Harry Winston's Opus Eleven watch: mechanical masterpiece / bank breaker (video)

It's been a while since we gave Harry Winston's Opus watch any play, but some timepieces are just too lavish to pass up. Case in point: the Opus Eleven, designed by temporal taste-maker Denis Giguet of MCT. Aesthetically speaking, it's probably a touch too steampunk for some, but the way it tells time is straight up fascinating. Giguet points out the movement enlists 566 parts, a good deal of which are exposed in the main face -- the center piece displays the hour, while the upper right disc shows off the minutes. Now, it might look like a relatively minimal watch for Harry Winston, but its case is made of 18k white gold and sapphire crystal, and the Opus Eleven's definitely got a Winston-worthy price tag, ringing in at about $250,000. So if you've got a quarter of a mill just laying around, this is a definite contender for that stack of cash. Want to see all those tiny pieces in action? Check out the video after the break.

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HOW TO: Land a Job at Amazon

Amazon‘s business model hit the ground running in the 1990s by revolutionizing retail and e-commerce. In recent years, the company has built on its success, transforming our reading habits and how we store data by selling e-readers and cloud computing services.

Now Amazon is bolstering its workforce to accommodate its growing line of products and services, which have doubled the company’s annual profit in the past three years. Its online jobs board lists 1,900 available positions at its Seattle headquarters alone. That’s twice as many openings the company had last year, reports The Seattle Times.

So how can you get in on the Amazon action that’s already 33,700 employees strong? Here are some tips and resources from the company’s recruiters for landing a job at Amazon.

Nearly half of the open positions at Amazon’s headquarters are tech jobs, but the company is also hiring recruiters, buyers and product managers at all levels of expertise.

Amazon has offices, fulfillment centers, customer service centers and software development centers throughout North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia. There are currently openings in all geographies, says Susan Harker, director of Global Talent Acquisition at Amazon.

The Amazon Careers website lists all open positions by category and location. You can also enter keywords if the drop-down menus don’t quite have what you’re looking for.

After you upload your resume to a specific job posting on the site, it’s up for review. Amazon’s recruiters actively review applicants whose resumes come in through the careers site, and they reach out to those who may be a good fit, says Harker. However, many of them are very active on LinkedIn, and Harker encourages applicants to reach out there.

For most positions, the interview process begins with a phone interview. So, how do you get through that?

“Well-prepared candidates know our business and technologies, and they’re able to talk in detail about anything that is included on the resume,” Harker says.

If it goes well on both sides, candidates are brought on-site for an in-person interview with a hiring manager and a few team members. Matt Goyer, a former software design engineer candidate, says in a blog post that his interview at Amazon HQ took six-and-a-half hours. Interviewers asked questions about his previous experience, technical skills and understanding of current industry trends. Goyer says he prepared by diligently studying books with sample interview questions and problems.

Still, interview experiences vary. The best you can do is “let your passion and enthusiasm show through,” Goyer says. “Don’t let your nerves get the best of you.”

Amazon’s motto is: “Start with the customer and work backwards.” Employees are expected to focus on the customer in all projects and innovations.

Showing signs of leadership and taking initiative is also important. “Every Amazonian is guided by our leadership principles, which include thinking long-term, innovating and thinking big on behalf of our customers,” says Harker. “We believe that every employee is a leader, whether you’re an individual contributor or a manager of a large team.”

If this sounds like you, it might be worth trying your luck at one of those thousands of current openings. If you do, remember to be prepared, confident and enthusiastic. Show you’re an innovative leader worth paying attention to.

Have you scored a job at Amazon or are you trying to? What has your experience been like? Tell us in the comments below.

Every week we put out a list of social media and web job opportunities. While we post a huge range of job listings, we’ve selected some of the top social media job opportunities from the past two weeks to get you started. Happy hunting!

- Top 5 Tips for Creating Impressive Video Resumes
- Are Cover Letters Still Relevant For Social Media and Tech Jobs?
- HOW TO: Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile’s New Skills Section
- Top 5 Online Communities for Starting Your Career
- HOW TO: Land a Business Development Job

Photo courtesy Flickr, Torley.

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‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ Trailer Hits YouTube

At Mashable, our abiding love for comic book-based films — both good and bad — is no secret. And we’re definitely looking forward to the forthcoming Captain America flick, which is set against a comics-meets-steampunk World War II backdrop.

As seen in the trailer, the film has some of the retro stylings of other comic-inspired offerings, such as X-Men: First Class, the latest installment of another popular Marvel-franchise-turned-film-series. But what’s really interesting for many fans of the Captain America series is this film’s special effects.

For one thing, star Chris Evans (who plays Captain America, a.k.a. Steve Rogers) is digitally manipulated to look quite underweight during the beginning of the film — underweight enough that he’s not allowed to enlist in the armed forces to fight Hitler and the Nazis.

But the so-called weakling signs up for a secret, experimental government program that eventually turns him into the USDA-approved muscular mass that is “super soldier” Captain America. After training under one Colonel Chester Phillips (played by Tommy Lee Jones), all the rest is Nazi-killing and romancing an Andrews Sister lookalike with very red lipstick — that would be Peggy Carter, played by Hayley Atwell.

Captain America: The First Avenger is directed by Joe Johnston. The script was written by no less than four heavy-hitters: directing a script by David Self, who adapted the screenplay for Road to Perdition; Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who are together responsible for The Chronicles of Narnia films’ scripts; and Joss Whedon, of Buffy and Firefly fame.

The film will be in theaters July 22. For the time being, check out the 13-page digital comic book that accompanies the film, have a gander at the trailer, and let us know your opinions in the comments.

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Meet ‘Disco’, The Group Texting App Built Secretly Inside Google

It seems like Google has made a foray into the group messaging space today with Disco, a new iPhone app and website. Well, they sort of have.

The service utilizes the Disco.com domain that Google bought at Domainfest last year for $255K. The Disco.com site went up today and the beta app hit the App Store yesterday, but no one noticed it — until now. And here’s the thing: it was made by Slide.

We’ve been testing the app here at TC HQ and thus far its pretty fast, perhaps because it’s initial build is more bare-bones than fellow group messaging contenders like Fast Society, Beluga and GroupMe. It’s actually pretty similar to the initial build of GroupMe before it added push notifications.

Again, the app is made by Slide, the storied social apps property which Google acquired in August for $182 million. Slide has made iPhone apps before, but the last one was Super Poke, an app created pre-Google acquisition. But Slide is being run as an autonomous business unit within Google, so this app is unrelated to any Google “Plus One” social projects, we hear.

We’ve reached out to Google for comment on the app and will update when we hear back.

How the app will fare competing in the already saturated group messaging space remains to be seen, and you read MG’s take on it here.

In the meantime here’s two fun facts: that’s Slide founder Max Levchin’s Facebook photo in the app screenshot (he’s the one on the bike) and the sample group on the Disco homepage is named GaGa Fan Club, interesting light of Lady Gaga’s recent Google visit.

h/t TheDomains

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Qatar building fleet of remote control 'clouds' for World Cup 2022

By Joseph L. Flatley posted Mar 27th 2011 3:17AM When Qatar, an insanely wealthy Arab emirate roughly the size of Connecticut, won the bid to host the 2022 World Cup, one of the stipulations was that its newly constructed open-air soccer stadiums would be air conditioned. Of course, this is Qatar we're talkin' about here, so the solution would have to be as extravagant as its insanely wealthy Arab emirate status implies. That's why it was no huge shock when The Peninsula reported plans to cool at least some of the nine stadiums by using a fleet of solar powered "clouds," designed and constructed by a certain Dr. Saud Abdul Ghani and his team. Dr. Ghani, the head of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Qatar University, said that the aircraft (more accurately described as really, really slow drones) will be operated by remote control, made of 100 percent light carbonic materials, and will initially cost half a million dollars each. But, really, what's a few million dollars when it's for a good cause?

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Atomos Ninja and Samurai HD video recorder / monitors bring compression jutsu to pro filmmaking

By Michael Gorman posted Mar 26th 2011 11:02AM We all drool over the hi-res video shot by cameras like the RED EPIC, but for indie-film types, processing the massive files produced takes a lot of time (and therefore money) and not everyone has an ARRI ALEXA to do native recording compression. Enter the Atomos Ninja and Samurai HD recorder / monitor / playback devices that take your 10-bit video and compress it in Apple's 1080p ProRes QuickTime format to make your post-production life a little easier. The Ninja pulls video through HDMI and deposits it on your choice of 2.5-inch HDD or SDD storage, does playback via a 4.3-inch 480 x 270 touchscreen, and has continuous power thanks to dual hot-swappable batteries (available in 2600, 5200, and 7800 mAh varieties). Meanwhile, the Samurai matches the Ninja's specs, but swaps out the HDMI connection for HD-SDI ports and adds SDI Loop-Through to connect an external monitor, a larger 5-inch 800 x 400 display, and 3D support (if you get two Samurais genlocked together). Both units have FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 and 3.0 connections for offloading your vids. Those with Spielbergian aspirations can pony up $995 for the Ninja right now, or pay $1,495 for the Samurai upon its release this summer.

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Samsung Galaxy Player 70 captures vision of Android-ruled world in new promo video

It's getting a bit tough to tell Samsung's various Galaxy Players and their changing names apart these days, but the company has found a fairly unique way to drum up attention for its new Galaxy Player 70 model, which looks to be nearly identical to the Galaxy Player 5 being released over here. Mixed into an otherwise bright and cheery new ad are images of what we can only presume is an alternate reality where the Android robot is real, and in charge. Head on past the break to see for yourself.

[Thanks, Rachid]

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Real Racing 2 HD update might just make you get an AV adapter for your iPad 2

Apple's demonstrations may not have exactly made its Digital AV Adapter seem like a must-have accessory for the iPad 2, but the folks from Firemint may well change your mind with their upcoming update for Real Racing 2 HD. Not only will it let you output full 1080p video instead of just mirroring the iPad 2's display (and aspect ratio) on your TV, but it will even let you use your iPad 2 as a secondary display -- in this case, to display a map of the track. Unfortunately, there's no word on a release date for the update, but you can get a pretty good taste of what's in store in the video above.

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Canon Rebel T3 DSLR reviewed: a safe bet for first-time shooters

By Christopher Trout posted Mar 26th 2011 6:02PM Are you a true contrarian looking for a camera that befits your nonconformist lifestyle? Well, Canon's latest entry-level DSLR may not be the most unruly camera out, but at least it sports a moniker that fits the bill. The Canon T3 Rebel, also known as the EOS 1100D, is a 12.2-megapixel affair designed with the DSLR newbie in mind, and according to a review over at PhotographyBlog, it doesn't sacrifice image quality for ease of use. Touted as a successor to the Rebel XS, the T3 actually carries over some useful features from its more sophisticated sibling, the T3i, including a user-friendly control layout, but lacks the camera's Scene Intelligent auto mode and extensive list of creative filters. Aside from that, the reviewer found T3's grips too slick and its diminutive LCD screen a minor setback, but was quick to point out that none of these is a deal-breaker. In fact, aside from a bit of noise encountered at the highest ISO setting, the camera delivers high quality photographs even in low light. All things considered, it looks like the Rebel T3 is a "responsive and intuitive DSLR" for the novice photog, and at $600, it's got at least some of the competition beat. Now, we won't tell you what to do, but if we were you, we'd click the source link to see how the T3 stacks up.

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The Futuristic Fashion of Diana Eng [PICS]

Diana Eng, the former Project Runway contestant whose futuristic, technology-infused fashions we profiled at CES in January, is now building out her own line of innovative, wearable accessories.

Eng began integrating electronics and other kinds of wearable technology with apparel after taking an “electronics for artists” course as an undergraduate at the Rhode Island School of Design. There, she gained not only technical skills, but also inspiration through exposure to designers like Issey Miyake and Martin Margiela, who taught Eng to think “innovatively and really outside of the box,” she says. Since then, Eng has done much of her design and technology research online.

We recently visited her workspace at NYC Resistor, a hacker collective in Brooklyn, where she showed us some of her latest work and the tools she used to create it.

Among the highlights were two pieces in her line of “Smart Scarves.” One, a $60 “Jack Frost” scarf, is made of a soft pale blue cotton upon which snowflakes appear beneath temperatures of 65 degrees Fahrenheit; the lower the temperature, the larger the snowflakes appear.

The other is a deep violet, web-like scarf more suitable for spring. The scarf’s stitches follow the Fibonacci number pattern, a famous sequence of numbers in which each number equals the sum of the two preceding numbers (0,1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34…). It’s a pattern found frequently in nature, such as the distribution of seeds in a sunflower, and the spiral shape of a Nautilus shell. The scarf, which is made using a 3D knitting machine, is available for $275.

By far our favorite creation is a softly draped, battery-powered “twinkle dress” embroidered at the neckline with a microphone and small lights that flash in response to noise. Sadly, it’s not for sale, due to safety concerns and the difficulty of producing it on a mass scale. It is the perfect party dress; the more animated and talkative its wearer, the more attention she draws to herself with light. To see the dress in action, see the third look in the video below:

Eng created the twinkle dress for a project called Fairytale Fashion, an educational web series that details many of the techniques used in Eng’s technology-infused clothing. She was also a featured guest on PBS show SciGirls, teaching young girls how to use microcontrollers, accelerometers, conductive thread and other tools to create inflatable skirts and light-up dresses.

In our interview, Eng joked that the best way to bridge the gender gap in the tech industry was to teach girls how to make things sparkle. “They’re going about it the wrong way,” she said, laughing.

All of Eng’s work is handmade, and thus produced in small quantities of ten to one hundred that quickly sell out, Eng says, before she even has time to begin promoting them. Eng is looking into getting some of her accessories manufactured by third parties to satisfy existing demand.

Eng is also the author of do-it-yourself electronic fashions book, Fashion Geek: Clothes Accessories Tech is also available for purchase on her website.

Check out the gallery below for a closer look at her work and the NYC Resistor studio. If you’re interested in exploring further kinds of wearable tech, see our recent roundup here.

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The Engadget Show Live! with Jon Rubinstein

Humans, keep your eyes tuned to this post -- because at 7:00PM ET, we'll be starting The Engadget Show live with HP's Jon Rubinstein, joining us for a evening of frank, eye-opening and all-around awesome conversation. There'll be mind-blowing devices, crazy giveaways, and much, much more! We've even got music from Minusbaby. The stream is available after the break, just click the "read more" button to watch!

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Google Doing Some Profile Unification Leading Up To… Well, Something.

Google is still hard at work on their social strategy. You know it, I know it, we all know it. What it will actually be, remains to be seen. But there are clues related to it that have started to appear.

The first was the redesign of the toolbar. While Google claimed it doesn’t directly point to the social strategy (even though it looks exactly like the verified +1 leaks we’ve seen), it is a first step. The second was the revamping of profile pages. Also nothing particularly social about it, but again, related to the overall strategy. And now we’re seeing something else: a unification of profiles across Google properties. And a big push for all of them to be public.

As The Next Web spotted a couple weeks ago, Google quietly announced that it would be deleting Google Profiles that weren’t public starting in July. Here’s the wording:

The purpose of Google Profiles is to enable you to manage your online identity. Today, nearly all Google Profiles are public. We believe that using Google Profiles to help people find and connect with you online is how the product is best used. Private profiles don’t allow this, so we have decided to require all profiles to be public.

Keep in mind that your full name is the only required information that will be displayed on your profile; you’ll be able to edit or remove any other information that you don’t want to share.

If you currently have a private profile but you do not wish to make your profile public, you can delete your profile. Or, you can simply do nothing. All private profiles will be deleted after July 31, 2011.

And that’s important because other Google properties are also being woven into these profiles. Yesterday, the following note was left in the Google Groups message board:

Google Groups-specific profiles will no longer be supported. Instead, you will be able to use the new Google Groups to (optionally) link your new and improved Google profile with your groups. Starting July 1st 2011, you will not be able to make changes to your Groups profile. Your profile information will be available for export from your profile page until November 1st 2011. This change will not affect the nicknames you might have chosen for yourself to participate in groups. It will only affect the custom profile fields, such as your photo, location, and occupation.

This type of unification will also take place across other Google properties as well, we hear. It’s a part of a broader effort to bring Google’s properties closer together, and allow for more social activities, is our understanding.

But as we laid out a couple weeks ago, don’t look for a massive launch of something being billed as a “Facebook-killer” (not that anyone besides the press would label it as such anyway). Instead, expect smaller social features across Google properties to appear once the unification is more complete. Judging from the timelines of the changes above, this could be late summer or even later.

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Volvo C30 Electric test drive (video)

By Tim Stevens posted Mar 25th 2011 5:17PM We've been covering the Volvo C30 Electric pretty closely because, well, let's face it: it's one of the few genuinely good looking electric cars in the pipeline. Sure, the Focus Electric looks fine, despite the excessive dental gear, and Tesla's products are certainly saucy, but for every Roadster in the world there are a couple-dozen Leafs and Prii putting their owners to sleep.

The C30 Electric, however, looks almost exactly like the C30 non-electric, which is a good thing, and it drives more or less like one too. About four months after we first saw the thing Volvo finally tossed us the keys, in the process taking us on a tour of Indianapolis-based Ener1, source of the battery packs that make the thing move. Yes, it's a funky little Swedish car with a big 'ol American battery pack. Read on for our impressions.

To start, Volvo began with its two-door C30, a cool little thing that isn't exactly a hot hatch, but we wouldn't call it a tepid three-door either. It has funky looks and a funky interior, but obviously in Electric guise it's stuffed with some rather different innards than the standard model. Out goes the 2.5 liter five-cylinder that normally powers the thing and in goes an 82kW motor, which equates to 110hp -- about half what the gas-powered one manages.
That's enough to get the car to 60mph in about 12 seconds, or not the kind of number that will have muscley car fans trading in their Hemis. But, it is quicker to 40mph than the gasoline powered car, so we're told. Sadly we weren't able to verify that -- the model that we took for a spin had been beaten on a bit and so was running on low charge and reduced power. When we moved pedal to floor mat we were met acceleration less like a bang and more like a whimper. Disappointing, that, but it is still a prototype model. Still, we were able to get a good feel for the other driving dynamics of the car, which for the record is rated for up to 100 miles on a charge when driven in a more conservative manner. Steering is taut and direct, the center of gravity lowered thank to the battery packs mounted in the transmission tunnel and where the gasoline tank would normally be. This gives the car good balance, poise, and feel, despite it weighing 260lbs more than the gasoline model.

Mind you, it's not supposed to be a sports car, and we were impressed most by the calming effect cruising within its doors inspired. That might have something to do with the gimped power delivery, but it was also in large part thanks to the silence of the cabin. Sure, all EVs are quiet, but many have lost some sound deadening material in the interest of saving weight, leading to more road noise coming into the cabin. Enthusiasts may enjoy the sound of a nice custom exhaust, but nobody likes the drone of tires slowly being worn down by concrete and asphalt.

In the C30 Electric you get none of that, nor is there really much wind noise to give you any sense of speed. In fact, we didn't really hear any unpleasant sounds until we'd parked the thing. When engaging the automatic parking brake a slight groan creaked out from somewhere in the rear, a faint sound that put a faint frown on the face of the Volvo representative sitting in the back seat. "Not premium," he said, pledging the noise will not be heard on the models that go up for lease next year.

That silence and calm in the cabin means future owners will want to pay attention to their speedos, because it's easy to lose track of just how fast you're going in this thing, which will do neither your range nor your license any favors. Situated next to that speedo is the car's gauge of just how economically you're driving, which is a clean, analog dial sitting where the tachometer would normally be. There are no fancy computer graphics as seen in the Leaf or Volt or the Prius PHEV, just a needle that sweeps one way when you're regeneratively charging the battery and then leans back the other when you're pulling charge from it.

Simple. Clean. Sophisticated. Not things you can say for the interiors of many EVs, which light up like Christmas and do their damndest to distract you as much as possible. Things are rather more muted here, which may or may not be a good thing depending on how much of a whiz-bang factor you need from your whips, but it sure looks nice.

A 24kWh, air-cooled, Ener1-sourced battery pack, built in the US of A, forms the backbone of the car. The prototype version works with Level 1 or 2 chargers, but has also been augmented with a CHAdeMO plug for incredibly fast charging -- the kind that can get a Leaf up to 80% charge in 20 minutes. It remains to be seen whether that'll be included on the production car, though.

Interestingly, though, the batteries aren't the only thing providing power in the car. A small fuel tank is hidden in there, designed to hold 3.5 gallons of E85 ethanol. That may sound like an odd thing to have in a purely battery-electric car, and it is, but it's here for a good reason. Remember this is a car built for Swedes, and remember too that it can get awfully cold in Sweden.

This fuel is used to power a little heater situated down low on the firewall. The ethanol is burned to produce heat, which can warm up the cabin in three minutes without having any impact on battery life, and Volvo estimates those three and a half gallons should be good for two to three weeks of daily use. But, the car can automatically pre-condition itself to temperature using power from the grid before you hop in for your morning commute, and there is a battery-powered heater too if you want to run totally emissions-free on a chilly day.

Overall it's every bit as comfortable to drive as any other Volvo, if not more-so, but there's a catch, and it's a real big one: Volvo doesn't ever really plan on selling you this car. Yes, it's going on sale next year, or on lease anyway, but the company plans to make just 400 of the things. Of those 100 will be coming to the US, which means the odds are long, but the price is high.

In Europe pricing isn't set and Volvo refused to give us a firm figure, but leasees can expect to pay somewhere around 1,500 euro per month for the car, equating to a bit over $2,100 per month. That's Tesla Roadster money, folks, and while it could be said that the C30 is rather more family-friendly and will certainly be nicer to live with in the winter, we think you'd have to be a little bit dead inside to pick this over the supercar competition.

So yes, the pricing is a shame, but right now these cars are still rolling prototypes, cars that Volvo is selling just to dip its toe into the EV pool before diving in head first with a wholly new model that we're told will be unveiled sometime next year. It'll be about the same size as the C30 and using a similar drivetrain, similar battery pack (but hopefully liquid cooled), and supposedly a price that you can afford. Maybe us, too.

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(Founder Stories) Lauren Leto: Texts From Last Night Was A Million Dollar Idea, Bnter Is Next

As a law student, Lauren Leto and her friends started Texts From Last Night, a site where they could anonymously posts real text messages about their exploits going out at night. It turns out a lot of people could relate, and when they opened up the site to anyone to contribute, it became a Web sensation. Today, the site attracts 4 million people a month, 5,000 to 15,000 submissions a day, and the 99-cent iPhone app has been downloaded a million times. It also spurred a book deal for Leto. Not bad for a bootstrapped startup site that only took $20,000 in capital to get off the ground.

In the Founder Stories video above, Leto tells host Chris Dixon how Texts From Last Night got started and how she quit law school to move to New York City from Detroit. She ended up in Brooklyn at the Makery, a co-working space with other startups, which she talks about as well.

In the second video below, Leto gets into her latest startup, Bnter, which is a way to capture text messages and publish them publicly. In that sense, it is the opposite of Texts From Last Night. Or, as Leto puts it, Bnter is “Texts From Last Night pulled inside out. Texts From Last Night by its very nature needs to be anonymous, otherwise it will ruin your career.” Bnter, which has its own iPhone app and which raised money from Dixon’s Founder Collective among others (disclosure: he is an investor), is more about capturing interesting moments. Leto compares it to a social photo app, except its textual. It will also work with Twitter conversations. “Anywhere you are having a conversation we want to capture it,” she says.

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OS X Lion Already Nearing “Golden Master” — Release Around WWDC?

It has been one month since Apple unveiled a developer preview of their latest operating system, OS X Lion. And while the initial deployment was a bit rocky, Apple appears to have worked through their initial Mac App Store distribution issues. And now another update looms — and it’s potentially a big one.

Specifically, Apple is gearing up to deploy an OS X Lion update to developers that they may be classifying as the “GM1? release, we’ve heard. “GM” or “Golden Master” is a title reserved for software that is complete. But from what we’ve heard, this is only the initial Golden Master candidate. In other words, don’t get too excited just yet.

Apple has been working through many OS X Lion bugs and performance issues as they move towards the stated Summer release date. Given that GM candidates are already nearing, they definitely appear to be on schedule.

With OS X Snow Leopard, Apple released the GM version to developers just a few weeks before the actual software launched to the public. Presumably, if there were no bugs in this first GM candidate for Lion, they could stick to a similar timetable. But there probably will be, so instead I’d guess that a June timeframe will be more likely.

That would still mean an early Summer release — and potentially one before Summer technically even begins. After all, early June would line up nicely with the June 5 to 9 timeframe that Apple’s WWDC event is likely to take place this year. We’ll see — but work is clearly progressing quickly.

[photo: flickr/cheetah100]

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Why Facebook’s New Questions Tool Is Good for Brands & Businesses

Brands and businesses are looking for ways to leverage Facebook’s recently unveiled Questions tool in ways that differ from what they’re already doing on Q&A sites such as Quora, Yahoo Answers and LocalMind.

The feature, which Facebook rolled out to all users March 24, functions as a recommendation engine. It also presents a major opportunity for businesses to conduct market research and crowdsource in a far more elegant way than was previously possible, according to Ben Grossman, communication strategist for marketing agency Oxford Communications.

“We know from Nielsen that recommendations from friends and family and the opinions of online strangers are the top two most trusted forms of advertising,” Grossman told Mashable. “Facebook Questions offers the perfect opportunity for brands to tap into exactly that.”

Businesses, groups and organizations can use Questions in several ways. For example, Grossman said:

Ice cream parlors can find out what the flavor of the week should be.A gym can find out what time is best for its new hip-hop yoga class.Radio stations can determine the hottest concerts for the summer.Manufacturers can do a pulse check on fans’ holiday shopping plans.

“The best part about this is that it’s in a trusting, social and real-time setting,” he said. “The opportunity to gain instant feedback from a brand’s biggest fans is amazing.”

Fittingly, we had some more questions about Questions. Below, Grossman weighs in on the feature to help brands better understand the tool.

Mashable: How is Facebook Questions different than the Q&A tools already online?

Grossman: Though Questions certainly falls into a similar category as Yahoo Answers and Quora, there is are two very major differences:

Answers to questions are not free-form; users are limited to multiple-choice responses.Questions (and their answers) are not catalogued by search engines at this time. Public Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers and Quora will still remain important for public-facing customer support and inquiries.

Mashable: How will Facebook Questions change the way users of Facebook Pages interact with their fans? Why is this important?

Grossman: Though third-party Facebook application development companies such as Involver and Wildfire have developed turn-key “poll” applications, many users were likely to get hung up on that pesky “Applications Permissions” box that demands access to users personal information.

Questions changes that. No permissions are required, and the Questions platform lets you answer and talk about questions with all your friends no matter if they’ve engaged with a third-party application before or not.

The other great thing about Questions is it comes with a setting that allows users to add more answers to the multiple-choice answers. This bit of flexibility will really and truly allow businesses to learn from their consumers — they just have to know the right questions to ask.

Questions also demands a higher level of fidelity to opinion statistics for brands. If brands bind themselves to the Questions platform to pose questions and they relate to the brand’s business, it’s going to be a lot clearer to all the fans what public opinion is. If the brand doesn’t follow through by acting on that opinion, Questions has a nice comment area that gives fans the perfect place to call a brand out on it.

Mashable: How have you or Oxford used Facebook Questions so far? How do you plan to use the feature in the future?

Grossman: Oxford Communications decided to test out the functionality and float this question out to our fans:

Within 15 hours, we had engaged 13% of our fanbase and had not only gained votes on answers we had given to the question; we also had fans suggesting (and voting for) new answers, including local couponing sites, LiveTVChat and more. For us, it was an opportunity to enjoy a high level of engagement with our followers, emerge as a thought leader and learn a little all at the same time.

The next frontier, after some additional testing, will be to activate Questions on behalf of our clients. Next month, we are planning on extending Legends Outlets Kansas City’s “Charity Check-In” program through use of Facebook Questions. On Legends Outlets Facbeook Page, Legends Outlets is currently encouraging its consumers to check-in with Facebook Places in order to trigger the brand to donate $1 to a pre-determined, local Kansas City charity.

Next month, the brand will be doing the same, but we will also be employing Facebook Questions to ask the fans what charities they would like to see appear as part of the ongoing Charity Check-In program. We’re excited to help Legends Outlets partner with the charities that mean the most to its fans, while raising their friends’ awareness of ways they can give back to the community.

Mashable: What was your initial reaction to the new Facebook Questions tool?

Grossman: Any time Facebook adds a new standard application to all user and business profiles, I get excited. When Facebook adds major new functionality like Questions, it stands to shift the social dynamic of over 500 million people, creating richer, more diverse and increasingly dynamic conversations.

Beyond the impact it will have on users, the widespread release of Facebook Questions is also emblematic of the continuing trend we’ve seen from Facebook: As soon as a new trend in social media begins to rise up, Facebook acts quickly and decisively. For those long-time Facebook users out there, Questions will hearken back to the days when Polls were far more common on Facebook. But this round of Q&A-based functionality released by Facebook is likely more of a direct response to the increasing popularity of up-and-coming sites like Quora and LocalMind.

What I love about Questions is how true it is to Facebook’s zeal for transparency and trust.

How do you plan to use Facebook Questions for your brand, business, group or organization? Let us know in the comments.

View the original article here

Why Startups Need to Blog (and what to talk about …)

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Mark Suster (@msuster), a 2x entrepreneur, now VC at GRP Partners. Read more about Suster at Bothsidesofthetable

Blogs. We all read them to get a sense of what is going on in the world, peeling back layers of the old world in which media was too scripted.

By definition, if you are reading this you read blogs. But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? Absolutely.

This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about.

1. Why
If you care about accessing customers, reaching an audience, communicating your vision, influencing people in your industry, marketing your services or just plain engaging in a dialog with others in your industry a blog is a great way to achieve this.

People often ask me why I started blogging. It really started simply enough. I was meeting regularly with entrepreneurs and offering (for better or for worse) advice on how to run a startup and how to raise venture capital from my experience in doing so at two companies. I was having the same conversations over-and-over again (JFDI, Don’t Roll Out the Red Carpet when Employees are on the Way Out the Door, Don’t Drink Your Own Kool Aid, etc) and I figured I might as well just write them up and make them available for future people who might be interested. I never really expected a big audience or ever thought about it.

I had been reading Brad Feld’s blog & Fred Wilson’s blog for a couple of years and found them very helpful to my thinking so I honestly just thought I was giving back to the community.

The results have been both unexpected and astounding. Within 2 years I was getting 400,000 views / month and had been voted the 2nd most respected VC in the country by an independent survey of entrepreneurs, The Funded and sentiment analysis. I know that I have not yet earned these kudos based on investment returns (although my partners have. GRP Partners last fund is the single best performing VC fund in the US (prequin data) for its vintage year). But it speaks volumes to what people want from our industry:

transparencyaccessibilityauthenticitythought leadershipadviceI’ll bet your customers, business partners or suppliers would love similar.

2. What

I often get the question from people, “I’d like to blog, but I don’t really know what to talk about?” Or “I’m a new entrepreneur, why would I offer advice on how to run a startup?”

You wouldn’t. You shouldn’t.

Not only would it be less authentic but if you’re a startup it’s not immediately clear that other startup CEOs are your target market. They’re mine because I’m a VC. I care about having a steady stream of talented startup people who want to raise money thinking that they should talk to me in addition to the top others whom they’re targeting.

Whom do you want to target? Who are your customers, partners or suppliers?My suggestion is to blog about your industry. Think Mint.com. In their early days they had an enormously effective blog on the topic of personal financial management. They created a reason for their customers to aggregate on their site on a regular basis. They became both a thought leader in the space as well as a beautifully designed product. They created inbound link juice on topics that drove more traffic to their site. Type “personal financial management” into Google.  Mint.com is the second result. Smart.Think Magento. They are an open-source & SaaS provider of eCommerce solutions. They are the fastest growing player in the world in this space. They achieved all of this before they raised even a penny of venture capital. eCommerce is an enormously competitive search term. Yet type it into Google and the third result (behind the Wikipedia entry and ecommerce.com) is Magento. Magic. They did it by creating a blog, discussion board and hub for eCommerce advice and information.So you developed a product for the mommy community? Blog on that topic. Do you have an application that helps mobile developers build HTML5 apps? You know your blog topic. Do you have sales productivity software? Obvious. Check out SalesCrunch posts. Blog to your community. Be a thought leader. Don’t blog to your friend (that might be a separate Tumblog or something) but blog to your community.If you’re going to pump out regular content that is meaningful, you obviously need to blog about a topic in which you’re knowledgeable, thoughtful and passionate. If you’re not all three of these things in your industry then I guess you’ve got a broader problem. Honestly.So my biggest recommendation of “what” to blog is a series of articles that will be helpful to your community. If you’re a lawyer, blog on a topic that would be helpful to potential customers. Show that you’re a thought leader. Scott Edward Walker does an excellent job at this. It’s the only reason I know who he is. I had seen his blog & his Tweets and then was interested to meet him IRL. Do a brainstorming session and create a list of 40-50 topics that interest you. Write out the topic and maybe even the blog title. Keep the list electronically. .Struggling to come up with enough topics? Take one topic and break it up into 10 bite-sized articles. It’s probably better that way anyways. I wanted to write about the top 10 attributes of an entrepreneur. I wrote it all in one sitting and then broke it up into 10 separate posts. It kept me busy for 3 weeks! Each one ended up taking on a life of its own as the comments flowed in for post 1 I had more thoughts to add to post 2 and so on.

3. Where

You need a blog. Duh. If you’re a company and if hanging it off of your company website makes sense for the link traffic – go for it. If you’re head of marketing at a company and keeping a more generalized blog (in addition to your company blog) so that you can influence brands & agencies – it can be separate.

I chose for my blog to be independent of my firm, GRP Partners.  The reason is that I wanted to be free to say what I was thinking independently of my partners. My views don’t always represent theirs and vice-versa even though we’re pretty like-minded (we’ve worked together for 10+ years).  I chose a title that represented a brand that I wanted to emphasize – Both Sides of the Table. I chose it because I thought it would represent who I am – mostly an entrepreneur but somebody with investment chops. I wanted to differentiate.

So. People keep asking me, “why would you write on TechCrunch?” I guess I would have thought it was obvious. Apparently not. People say, “aren’t you driving traffic away from your own blog?”

Facts:

I don’t really care about total page views or uniques other than as a measure of whether I’m improving. I don’t sell ads.I DO care about “share of mind,” which means that I want fish in the pond where the people whom I want to speak with hang out. I know a certain number hit my blog. But I’m not so arrogant (or successful) as to think they come all the time. So I take my show on the road. If I can write about a topic for which I’m passionate about and double or triple the number of people who read it – that’s gold dust. That’s why I never stopped anybody from taking my feed and republishing.As it happens, since I began writing at TechCrunch my viewership has continued to go up, not down. I always publish on my own blog the day after it runs on TC. I want the historical post there. A large number of readers on my site get it from Feedburner or newsletter feed.I also get a lot of inbound links from writing here. I try to make any inbound links to my blog authentic to the story. But each story has driven 1,000's of views.The majority of my traffic still comes from Twitter. TC posts = more Twitter followers = more conversion when I do write on my own blog = more Feedburner / newsletter subs = more traffic. It’s an ecosystem. Simple.

So once you have a blog, a voice and a small following – don’t be shy about writing some guest posts for target blogs. Remember – for you that’s likely not TC – it’s the place your community hangs out.

4. How

Be authentic. Don’t try to sound too smart or too funny.  Just be yourself.  People will see who you are in your words.  If you try to make everything too perfect you’ll never hit publish.  If you try to sound too intelligent you’ll likely be boring as shit.  Most blogs are.  I hate reading blow hards who try to sound like they’re smarter than the rest of us. Be open and transparent.  Get inside your reader’s minds.  Try to think about what they would want to know from you.  In fact, ask them!

Don’t be offensive – it’s never worth it to offend great masses of people.  But that doesn’t mean sitting on the fence.  I have a point of view and I’m sure sometimes it rankles.  But I try to be respectful about it.  Sitting on the fence on all issues is also pretty boring.  And don’t blog drunk.  Or at least don’t hit publish ;-) Mostly, have fun.  If you can’t do that you won’t last very long.

How do I get started? First, you’ll need a platform.  I use WordPress.  Some people swear by SquareSpace. There are the new tools like Tumblr and Posterous.  I’ve played with both and they’re pretty cool. They’re more light weight and easier to use. Importantly, they’re more social. It’s much easier to build an audience in social blogging platforms the way you do in Twitter or Facebook.  T

hen  you need to decide whether to use the “hosted” version or the “installed” version.  At least that’s true in WordPress.  The advantage of the hosted version is that it’s easier to get started.  The disadvantage is that you can’t install a lot of additional tools that use Javascript. I started with the hosted version and then migrated to an installed version so I could use Google Analytics and some other products.

You then need a URL.  It’s true you can be something like msuster.typepad.com but that’s kind of lame so I wouldn’t recommend it.  Just get a real URL.  I think it’s important to think about what image you want to portray when you pick your URL name.  It doesn’t need to be short.  You’re not trying to build a consumer website.  My website is a pretty long URL but people manage to find it.  Much of my traffic is through referring websites and/or social media. Some search. What are YOU trying to convey?  What will be your unique positioning?  Don’t just write a carbon copy of what somebody else is doing.  That’s boring.

So I wrote a post, now what? Don’t blow your load on your first post.  Slice it up enough to do many posts.  I think most blogs are between 600-1000 words / post.  Once you’re written a few posts don’t try to make the flood gates open at once.  Slowly build your audience.  Make it organic.  If you write good content and consistently you’ll build an audience over time.

The number one thing that kills 95% of blogs is that they do 5 or 6 posts in rapid succession and then peter out. It’s lame to go to a blog where this happens. And then 8 months later they do the obligatory post saying, “OK, I’m going to be more committed to blogging now!” and then another 4 months go by. If you’re really not going to write that often at least don’t put dates on your posts.

But if you write good stuff, but in an effort and keep going – it’s a marathon – you will see results over time.

How do I build an audience? If you build it, will they come? No. A blog post is just like a product. First it needs to be good. And then you need to market it. It doesn’t just happen. You should be subtle about how you market it, but market it nonetheless. If you’re too squeamish to ask for help in promoting it or to do so yourself then you’ll never build an audience (you’ll also likely not make it as an entrepreneur. Sorry. But that’s true.)

The obvious starting point is to email a few friends and let them know you have a new blog.  Don’t be overbearing – just an email saying, “wanted to let you know about my new blog.”  I also recommend you put a link to it under your email signature (in a color other than black).  You also should have it be what your Twitter bio links to.

Every time I write a post I send it out on Twitter.  I try to send out the Twitter link when more people are online.  Over time I’ve found out that I get better clicks at 8.30-9.30am Mon-Fri so that’s when I Tweet a lot of my stuff.  I’ll frequently send two Tweets – East Coast & West Coast. If you want to know why I’ve outlined it here.  Not everybody sees the first one.  Social media is ephemeral.

Because I’ve built my Twitter following slowly but steadily and authentically over time I get very high click-through rates (and thus a high Klout score – currently 74). I get about 4% CTR (click-through rate) on every Tweet in the AM) and it’s actually higher because if I assume only 33% of my followers on online the CTR is closer to 12%.  Interestingly if I had sent one Tweet at 5.30am (to get East Coast time) and another at 8.30am I get 4% CTR both times. So it’s hard to argue you shouldn’t Tweet twice if you have a geographically distributed following.

How do I know my stats? I use awe.sm (disclosure, I’m an investor) which is the best tool I know of for tracking: each individual share behavior (it creates unique URLs for each Tweet) plus it also separates out Tweets from Facebook shares, from “Retweets” that come from somebody clicking on my blog, etc. It also tracks who Tweeted the link so you will know who your most influential social followers are.

Make sure your blog has Tweetmeme or similar to make it easier for readers to Retweet.  Also, make sure to sign up with Feedburner.  That way people who want to get your blog by RSS and/or email can do so. Make sure your blog also has a Follow Me on Twitter button so people who find you can easily follow you.

5. When

People often ask how I blog so much and don’t think they can do it themselves. If you write about something for which you’re both knowledgeable and passionate I’ll bet you can pump out more than you think.

I usually blog at 10pm or on airplane flights. I never blog at work. Like you, I don’t have the time. I have board meetings, company pitches, internal partner meetings, etc. Hell, I often can’t even get to email during the day. So it comes out of TV time, which means I’m not missing anything. Occasionally if I really want to blog and I have a date or too much work I just set my alarm for 5.30am. Yup. It’s not that hard if you make a commitment to it.

What would it mean to you and your business if you could: increase your inbound traffic, enhance your company & personal brand, meet new influential people who suddenly know who you are. If you want these things they are available to you for the cost of some time & effort.

If you plan out what you want to write about in advance (create topics then to headings to structure your article. You’ll notice on this one I started with mine … Why, What, Where, How and then I later added When & What Next) then it’s really about writing.  Structure helps enormously.  If you need some help with the creative process read this.

I write for about 45 minutes to an hour in the first pass.  I usually then re-read, edit, spell check and add links.  This usually takes another 20-30 minutes.  I then always add an image.  I think this is a nice touch.  Just staring at text is a bit boring and I find that the image can add humor and/or drive people in.

6. What Next?

Then there’s comments.  You HAVE TO respond to comments.  Do yourself a favor and install Disqus. It makes a huge difference in driving a comment community.  If you want the details on why I covered it here.

First, it’s the most fun part of blogging.  It’s addicting like Twitter.  It’s where you exchange ideas with other people.  It’s where your community gets to know you.  It’s where you build loyalty and relationships.  I have met many people in person who were first commenters on my blog.  I find it frustrating if I leave comments on somebody’s blog and they never respond.  If somebody found your blog and took the time to comment then they’re like a customer who should be cherished. Responses to them are like customer retention. It’s also where you’ll learn. People will tell you when you’re full of shit.

Appendix: Traffic Hacks:

Commenting on other blogs – you need to comment on other people’s blogs.  First, it is a place where your comment will often link back to your blog where it can drive traffic.  Occasionally, and not overtly, and only if relevant you can provide a comment with a link back to an article in your blog.  Don’t do this often, don’t be blatant and make sure it’s relevant.Linking to other blogs – For example, many people know that I love VentureHacks because it’s a great resource for entrepreneurs and I think that Babak Nivi is a star.  Notice I’ve linked to his website.  If he tracks his blog (which I’m sure he does) he’ll see this link.  If he has a Google Alert on his name (everyone does) then he’ll also get that.  Don’t be over the top gushing and creepy.  Be subtle.  Don’t overtly tell everyone you link to, “I linked to you, check out my article!”  Assume that over time if you write compelling content they’ll eventually check you out.Covering relevant people in your blog in an authentic way – If your blog covers topics in your industry it’s likely that you’ll be able to write about some people and companies that you want to be aware of your blog.  Don’t Tweet @ them telling them you covered them. Don’t email them saying you covered them. Just talk about their company. If you write good articles over time and do this often enough people will notice.Tweet support - What I did in the early days was to enlist Tweet support.  I would occasionally ask people that I was close with to retweet my posts.  I tried to mix it up in order to not ask the same people often.  I would send out emails with the Tweet text already written so that they just had to cut-and-paste.  As my blog started getting authentic traffic I stopped asking for this help very often.Guest authoring – Once you have a bit of credibility as a writer a great strategy to drive traffic is to write guest posts for relevant bloggers in your sphere of influence.   If you run BakeSpace and blog about food why not contact some of the local food blogs and see whether you could submit guest articles.  Most people are delighted to have the free content.  In return all you ask for are links back to your blog and to your Twitter account.  Slowly and surely these will add users, of which some will come back on a regular basis.

View the original article here

The Color Of Envy And Rooting Against Goliath

We’re now two days into to the life of Color, and it’s still the tech story that everyone in the blogosphere wants to talk about. Yesterday, I detailed why so much of that talk is directly related to the massive funding they were able to secure, rather than the product itself. And I wondered why so many people seemed to be rooting for it to fail spectacularly rather than succeed? The answer, it seems, may be quite simple.

There were some great discussions in the comment section (can you believe I’m saying that?) of yesterday’s post and a number of people reached out to weigh in as well. Of those, the most interesting perspectives were from entrepreneurs. A common refrain among them points to a simple reason for the Color backlash beyond the larger “bubble” talk: no one wants to root for Goliath.

“I think one reason for the animosity among startup founders is that the romantic model of the startup is the small group of founders in the grungy garage/apartment,” Michael Seibel, the CEO of Justin.tv and the just-launched Socialcam said. “To me and my founder friends it feels like Color is cheating the process and that is what we are reacting against,” he continued.

Ouch.

Another entrepreneur (who didn’t want to be named) used the current NCAA tournament as an analogy. “It’s like rooting for Duke versus rooting for George Mason,” they said. ”You can root for Duke, but it means you have no soul — no sense of the underdog shocking the world and doing something great against the odds.”

A better analogy may be in baseball. Many people get delight when the Yankees lose and openly root for that to happen. For some, this is because the franchise had so much success in the past and they feel like others should share that success. But in recent years, a big part of it is more analogous to the Color story. The Yankees have a payroll much higher than any other team in baseball. When they lose, people celebrate because it shows that money and the talent it buys aren’t unbeatable.

It’s a win against “cheating the process” as Seibel calls it. Of course, it isn’t really cheating in the illegal sense. The rules allow the Yankees to spend as much as they like on their team, just as investors are allowed to put as much money as they like into Color. But it is “cheating” in the sense that most teams, just like most startups, are simply incapable of getting access to these types of resources.

And that points to something else that a few entrepreneurs brought up: envy.

The use of that word will be interpreted as some of these entrepreneurs being cry-babies. But the reality is that a few of them simply wish they had the resources that Color was able to secure. “If we had that much money when we started…” type of thing.

Others felt the exact opposite way — feeling that $41 million and a $100 million + valuation pre-launch would be more of a burden than anything else. ”When building version one, being scrappy and without resources is actually a plus (this is why the YC is so appealing),” Seibel said.

But not all entrepreneurs are against Color. “I was at dinner last night at a Palo Alto restaurant with the Pulse team, and we were all using Color. I quickly realized what you had mentioned in your dinner table post: ‘The common misconception that my parents and others have about using the phone during dinner is that it’s antisocial. But increasingly, it makes dinner even more social.’,” Alphonso Labs co-founder Akshay Kothari said, indicating how much fun he was having with the product.

He went on to say that the only problem he’s had with the hoopla surrounding Color so far is that the money and not the product has become the story. “Maybe I’m young and naive, but I always like the product to be the talking point. Funding gives you resources to build something beautiful. They have a lot of funding now — if they can execute on the product, nobody is going to talk about funding,” he said.

And he’s exactly right. At the end of the day, all of this initial backlash won’t mean a thing if Color can execute. In fact, we won’t even remember it.

But that’s still a pretty big “if”. As another entrepreneur tells me, “All my friends are now referring to Color as the Cuil/Joost of photos.”

View the original article here

Five Things Facebook Should Fix Immediately

Let me start with two questions. Why is it that such a successful company as Facebook feels like it needs to change and reinvent its interface constantly? And why are we so complacent with these changes that, quite literally, disrupt our online social lives?

We have seen how social media is changing the world around us, yet we don’t have a say in its progress. Undeniably, Facebook is already part of all of our lives, even for non-users.

We shouldn’t take the site for granted. After all, it has over half a billion users. Alternatively, we should not allow it to take us—their users—for granted either. I remember back when I was heavily using Digg, they made so many changes, that it was all too hard to follow. At around version 4, I couldn’t use it anymore and therefore left the site.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of new design and up-to-date features. But when one has such a large community of users, you need to make changes carefully and not force your members to suffer through your own growing pains. It’s true, we can all leave the site if we are upset with the changes. No one is forcing us to be members. But most of us don’t want to leave. We want to be part of this community. Facebook should acknowledge some of the problems that need to be resolved and show appreciation for the mass following they have built before it slips away.

I’d like to highlight 5 critical problems that Facebook needs to fix immediately:

Groups
One day I saw this update on my Facebook feed: “If one more person adds me to a group, I’m sending you to the unfriended land.” I easily related to this, can’t you? I don’t know what Facebook was thinking by letting anyone add you to a group, and start sending messages as a default setting. That’s like saying: Hello spam, come visit me more often. And yes, your Facebook friends are the biggest spammers in the world, they just might not know it.

By the time I wake up in the morning, my mailbox has at least two new group invites (I’m not sure we can even call them invites), and email discussions around this group, mostly from people that have no clue why this group owner added them. Couldn’t you handle this one better Facebook? Shouldn’t I get an email suggesting that I join this group in the first place? And thank god, my chatbox is closed most of the time because if I had to get all of those Group discussions inside chat, I’d go nuts. I’m a member of my high school’s group (something that is always nice to remember) but I know some people that left the group since the chat was too annoying for them and they didn’t want to deal with (nor understand) the odd settings. So rant number one: Make groups less spammy.

Photo Viewer

I wanted to leave this section open and let you all say whatever that comes to your mind.. but I feel like I must say it out loud: What the hell?!

How did this design replace the previous one? The user experience is so completely wrong here. The light box annoys the eye and basically it is just a bad visual that doesn’t fit the overall design of the site. A photo viewer is for viewing pictures, but the pictures are now displayed in a smaller format so you get a poorer experience than before. Why did you fix something that wasn’t broken, Facebook?

And before you tell me to click F5 and forget about it, I don’t want to and I shouldn’t have to either. I think it looks bad, and I’m sure I’m not the only one, and since photos are a huge part of the site, I also don’t think it’s a good idea to change it from good to worse. Usually, it goes the other way around.

Places
To have a world of possibilities is sometimes great and sometimes confusing. I love both Foursquare and Gowalla, and only lately have I started to use Facebook Places. But when it comes to choosing one service, Facebook is my last choice. Why? You can’t connect it to Twitter. Perhaps Facebook thinks all my friends are on Facebook, but even so, if I want them to know where I am, I’d like to extend this ability to make sure they’ll be able to see my statuses from other platforms as well. I still don’t get why Facebook is so closed. If people want privacy they can set their own personal choices. What if other people want to share more? I think Facebook should allow it. After all, it’s a “social” network, right?

Messaging
I can honestly say that I haven’t switched from the old messaging platform to the new one. But I’ve noticed people sending me up to 10 emails when they meant to send only one. Most people don’t know how to fix this so they always just apologize for sending too many messages, which results in even more messages. Overall, it looks like Facebook is trying to make everything behave like chat (i.e., new commenting system) when chat is not something everyone feels comfortable using all the time.

Tabs
Now, I don’t want to say Facebook is evil, but I don’t really understand how they could dismiss the customized tabs so easily after people worked so hard on them, and many companies were built specifically around this creation space. Yes, I know you can still see tabs, but not as prominently as before. Again, this was to me at least the part of Facebook that was fun and now has been marginalized. With the latest changes from FBML to Iframe, many users who could create customized tabs on their own have been left with obsolete skills. Seriously, if a company asked me if it’s worth it to create something from the Facebook API, I’d say it’s a risky situation since Facebook so easily changes things solely for their own benefit. Tabs are one great example of that. I would never expect them to change such a great feature. One that really gave users and brands the feeling of ownership but, alas they did…

Remember when it used to be so much fun to use Facebook? When you had games right in your face (not just news), when you could see your connections from Flickr, Youtube, and other sites, when it was just a more friendly place? I miss that.

Does Facebook not care anymore? Or does it just demonstrate our own apathy and powerlessness as users?

Social media is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Don’t forget you have a voice. Use it. You can start in comments below.

View the original article here

Top 5 YouTube Marketing Mistakes Committed by Small Businesses

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

The path to YouTube marketing success can be littered with potholes that budget- and time-strapped small businesses can’t afford to fall in to.

We’ve spoken to three top experts in the video marketing arena to get professional advice about the common mistakes that small companies make on the video-sharing platform so that you can avoid making those same errors.

For your viewing pleasure and enlightenment, we’ve also included a few successful YouTube videos that were produced by small businesses.

Some businesses mistakenly believe that they just need to upload a video to YouTube and wait for viewers to watch by the millions. According to Sarah Wood, founder of social video distribution and engagement company Unruly Media, this rarely happens.

“Yes, there is a massive appetite for online video content, but there are 35 hours of video content uploaded to YouTube every minute, so the competition for eyeballs is intense,” says Wood.

You need to manage expectations when it comes to the success of your YouTube content. There are a ton of high-quality, company-made videos on YouTube that never manage more than a few thousand views.

“Remind yourself that having a video go viral is a notable success, not the norm,” says Matt Smith, director of strategy at digital agency The Viral Factory. Smith counts Blendtec’s “Will It Blend?” series (see above) as one such success.

“Blendtec happens to be one of the most brilliant viral marketing campaigns ever, and it’s the exception rather than the rule,” he says.

No matter how good your content is, you can’t just upload a clip, sit back and wait for people to come to you — you need to have a promotion and distribution plan.

“You need to think through why you’re on YouTube and what you want out of it, then tailor the content and the delivery strategy appropriately,” says Smith. “Putting content on YouTube is step one, step two is getting out there and promoting it.”

Justin Gonzalez, social media strategist for creative video agency BARS + TONE agrees that videos won’t go viral on their own — you must allocate time and resources to seed it properly.

“Try using social networks like Facebook and Twitter to get your social strategy started — then promote your video using those vehicles. At the very least, friends and family are a great way to get a video to start circulating,” says Gonzalez. “After all, you put money into making the video, so you better do it justice and get it in front of the right people.”

Although expectations need to be kept realistic, don’t think that viral success is totally out of reach just because you’re a small business.

“There are plenty of small brands that think they need to be a Nike or an Adidas to be successful in social video,” says Wood. “This is simply not true! Any brand, large or small, can score a hit in social video.”

And Wood has a great example of a small business with a successful video: Alphabet Photography’s Christmas Food Court Flash Mob (see above). The clip was one of the surprise hits over the holidays last year, garnering more than 30 million views and almost 773,000 shares on Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere, according to Unruly Media’s Video Viral Chart.”

YouTube is new media, it’s social, it’s about engagement. Don’t sign up for the platform with a limited, old media perspective.

“When you go into online video with the understanding that it can do more than just sell a product or service, you’re already ahead of the game,” says Gonzalez. YouTube is a social channel where people want to consume and share fun and engaging content, so don’t hit them over the head with a sales pitch.

“YouTube requires as much thought as any other social media channel and shouldn’t be looked at as a dumping ground for marketing videos,” says Gonzalez. “Everything you post should represent your brand’s personality and inspire some type of reaction from your viewers -– whether it’s provoking thought, laughing out loud or making a purchase.”

It’s certainly the biggest, but don’t forget that YouTube isn’t the only online video platform, and it may not offer the best chance of success for your brand. Vimeo, for example, could be considered a more credible platform for creative professionals.

“Businesses that want to leverage the word of mouth potential of social video need to focus away from just YouTube and explore the world of social video that exists beyond YouTube, Twitter and Facebook,” says Wood.

Wood also names action-sports site Mpora and comedy site Funny or Die as effective outlets for hopefully-going-viral videos because they can “deliver high-quality video engagement to a more targeted and niche demographic.”

Too often, businesses produce videos and hope to get 1 million views. On today’s social web, success isn’t always counted with stats or measured in view counts — meaningful engagement is what matters.

“At Unruly, we place a greater emphasis on brand engagement, so we also look at the number of times a video has been shared on various social media platforms, time spent with the video and uplift in relevant brand metrics,” says Wood.

Gonzalez thinks this is a particularly important point for small businesses, which have limited resources and must decide from the outset what they hope to gain from YouTube.

“Sometimes marketers get bogged down in looking at the metrics and trying to determine whether the number of video views really made a difference in the bottom line, or whether it was just enough to build buzz around the product or service,” says Gonzalez. “When you can clearly define why it’s necessary for your business to be on YouTube, you’re ready to move on to the next steps.”

And finally, Smith chimes in with the most insightful and important point of all that will help any brand on YouTube — regardless of size or industry.

“Don’t ignore cats. Failure to put a cute or funny cat in your YouTube marketing material will cost you dearly in terms of exposure, credibility, sales and reputation,” he opines. “Everyone will know you are a failing business, and they’ll hate you and your product.”

- 5 Tips to Strengthen Your Company’s Social Media Voice
- 10 Online Strategies for Your Next Product Launch
- 10 Fascinating YouTube Facts That May Surprise You
- HOW TO: Engage and Mobilize Facebook Fans Beyond the “Like”
- 5 Masterminds Redefining Social Media Marketing

Image courtesy of Flickr, Brandi Sims

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Self-strengthening polymer nanocomposite works best under pressure

Rice University lab creates self-strengthening nanocomposite

Researchers at Rice University have created a synthetic material that gets stronger from repeated stress much like the body strengthens bones and muscles after repeated workouts.

Work by the Rice lab of Pulickel Ajayan, professor in mechanical engineering and materials science and of chemistry, shows the potential of stiffening polymer-based nanocomposites with carbon nanotube fillers. The team reported its discovery this month in the journal ACS Nano.

The trick, it seems, lies in the complex, dynamic interface between nanostructures and polymers in carefully engineered nanocomposite materials.

Brent Carey, a graduate student in Ajayan's lab, found the interesting property while testing the high-cycle fatigue properties of a composite he made by infiltrating a forest of vertically aligned, multiwalled nanotubes with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), an inert, rubbery polymer. To his great surprise, repeatedly loading the material didn't seem to damage it at all. In fact, the stress made it stiffer.

Carey, whose research is sponsored by a NASA fellowship, used dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) to test their material. He found that after an astounding 3.5 million compressions (five per second) over about a week's time, the stiffness of the composite had increased by 12 percent and showed the potential for even further improvement.

"It took a bit of tweaking to get the instrument to do this," Carey said. "DMA generally assumes that your material isn't changing in any permanent way. In the early tests, the software kept telling me, 'I've damaged the sample!' as the stiffness increased. I also had to trick it with an unsolvable program loop to achieve the high number of cycles."

Materials scientists know that metals can strain-harden during repeated deformation, a result of the creation and jamming of defects -- known as dislocations -- in their crystalline lattice. Polymers, which are made of long, repeating chains of atoms, don't behave the same way.

The team is not sure precisely why their synthetic material behaves as it does. "We were able to rule out further cross-linking in the polymer as an explanation," Carey said. "The data shows that there's very little chemical interaction, if any, between the polymer and the nanotubes, and it seems that this fluid interface is evolving during stressing."

"The use of nanomaterials as a filler increases this interfacial area tremendously for the same amount of filler material added," Ajayan said. "Hence, the resulting interfacial effects are amplified as compared with conventional composites.

"For engineered materials, people would love to have a composite like this," he said. "This work shows how nanomaterials in composites can be creatively used."

They also found one other truth about this unique phenomenon: Simply compressing the material didn't change its properties; only dynamic stress -- deforming it again and again -- made it stiffer.

Carey drew an analogy between their material and bones. "As long as you're regularly stressing a bone in the body, it will remain strong," he said. "For example, the bones in the racket arm of a tennis player are denser. Essentially, this is an adaptive effect our body uses to withstand the loads applied to it.

"Our material is similar in the sense that a static load on our composite doesn't cause a change. You have to dynamically stress it in order to improve it."

Cartilage may be a better comparison -- and possibly even a future candidate for nanocomposite replacement. "We can envision this response being attractive for developing artificial cartilage that can respond to the forces being applied to it but remains pliable in areas that are not being stressed," Carey said.

Both researchers noted this is the kind of basic research that asks more questions than it answers. While they can easily measure the material's bulk properties, it's an entirely different story to understand how the polymer and nanotubes interact at the nanoscale.

"People have been trying to address the question of how the polymer layer around a nanoparticle behaves," Ajayan said. "It's a very complicated problem. But fundamentally, it's important if you're an engineer of nanocomposites.

"From that perspective, I think this is a beautiful result. It tells us that it's feasible to engineer interfaces that make the material do unconventional things."

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HSN details Nook Color update for 'mid-April': Android 2.2, Flash, apps and push email

Spent some quality time watching the Home Shopping Network this morning to hear just how the Nook Color will be improved? That's what we thought... but we bit the bullet and tuned in ourselves to get the details for you. Simply put, HSN says Barnes and Noble will start rolling out an over-the-air software package in "mid-April" that will update the Nook Color to Android 2.2, bringing Adobe Flash Player, Angry Birds, and push email of some sort. It'll also apparently include "lots of Nook apps," though the channel's pitchmen only had one to show on TV -- a kid-friendly sketchpad, with a variety of drawing utensils and colored paper. HSN hosts also claim that customers who purchase the Nook Color on the show are "guaranteed to be the very first people updated," though we're not sure we'll take them at their word, considering some of the other fabulous exaggerations we just heard on the air.

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