Curated Stories September 5, 2010

If you worked on the line, we cared about your productivity, not your smile or approach to the work. You could walk in downcast, walk out defeated and get a raise if your productivity was good.
No longer.
You…

Moderate inflation is good. This has been held as self-evident truth in modern monetary policy. But this will quickly become antisocial as the entire west goes through a structural change in demographics caused…

Do you check the accuracy of the information you receive and share? Or are you trading speed for accuracy?When I was researching case studies last week, I came across dozens of posts that had reposted infor…

Most of us are probably an expert in something, and we naturally get questions from people who want to learn more about our area of expertise. It is relatively easy to just jot down a few paragraphs, grab a cou…

FilerFrog is a neat Windows utility that adds a bunch of useful file handling tools to your context (right-click) menu, handling tasks like moving files and image resizing. As it only adds one top-level item, i…

Editor’s note: The following guest post is by Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, the CEO of WatchMojo, a producer and distributor of premium video content. Read his other posts here, or follow him on Twitter @ashkan
M…

The term “social network” is of course synonymous with online networks like Facebook. But think about what you’re actual social life is like for a second. Are you really closest to the people whose items…

Earlier we pointed out that thousands of iPad owners have been paying money for third-party Facebook apps — bootlegs, basically — instead of just using Facebook’s iPad-tailored website, which is free and does…

It’s been nearly a month since Demand filed its S1, and I promised you all a longer look after my initial posting. Here are some thoughts now that I’ve had a chance to digest the document. A caveat: I know D…

The sunlight of summer has begun it’s annual transition to equinox, and we are all reviving the pulse of the work-year.
The President has returned from Marthas Vineyard to face what will surely be a challenging…

We asked people on the street what they think of daily deals company Groupon. Most of them hadn’t heard of it. But once we explained what the company does, most of them got pretty excited. That’s probably why…

Google introduced a cool new feature this week called “Priority Inbox,” which tries to intelligently filter the important email from the less-important email in your inbox.
Its now live for all Gmail.com users,…

In this week’s rockin’ and rollin’ round up:
Shazam, improved!
Spidey’s webs, slung!
Restaurant waits, crowdsourced!
Space, explored!
iPad music making, jettisoned into the future, and more!
Click here for th…

Passed a store the other day. The sign read 99 CENTS! And the subtitle was, “Everything $1 and up”.
The 99 cent store was never popular because there’s some magical power about the price that is a penny less t…

In June Google started beta testing it’s Local Shopping inventory feature which allows merchants to submit a list of products that they currently have in stock so that users can easily locate these goods whe…

@sbskmi gave an excellent presentation at the RESG AGM yesterday evening, offering a survey of sensemaking tools.

Simon’s research group at the Open University has a tool called Compendium, which belongs to a…

The API team over at Google Buzz have been buzzing to say the least. If you recall the long lost Twitter feature known as Track whose disappearance spawned numerous impassioned pleased for return you’ll apprec…

Tumblr is quickly becoming one of the Web’s most popular and unique platforms on which to share and discover interesting content of all media. According to Tumblr, over 5.3 million posts are made each day by th…

Below is an excellent 10-min video clip from a presentation by John Cleese expressing a few of his ideas on creativity. One of the main problems for many of use today is that we are always in a hurry and our…

I’ve been thinking about the distribution of my content across the various social networks. My challenge is to use the social networks in a way that benefits me and my readers, while keeping control of my…

Alanna Francis is a SEO Specialist and Grammar Enthusiast at the website design company Blue Fountain Media, where she specializes in e-commerce marketing. She writes for the company’s web design and SEO tren…

Apple this week launched Ping, a new social network that runs within the iTunes software.Ping takes the “activity stream” format popularized by Twitter and Facebook and applies it to the music your friends…

Luis Suarez has a dream, and it’s one that many of us with our overloaded inboxes could well buy in to — a world without e-mail.In fact, it could be argued that Suarez is living the dream. In less than thr…

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…

For much of the world, the beginning of fall means that warm, comfortable hiking weather is coming to an end. In other words, it’s time to start saving up fresh air for a winter of avoiding the outdoors.There…

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.Location-based services, such as Fo…

“404 Not Found.” These three little words can make any Internet explorer an unhappy camper. After all, who hopes to click on a broken link or stumble upon a moved or deleted page while cruising around the w…

Apple makes computers, tablets, phones, portable media players, TV set-top-boxes, displays and a dozen other things, but to date, it hasn’t made a wristwatch. Oh, wait, actually, it has! It’s called “the…

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said in an interview with the Associated Press yesterday that paid apps like those found on the iPhone, Android and iPad could help financially troubled news organizations, but he…

Back in the day, it was news when Google used its massive home page distribution to push its new Chrome browser.
Google putting ads on its home page?! A big deal, even if they were for Google’s own products. I…

It’s been nearly a month since Demand filed its S1, and I promised you all a longer look after my initial posting. Here are some thoughts now that I’ve had a chance to digest the document. A caveat: I know Dema…

[The "Life Is Too Short" print...]
I first started playing with the idea of “Smarter-Conversations” way back in 2004, the same year gapingvoid really started getting traction in the blogopsphere.
Though no…

The other day, someone told me they were a bit down because their score on a social media site was low. I was quick to point out that the number had no bearing on the outside world. It was just something a sit…

There’s a lot to be said about packaging.
Have you seen Field Notes? (I wrote about them before, I admit.) They’re notebooks (and stuff). And yet, they’re so cool!
Have you seen Artisanal Pencil Sharpe…

I’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of individuals in the past who are responsible for the marketing within an organization. As soon as the concept of Facebook advertising is introduced they get e…

Want to build influence? Or measure it? Here are four things you need to know:
Influence is simple…
which makes it complicated.
At its most simple, influence is the ability to make things happen. But which th…

The last few months in the Gray household have been ones of change. We moved out of our condo at the end of July, squeezed for space with our rambunctious two year old twins, and threatened further by the promi…

December 18, 1908: It was a dark and stormy night … Okay — maybe it wasn’t so dark and stormy. But it should have been, because that was the night Thomas Edison tried to hijack the motion picture indus…

The site Women’s Memoirs is offering a free 22-page book, Journaling Essentials: Everything You Need to Know to Start by Amber Lea Starfire.

Here’s what’s in the guide includes:
Seven Wonderful Be…

Words in prose ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault; in the very best styles you read page after page without noticing the medium.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERI…

Following up on last week’s news about Yahoo hiring local writers/bloggers as part of a national push toward local content, how about a look at one of the job descriptions?
You can find a job listing for Loca…

Are you creative in lots of different ways? Or is your creativity specific to writing? Some of the most dreaded words I hear are “Let’s ask Elizabeth, since she’s the creative one.” Ack! Because, r…

PC World – Twitter’s mobile user base has spiked 62 percent since mid-April, thanks in great part to the release of official Twitter applications for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry phones.

Apple has revamped its Movie Trailers page with movie showtimes and the ability to automatically find the nearest theater, all within HTML5, and compatible with iOS devices.

Almost every year, Apple releases a new version of iTunes with some new feature. Last year it was Home Sharing. This year, it’s Ping. Apple also usually tweaks the UI, many times creating a backlash. This yea…

The App Store is replacing the web search engine for mobile device users…

iTunes 10 has been released, and with it we get some great new features and some interesting user interface changes. Here is a collection of tips and tricks to help you get the most out of what’s new.
Make th…

A new iPad application offers a sophisticated approach to cloud computing

Over the last year or so, location-based services that integrate tightly with mobile phones have been one of main themes watched by the venture world, and for good reason. As we continue moving forward in a wor…

I love the soap opera that is Apple. Time and again Apple introduces a new product and takes a step closer to its master plan even when it has to take a step backwards. Case in point: Facebook being pulled…

Is it a Facebook page? Is it Twitter? Is it posting a video to YouTube? What about creating a Blog? What is the best way to grow an audience?

As someone who sits in corporate boardrooms or presents in front of…

I read Henry Blodgets Business Insider article, Heres Twitters Big Problem: Its Not Going Mainstream, and it made me reflect on how we define the word mainstream, because by any definition I can think of that m…

Podcast Interview with Christopher S. Penn
I recently managed to capture 20 minutes of Christopher Penn’s time for an insightful podcast interview. Below is a summary, but as always, I don’…

It’s been a week since VRM+CRM 2010, and there have been many conversations on private channels (emails, face-to-face, phone-to-phone, face-to-faces), all “processing,” as they say. Meanwhile we also hav…

Ten years ago this month, I gave the opening keynote for the International Retail Conference of the Gottlieb Duttweiler Instutut, in Lucerne, Switzerland. The venue was the amazing Culture and Congress Centre,…

The Wall Street Journal‘s @WhatTheyKnow tweet stream is still going strong, but we haven’t seen anything new in the series since Google Agonizes on Privacy as Ad World Vaults Ahead, on August 10. That was �…

Nova Spivack’s recent GigaOM post, “Trailmeme and the Web of Intent,” highlights the growing content clutter problem on the web, but frames the solution set too narrowly and too far into the future. In…

Starting today, DC area bus stops are being treated with a bit of augmented reality. Smartphone users can get up-to-the-minute status reports and traffic upda…

A Liquid Paper-like product’s ad, created specifically to run on YouTube, shows the possibility of creating something remarkable on a site for which display advertising is becoming a key profit-making component…

It’s terribly difficult to get reliable statistics, as numbers tend to vary drastically depending upon whom you ask, but if you’re inclined to believe that Android is mopping up Apple and RIM’s declining mobi…

While the Bank of America has partnered up with Visa to begin testing out mobile payments later this month, analyst firm Forrester says one big question remains – are consumers ready to ditch their plastic?

A…

With Apple’s announcements on Wednesday about new iPods and AppleTV, I noticed one thing that has received very little commentary by an otherwise overly analytical tech blogging community: iTunes 10 had some…

Yesterday, news broke about a new feature Facebook is testing out called “Subscribe.” For a second, I thought it might be the equivalent of Twitter’s “follow” ability — that is, a feature which wo…

OK, this is really more about how not to write jokes — but sometimes learning by negative example is helpful, too. Jane Espenson is a TV writer and producer, and knows a thing or two about good jokes and bad…

Does your organization suffer from subpar operational performance? Have your costs, response times, or reliability slipped relative to competitors or versus customer expectations?

Maybe your organization has P…

When John Casey was in law school at Harvard, he took a course in creative writing from the short story writer Peter Taylor and submitted a draft of a novel he’d written in the summer. After looking it over,…

Incremental innovation and process improvements have always come from those closest to the problem. Its the basis of kaizen, a system where employees continually improve manufacturing processes. Its also a foun…

According to the latest numbers from Net Applications, iOS is the third most popular platform on the Internet, surpassing Linux and Android combined.In August 2010, Android had a 0.20% market share, Linux was a…

Two weeks ago, Facebook rolled out their new Places product; and, to drive user awareness and adoption, they prominently promoted it within their mobile application and web experience.

This week, Twitter rolle…

Fred points out apps and services that are “Mobile First Web Second.” I don’t like the distinction. To me, it’s all the web. It’s this kind of thinking that leads to Wired’s ill-considered proclamation that “t…

As we continue to expand our coverage of ways marketers can leverage Facebook, we wanted to make sure that there was a central resource that people could reference for terms used while discussing Facebook marke…

The last few months have begun to confirm a conviction we’ve long held about Twitter–that, in its current form, it’s not likely to become a huge mass-market phenomenon.
Given that the tech community is obsesse…

Have you ever wanted to walk into a building and be automatically checked into Foursquare, without any action on your part? That’s the promise of an intriguing DIY project from electronic engineering hobbyist,…

We all know that social media, and Facebook in particular, are increasingly important marketing channels. The travel industry, which I take a close interest in, has been one of the early adopters for social med…

by Edward Pullen, MDThis evening I went to a meeting of many of the independent physicians in our community who came together to discuss ways we can help each other to remain viable as relatively small indepe…

There’s a saying, “technology changes, people don’t.” Yet, when we consider the impact of technology on our daily lives, some very interesting observations surface…
A pen now feels awkward to hold an…

Why Persuading Internal Constituents Is as Vital as Creative Ability
Advertising Age, September 2, 2010 — Leaders, including CMOs, need eight leadership competencies. Great CMOs are stronger at results ori…

Delivery is the New It ThingThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing
if you’re looking for a way to differentiate your business or products and create a killer competitive advantage you may not have to look any…

Craigslist is an internet icon, and it’s a unique one. Despite the
rapid evolution of the internet over the past decade, Craigslist in
2010 still looks like Craigslist in 2000. The fact that Craigslist has
mana…

I’m done. I’m done with the emails asking for “a quick chat”, I’m done obliging folks who ask me to follow them on Twitter so they can DM “a quick question” and I’m done being suckered into phon…

One way to start every morning with your team is to have them check in. Go around in a circle and let people update and contribute. It’s not a silly exercise, in that it helps people speak up and it communicate…

Josh Duck has put together a fun and useful list of the 104 elements currently in the HTML5 working draft but organized like a periodic table of elements:

When you click on one of the tags more information app…

Google Wave is far from dead, and developers, early adopters and enterprises will be glad to hear it. Today Google announced it will expand on the code it has already open sourced, building Wave into a function…

But first… an Intro by Your Host
Here’s a confession. I have mixed emotions about posting this article. Not because it’s in any way unworthy. It’s good. Ultimately, that’s why it’s here.
But…

One of Apple’s announcements yesterday was a completely redesigned Apple TV. It’s competing in a crowded and still confusing field of products that stream video from the Internet to your TV. Boxee and Roku are…

Yesterday a good friend of mine flew into the Charlotte airport with a short layover. I figured it would be a great time to catch up with her in person while we had a cup of coffee (there’s a Starbucks righ…

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you’re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.
E.L. DOCTOROW

Influence on Twitter can be measured in a variety of ways, but one of the most interesting for marketers is in the amount of traffic an account can send to a link it Tweets. Months ago, when I was working on cl…

To many users, Twitter for iPhone (the artist formerly known as Tweetie) is perhaps the perfect Twitter client (though I’d argue that the new Twitter for iPad is right there with it). But the one thing it has…

Liz Gannes / GigaOM:
Ev Williams: Twitter Will Actually Help Information Overload — At its core, Twitter is a “recipient-driven medium,” said CEO Evan Williams in a public conversation tonight in Sa…

A bunch of folks have sent over the story of how Microsoft recently patented its method of shutting down Windows (7,788,474), which plenty of people are mocking for all sorts of reasons. Reader Prashanth point…

Loren Brichter–the creator of Tweetie, the app that became Twitter’s official Twitter app–is a genius. Or at least one of the smartest software interface designers who’s ever coded. His latest work is T…

In my last post, how to grow traffic to your blog, I gave you some ideas on how to up your traffic. But if you’re hoping to turn this into a sale, you might want to take some preparations into account.
Sim…

It’s hard to remember a product I’ve become so dependent on quicker than Gmail’s new Priority Inbox. I’m so addicted, that the few times I’ve accidentally clicked on the old “regular” Inbox view i…

Advertising on radio has consistently proven to be an effective and efficient medium to help generate brand awareness and grow business for a variety of companies and in a variety of geographical markets. But f…

I talked in my last post here at Econsultancy about whether the PR industry had missed the boat on SEO. Although there were some differing opinions in the comments, I think the consensus was that the public rel…

Social media is all about building long-term relationships with
individual customers so they become regular, active users of your site, service or
product.
Building a
relationship to the point where a cust…

This is a guest post from Articulate intern, Laura Connell
The internet is the leading media choice among women – and trails only work, sleep and spending time with family across overall activities. Qualitati…

College hiring is projected to rebound in time for the Class of 2011 to feel its effects, according to a new survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Employers who took pa…

A few weeks ago, we ran a webinar about “using free as a part of your business.” One of the speakers was Phil Libin, from Evernote, who gave a very detailed presentation (you can view the whole thing here) abo…

Facebook’s goal for its new Places feature may be even more ambitious than we realized. Facebook wants to be the central platform for location data across all Web services, a company spokesman said today at a N…

While I know the ins-and-outs of Keynote fairly well, I’m not a designer. Fortunately, I work with some great designers and from time-to-time get asked to provide some technical tips while one of them is wo…