and other important local sites/directories rely on its business data….

As iPhone apps push out their updates to be compatible with the new iOS 4, most are focusing on adding simple fast app switching capabilities. Many are also giving their apps a quick new coat of polish to make…