You Can Now Gift iPhone Apps

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A new feature has come to iTunes: The ability to gift specific iPhone apps to other users.

On the drop-down box on each application’s page (next to the “Buy” button) there’s now an option that says “Gift This App.” From that point, you then just enter in details like name, e-mail address and the message that you want to include.

Apple has long let people gift music albums to friends, but being able to gift applications is pretty cool. There are times I really want to recommend an app to my fiance — and I know he’ll forget about it — but if I can gift it to him, we can bypass the amnesia. Hey, it’s a nice surprise AND a nice app.

It’s also a solid alternative to using iTunes Gift Cards if you just want to buy someone a certain application.

Please note, you can only give users in your country gifts — so keep that in mind, especially if you have more than one iTunes account.

Let the app gifting begin!

[via TiPb]

Tags: app store, app store gifting, apple, itunes

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How the Fashion Industry Uses Location-Based Marketing

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Location Fashion ImageMacala Wright Lee is the CEO of FashionablyMarketing.Me a digital marketing and merchandising firm that specializes in fashion, luxury and beauty brands in Southern California. You can follower her on Twitter at @FashMarketing.

While location-based services like Foursquare and Gowalla are gaining serious traction on the social marketing scene, many fashion brands are still trying to come to terms with the potential of social media in general. Luckily, some retailers and brands have begun experimenting with mobile social marketing strategies.

During New York Fashion Week, Conde Naste partnered Lucky Magazine with Foursquare, for example. Foursquare users were given tips about the best places to visit between shows. In addition to Lucky-branded fashion insider tips, Foursquare users were awarded special badges as they checked-in to any of the 700 stores featured in the magazine’s directory.

Here are some other examples of how fashion brands and retailers are beginning to embrace location-based social marketing.


Marc Jacobs, Foursquare, and New York Fashion Week


Fashion giant Marc Jacobs has been one of the few brands that has fully embraced social technology from the outset, opting for cost-effective digital marketing methods over traditional events and expensive parties.
 
Social media is having a positive impact on how Marc Jacobs delivers its brand messages to its customers. For Fashion Week 2010, the brand decided to go beyond just digitally streaming their runway shows. It took the online interactions offline through Foursquare.

Marc Jacobs Foursquare Image

Marc Jacobs and Foursquare created the “Fashion Victim” badge, which allowed Fashion Week attendees (and others) to “check-in” at any Marc by Marc Jacobs stores in New York and around the country to unlock the badge. Four people who unlocked the badge in New York were randomly chosen to receive tickets to the Marc Jacobs show. The partnership provided both Marc Jacobs and Foursquare with word of mouth marketing.

One winner, Elaine Ellis, a style blogger who writes The Art of Awkward, was in town for the weekend and changed her flight to attend the show. Her excitement was contagious. Ellis, who recounted her experience and thanked Marc Jacobs and Foursquare on her blog, said, “[Marc Jacobs] made my dreams come true; there will never be a better day in my life!”

Unlike many other fashion brands, Marc Jacobs is working to effectively communicate with its customers through social media. Streaming its runway shows online was only the first step — incorporating the Foursquare collaboration was an awareness and brand-building exercise to establish what was next.
 
Foursquare’s VP of Business Development, Tristan Walker, sees brands using Foursquare to help guide experiences.  “Marc Jacobs is on-brand with their marketing, their efforts made sense … They understand the communities that their retail stores are located in and how their brand fits within that community,” said Walker, who added, “What happened with Elaine [Ellis] is the best example of the type of experiences that Foursquare attempts to create. I was deeply moved by Elaine’s post because that’s what we’re about.”


Translating Online Interactions into Offline Sales


Walker shared further insights for large retailers, brands, and shopping conglomerates hoping to harness the marketing opportunities that location-based services offer.

“For a retailer such as The Grove in Los Angeles,” Walker said, “they could follow the model that Tasti D-Lite implemented. They could sync their loyal rewards program to Foursquare; offer a branded badge for recognition, additional points, freebies and member perks for being a frequent shopper/patron.”

It would be the same for Nordstrom, Gap or any local retailer. By syncing their loyalty programs with Foursquare, they’re enabling frequent shoppers to share their recent purchases with their communities. When a user posts shopping tips or deals at a particular location, that post is essentially an advertising impression on Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook.


The Future of Location-Based Marketing For Retailers


Foursquare and other location-based services like Loopt and Gowalla offer retailers the opportunity to increase in-store visits and foot traffic.

“The convergence of fashion and mobile technology was previously limited to fun, co-branded mobile phones (like the Juicy Couture T-Mobile Sidekick),” said Shari Doherty, a consumer-marketing consultant with over 15 years of industry experience in digital entertainment, mobile and location-based services. “But now, with the advent of location-based services, there are even more exciting opportunities for fashion retailers and brands to deliver entertaining and interactive experiences.

“We’re now starting to see more cross-platform experiments that blend social networking elements into the physical store experience. And with the continued evolution of mobile and location technologies, a ‘check-in’ on your favorite application will unlock even more comprehensive place-based info like photos, videos, reviews and real-time advice.”

If executed well, these location-enhanced shopping experiences can translate into improved customer loyalty, referrals, and sales, both online and offline. Easy to use mobile access to global fashion content and community is a powerful tool to inform, inspire, and curate the local shopping experience.


More social media resources from Mashable:


- How the Fashion Industry is Embracing Social Media
- 5 Ways Social Media Changed Fashion in 2009
- 5 Things You Need to Know About Location-Based Social Media
- 4 Easy Ways to Engage Your Facebook Fans
- How PR Pros Are Using Social Media for Real Results
- 6 Ways Law Enforcement Uses Social Media to Fight Crime

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, jonya


Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Gowalla, Twitter, iStockphoto

Tags: business, fashion, foursquare, gowalla, location-based, loopt, MARKETING, Mobile 2.0, social media, twitter

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Tweets Calling for Obama’s Assassination Prompt Secret Service Investigation

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Two Twitter users are learning the hard way that threats against the President of the United States are taken very seriously, even when they’re just a tweet.

With intense debate swirling around last night’s healthcare reform vote, @THHEE_JAY and @Solly_Forrel expressed their frustration with the President by publishing tweets reading “ASSASSINATION! America, we survived the Assassinations and Lincoln & Kennedy. We’ll surely get over a bullet to Barrack Obama’s head” and “You Should be Assassinated!! @Barack Obama.”

Now, the Secret Service is investigating, as they do with all perceived threats against the President. ABC News notes that the two users both tried to backtrack from their statements, and at least one of the accounts (@THHEE_JAY) appears to be offline as of Monday evening.

This isn’t the first time social media activity has caught the attention of the Secret Service. Last year, a teen created a Facebook poll asking “Should Obama be killed?” Ultimately, charges weren’t filed after the perpetrator’s identity was discovered, and it seems likely that the suspects in this case had no formal plans or means to try and assassinate the President.

Nonetheless, it’s another reminder that what’s said in social media carries just as much weight as what’s said using other forms of communication. Apparently, some users still need to figure that out — and more of them will, as law enforcement continues to leverage social media in their crime-fighting efforts.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, jodiecoston

Tags: barack obama, healthcare reform, president obama, Secret Service, trending, twitter

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Africa is Slowly but Steadily Adding Facebook Users

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Today we’re taking a look at Africa’s growth on Facebook, drawn from our Global Monitor statistics for February. Africa is by far the world’s smallest region in terms of its total number of Facebook users, coming in almost even with the Arabian Peninsula despite a huge disparity in total population.

Below we’ve listed the only six countries on the whole continent that are growing significantly. As you can see, the top two are both in northern Africa, part of the culturally-interrelated Maghreb region (we’ve exempted Egypt).

Despite having higher growth and a few more users than Tunisia, Morocco has less than half the penetration — only 4.4 percent of its internet users are on Facebook. Long-term, it seems like these two could grow into significant markets. Their huge neighbors, Algeria and Libya, don’t have many internet users and aren’t tracked by Facebook at all (we draw these stats from its advertising tool).

The third-fastest grower in sub-Saharan Africa is Nigeria. This country’s Facebook user base is growing slowly. What you can’t see here is that its penetration is about as low as it gets, at 0.7 percent. Ghana and Kenya aren’t much better off, while South Africa has about 5 percent of its internet users online — no doubt advantaged by the country’s many English speakers.

It’s easy to blame the relatively limited internet access in Africa for its slow growth, but from the low penetration even among internet users we can see that there’s more to the story. Language is likely one problem; Facebook isn’t likely to get translated into hundreds of African regional dialects any time soon.

The continent also tends to have more mobile users, who might not have an easy time using Facebook. But this could be changing, and driving more growth in the future. Facebook has been pushing out many new mobile features intended to help more people access the site more often. And, in December, Opera reported that Facebook is the most popular service accessed through its Mini mobile browser.

Here are all six:

Taken as a whole, Africa has only 2.6 percent penetration on Facebook, but grew 5.6 percent in February. As of March 1st, it had about 9.9 million users on Facebook, out of a total population of 375 million. The data above, by the way, all comes from our in-depth Global Monitor report, which provides 164 pages of growth statistics and forward projections for 98 countries and five world regions.

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Wanneer Belgie? -> Eerste Nederlandse widgets op Samsung-tv's

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De internetfunctie van Samsung-tv's geeft binnenkort toegang tot de eerste veertien Nederlandse tv-widgets.

Aan Samsungs Internet@TV, een online onderdeel in de duurdere HDTV-series en Blu-rayspelers, voegt de fabrikant nu ook een stel Nederlandse tv-widgets toe. Veel van de tv-apps laten je snel nieuws, weer en verkeer checken, zoals Hyves, NOS, Nu.nl, Buienradar, Fileindex en 9292OV.

Eten bestellen via de afstandsbediening kan via de widget van Just Eat. De Moviemax-app laat je online films huren. Ook aanwezig: TV Gids, Cinenews, ABN Amro, Quote, Funda, en Panorama. Internet@TV zit al anderhalf jaar in de Samsung-apparaten, maar het wachten was nog op Nederlands aanbod. Samsung werkt samen met Yahoo's tv-platform.

Blueshots.tv zegt ook een Yahoo-widget te hebben gemaakt, maar deze staat nog niet in het Samsung-lijstje. De widget van Bright met daarin onze Bright.tv-series zoals de Uitpakparty is ook onderweg. Bright startte een jaar geleden ook met een kanaal op Philips NetTV.

Afgelopen week kwam naar buiten dat Google samen met onder meer Intel en Sony werkt aan een eigen internet-tv-platform met apps en widgets: Google TV. Dat wordt een open systeem dat op tv's, settopboxen en andere randapparatuur komt te staan. Zo strijdt Google ook op dit vlak met Apple.

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BBC Website To Get Deep Integration with Facebook and Twitter.

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BBC Website To Get Deep Integration with Facebook and Twitter.

BBC Website To Get Deep Integration with Facebook and Twitter.Erik Huggers, the BBC’s head of future media and technology, has been speaking to The Telegraph and confirmed Facebook, Twitter and Bebo integration would be making it’s way onto the BBC.

He reveals that initially the plan is to integrate the services into the iPlayer with other areas of the BBC site to potentially see the same levels of integration in the future.

The social media features will make an appearance upon the launch of iPlayer 3.0 which will have its users actually register on the BBC site. Part of the registration will include including logging into your favorite social media service, which will in turn make it possible to see what your friends are watching on teh BBC.

“We are close to launching the third version of the iPlayer in beta which will have many more social functions embedded within it,” said Huggers. “People will be able to bring their Facebook friends onto the iPlayer so they can share what they are listening to or watching with each other more easily.”

Huggers intentionally refrained from going into details of how Twitter and Facebook would be incorporated into other areas of the site, but it’s safe to assume being able to see what your friends are reading will be a likely and welcome feature.

Aside from email, sharing has never been given much importance on the BBC website. There are social bookmarking icons at the foot of many of the articles but nothing along the likes of what sites like the Huffington Post has been able to achieve with deep social media integration across the website.

There is debate as to whether the likes of Twitter are real traffic drivers to many of these websites, currently it doesn’t appear to be for “old media” publications. I, like others, believe most are simply “doing it wrong.”

Original title and link for this post: BBC Website To Get Deep Integration with Facebook and Twitter.

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Happy Birthday Twitter. This little bird is all grown up…

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/03/21/happy-birthday-twitter-bird-grown-2/

Happy Birthday Twitter. This little bird is all grown up...

Many people, usually those who aren’t using Twitter yet, are under the impression the service has only just launched. In many respects it has, but at four years old it’s fair to say it has officially flown the start-up nest.

Four year ago today (we’re a few hours in in Europe), Twitter co-founder CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted the first Tweet ever. His words, while not as memorable as Neil Armstrong’s “One Small Step…”, are monumental all the same.

Happy Birthday Twitter. This little bird is all grown up...

The initial idea of Jack Dorsey that resulted in the development of Twitter is available on Flickr but before you shoot off to read of it, a couple of videos worth watching.

1) The Twitter Story: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone shares the Twitter story during the All-Alumni Reunion Conference at UC berkeley in April 2009.

The Second) Let Robert Scoble and CBS take you back to 2007 when the service was just beginning to make waves. This is back when Scoble was excited to have 2000 followers…

Original title and link for this post: Happy Birthday Twitter. This little bird is all grown up…

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