Jo's posterous http://dearmedia.posterous.com Most recent posts at Jo's posterous posterous.com Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:48:23 -0700 What Is Blackberry 6? [Blackberry 6] http://dearmedia.posterous.com/what-is-blackberry-6-blackberry-6 http://dearmedia.posterous.com/what-is-blackberry-6-blackberry-6
Gizmodo
BlackBerry's out today with a new handset and, more importantly, a brand new operating system with at least one killer app. The whole thing could be the key to RIM's salvation. So what is BlackBerry 6, exactly? More »


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Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:40:15 -0700 Zinio's Interactive 500 Greatest Songs Rolling Stone Lets You Read, Listen, and Buy [Magazines] http://dearmedia.posterous.com/zinios-interactive-500-greatest-songs-rolling http://dearmedia.posterous.com/zinios-interactive-500-greatest-songs-rolling
Gizmodo
Cross-platform digital newsstand Zinio just released an interactive version of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, so, while you're reading about them, you can hear all those classics you've heard of but never gotten around to listening to. More »


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Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:37:02 -0700 The Facebook Marketing Bible — August 2010 Edition Is Now Available http://dearmedia.posterous.com/the-facebook-marketing-bible-august-2010-edit http://dearmedia.posterous.com/the-facebook-marketing-bible-august-2010-edit
Inside Facebook
Purchase The Guide
The Facebook Marketing Bible – Current Edition
Download PDF: $95 USD
OR Download PDF + Get 1 Year of Monthly Updates: $295 USD

The August 2010 edition of the Facebook Marketing Bible: 50+ Ways to Market Your Brand, Company, Product, or Service Inside Facebook is now available!

The Facebook Marketing Bible has enabled thousands of marketers, social application developers, publishers, and entrepreneurs to navigate and get the most out of the increasingly sophisticated marketing opportunities on Facebook.

Now, as Facebook continues to roll out changes affecting brand marketers, advertisers and websites of all sizes, this leading resource and tool is updated and more essential than ever before.

The densely-packed Facebook Marketing Bible contains four detailed sections: Tools for Guerilla Marketers, Tools for Advertisers, Tools for Application Developers, and Tools for Webmasters. Each part outlines the best available channels and strategies for reaching your audience inside Facebook. Please see the full table of contents below.

In addition, Inside Network is happy to announce that through August 31st all customers who purchase the Facebook Marketing Bible will also receive a free $25 Facebook Ads advertising credit, courtesy of Facebook (see terms). Now that Facebook has crossed the 500 million active user mark, there’s never been a better time to reach your target audience inside Facebook.

The August 2010 edition includes updates on the following topics:

  • Facebook’s Gift Shop closure and what it means for the business of virtual goods on the site.

  • Privacy and the future of sharing on Facebook. Facebook has recently launched changes to privacy controls that impact how users share and interact with information on the site. We review these changes in terms of what they could mean for Page owners and marketers.
  • The launch of Facebook Questions. Facebook’s new Questions feature enables users to give and get advice and input on any subject they choose, from ‘Best song to play at a wedding’ to brand and product recommendations. What will it mean for the diverse ecosystem of businesses that have emerged around the site? We detail early insights on what Questions could mean for marketers, advertisers, and developers.
  • Credits, Facebook’s universal virtual currency program. Facebook Credits are intended to decrease transaction friction and increase the volume and quality of transactions in Facebook’s gift store and for apps on its platform. We deliver an overview of the Credits system, including what widespread adoption could mean for brand marketers as well as developers.
  • Social Plugins. Facebook’s five social plugins have achieved strong adoption rates since being announced at the company’s developer conference this year. Along with its Open Graph protocol, these plugins are designed to help websites boost virality and user engagement by leveraging Facebook’s existing services. The Like button, the Activity Stream plugin, the Recommendations plugin, the Facebook Login plugin, and the Social Bar plugin each have the potential of changing how your users interact with your website, and how your website gains distribution on Facebook. We take a look at recent updates to plugins and how brands and sites can make the most of them.
  • New tools for advertisers to target their Facebook Ads better than ever before. With enhanced Facebook targeting tools, advertisers now have the ability to reach their target audiences in much more powerful ways. Learn how to use these new tools to get the most out of your performance marketing dollars. Plus, check out ways Facebook is experimenting with virtual currency gifting and branded virtual gifts.
  • Plus, more updates on making it easier to remove applications, what that means for marketers and developers, and more.
  • The Facebook Marketing Bible is also available in French, Spanish, Italian, and print.

    Purchase this report
    The Facebook Marketing Bible – Current Edition
    Buy PDF: $95 USD
    OR Buy PDF + 1 Year of Free Monthly Updates: $295 USD

    The single August 2010 edition of the Facebook Marketing Bible is available for $95. Alternately, you may purchase an annual subscription to the Facebook Marketing Bible, including monthly updates, for $295. As always, please make suggestions if you’d like to see more attention paid to any topic!

    Facebook Marketing Bible Facebook Marketing Bible - Agency & Brand Edition







    Purchase The Guide
    The Facebook Marketing Bible – Current Edition
    Download PDF: $95 USD
    OR Download PDF + Get 1 Year of Monthly Updates: $295 USD
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    Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:23:05 -0700 The Groupon Clone Industry Is So Big, It Now Has Its Own Exchange http://dearmedia.posterous.com/the-groupon-clone-industry-is-so-big-it-now-h http://dearmedia.posterous.com/the-groupon-clone-industry-is-so-big-it-now-h
    Silicon Alley Insider

    trading floor

    Groupon competitor DealOn announced the latest model for making money off a daily deals this morning: OfferEx, an exchange where deal providers and Web publishers can connect.

    Daily deal sites looking to sell more coupons can offer up their deals and the commission they are willing to pay to a publisher. Publishers can choose the deals most relevant to their audiences and the lowest commissions, and offer them up on their sites.

    Successful new businesses will always spawn imitators, but the speed with which Groupon is launching a whole new industry is pretty remarkable. There are well over a hundred straight-up Groupon clones, and more than a dozen deal aggregators. Most recently. businesses have started focusing on deal distribution -- letting web publishers put daily deals on their sites without sourcing them themselves.

    We expect that at least one company will end up making a lot of money putting itself inbetween deal suppliers and web publishers as DealOn is doing. But dozens will try, so execution is key. As Vin Vacanti of deal aggregator Yipit tells us, "the deals will need to be presented in an interesting way for the publisher's existing audience to buy into them. If the audience thinks it's just advertising, the product will struggle." The average web publisher can't be expected to be an expert on this, so Vin thinks the winner here will have to educate and encourage publishers to present relevant deals with appropriate context.

    Those convinced the Groupon craze is just a fad will continue to be disappointed. More of these businesses are on the way.

    Join the conversation about this story »

    See Also:

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    Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:21:57 -0700 Apple Hard At Work On Streaming Video Service (AAPL) http://dearmedia.posterous.com/apple-hard-at-work-on-streaming-video-service http://dearmedia.posterous.com/apple-hard-at-work-on-streaming-video-service
    Silicon Alley Insider

    apple tv

    Apple is hard at work on a streaming video service, presumably for the next Apple TV, CNet's Greg Sandoval reports.

    While Apple was expected to deliver a music streaming service soon, it looks like that's been shelved in favor of the video service. Sandoval reports Apple has the team from Lala working full time on building the video service.

    See Also: Why The Cloud Is Critical To Apple's TV Strategy

    Join the conversation about this story »

    See Also:

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    Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:00:58 -0700 Forget Check-ins, Hotlist Brings Facebook and Twitter "Geo-Trends" to iPhone http://dearmedia.posterous.com/forget-check-ins-hotlist-brings-facebook-and http://dearmedia.posterous.com/forget-check-ins-hotlist-brings-facebook-and
    ReadWriteWeb

    The Hotlist is going mobile. The service, a trend-tracker that connects users with upcoming events in the area and across their social networks, is now available as an iPhone application.

    Although location-based social networking (LBS) apps like Foursquare, Gowalla, MyTown, Brightkite and Loopt may be all the rage right now - in terms of media hype at least - reports have shown that only a relatively small handful of early adopters are actively using these apps on a regular basis (a few hundred thousand up to 4 million, depending on the service).

    Instead of tapping into the niche market of LBS users to find local hotspots, The Hotlist figured out a different way to surface these so-called "geo-trends": by tapping into Facebook and Twitter instead. The service analyzes public events and other data across social networks in order to offer a personalized "things to do" application. But up until today, that app was Web-only.

    Sponsor

    No Check-In Required

    The Hotlist, launched in September 2009, digs through real-time updates on Twitter and aggregates location-specific data from it, Facebook, Google and Yelp to calculate what specific events are popular based on your network of friends and your "friends of friends."

    Unlike LBS apps, which require you to announce your current location by way of a GPS-matched "check-in," a feature which worries some privacy advocates, the Hotlist looks at where people plan on going by way of Facebook Events and other non-GPS sources. It also respects the Facebook privacy settings you already have in place. "Nobody will know where you are unless you want them to," explains the site's FAQ.

    In May of this year, The Hotlist received $800,000 in angel financing, funds from which the social aggregation startup used to launch the new mobile application. The iPhone app is first to arrive, but apps for Android and Blackberry will soon follow.

    Local Trends via your iPhone

    With the new Hotlist mobile application, users can see which spots their social networking friends have visited in the past, which ones are popular now and which ones friends plan on visiting in the future. It displays the venues closest to your location - a handy feature to have on a mobile app. It even provides venue details like friend attendance, photos, real-time Twitter updates and the guy-to-girl ratio.

    In addition to tapping into your own personal social networking friend lists, The Hotlist also offers the social activities of over 100 million people worldwide, all based on public data.

    Currently The Hotlist has only around 160,000 users, reports the company. However, unlike its LBS competitors, the app doesn't need to obtain critical mass in order to provide relevant data. Instead, The Hotlist uses data from networks that have it to spare in large quantities - most notably, the data from Facebook's 500 million users and Twitter's 100 million users.

    You can download The Hotlist iPhone app from here. A Facebook account is required to use it.

    Discuss

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    Mon, 02 Aug 2010 08:15:19 -0700 20 miljardste bericht getwitterd http://dearmedia.posterous.com/20-miljardste-bericht-getwitterd http://dearmedia.posterous.com/20-miljardste-bericht-getwitterd
    B R I G H T

    Een Japanse grafisch ontwerper heeft zaterdag de 20 miljardste tweet verzonden en werd overstelpt door felicitaties.

    GGGGGGo_Lets_Go twitterde zaterdag ‘So that means the barrage might come back later all at once'. Even later werd hij overstelpt met felicitaties. De Japanse ontwerper had zonder dat hij het wist de 20 miljardste tweet geplaatst. Het boezemde hem kennelijk wel enige angst in want later schreef hij: Looks like I posted the 20 billionth tweet. I'm getting replies from people all over the world. It's scary. What are the chances? Maybe I'm going to die.'

    Voor GGGGGGo_Lets_Go was het nog verbazingwekkender dan het winnen van een loterij. Twitter is razend populair bij Japanners. Zij zijn goed voor 8 miljoen tweets per dag en dat is 12 procent van de wereldwijde tweets. Amerika staat op de eerste plaats. Het duurde vier jaar voordat op Twitter het tien miljardste bericht geplaatst werd en dat was in maart dit jaar. In minder dan vijf maanden is het aantal verdubbeld. Overigens hebben zo'n 1,5 miljoen Nederlanders een twitteraccount maar zijn slechts zo'n 191 duizend accounts actief. Deze actieve twitteraars plaatsen minimaal vijf tweets per maand.

    reageer

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    Mon, 02 Aug 2010 01:00:19 -0700 UI Centric Proves A Windows 7 Tablet Could Beat The iPad At Its Own Game http://dearmedia.posterous.com/ui-centric-proves-a-windows-7-tablet-could-be http://dearmedia.posterous.com/ui-centric-proves-a-windows-7-tablet-could-be
    The Next Web

    It’s no secret that Microsoft are looking to innovate in the tablet market, its CEO Steve Ballmer has already indicated the company is coming “full guns” after Apple and its iPad.

    One of the biggest challenges face is to adapt its Windows 7 operating system and make it suitable for deployment on tablet devices. The Windows 7 default interface is optimally designed for desktop use and whilst it does support touch-input, the operating system would need a drastic overhaul for consumers to recognise a Windows 7 powered tablet as a viable alternative to the iPad.

    Luckily, there are companies out there who are dedicating a considerable amount into research and development and pushing the capabilities of Windows 7 to its absolute limits. One such company; UI Centric, has developed a custom Windows 7 tablet UI codenamed Macallan and the results look pretty incredible.

    UI Centric has developed its Windows 7 UI from scratch, customizing it solely for tablet use. The beauty of overlaying the Windows 7 operating system is that it can offer native multitasking, Adobe Flash support, USB and memory card support and camera/video chat functionality.

    The user interace resembles the Zune interface, at times even the Windows Phone 7 interface also. From the video, interaction with the Macallan prototype looks sharp. Instead of a button press, users can peel the page across diagonally to navigate back to the main menu.

    The first devices featuring Macallan will begin to ship in Q3 with further information being made available in the coming months. We hope that the Office integration (shown by one of the screenshots) has also been given a similar facelift, making it easier for users to create and edit documents from their Microsoft tablets.

    UI Centric have included a video of the interface in its press release to allow you to see the UI in action with your own eyes:

    What do you think? Is this Microsoft’s best chance of challenging the iPad? Thoughts in the comments please.

    Original title and link for this post: UI Centric Proves A Windows 7 Tablet Could Beat The iPad At Its Own Game

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    Mon, 02 Aug 2010 00:37:00 -0700 Future of advertising is all about relevance -> Mobile Advertising and the Rise of Coupons http://dearmedia.posterous.com/future-of-advertising-is-all-about-relevance http://dearmedia.posterous.com/future-of-advertising-is-all-about-relevance

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    Mon, 02 Aug 2010 00:25:41 -0700 Top Countries in Terms of Internet Users http://dearmedia.posterous.com/top-countries-in-terms-of-internet-users http://dearmedia.posterous.com/top-countries-in-terms-of-internet-users

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    Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:54:45 -0700 UK Finds Google Innocent In Street View Privacy Brouhaha [Google] http://dearmedia.posterous.com/uk-finds-google-innocent-in-street-view-priva http://dearmedia.posterous.com/uk-finds-google-innocent-in-street-view-priva
    Gizmodo

    Google's been cleared of any wrongdoing in the UK over the accidental collection of Wi-Fi network details by their Street View cars, with the Information Commissioner Office (ICO) stating "On the basis of the samples we saw, we are satisfied so far that it is unlikely that Google will have captured significant amounts of personal data." The lawsuit against Google in the US is still undecided. [BBC] More »


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    Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:49:32 -0700 Major Corporations Are Downloading Those 100 Million Facebook Profiles off BitTorrent [BitTorrent] http://dearmedia.posterous.com/major-corporations-are-downloading-those-100 http://dearmedia.posterous.com/major-corporations-are-downloading-those-100
    Gizmodo
    Remember that torrent yesterday that contained the personal information off of 100 million scraped Facebook profiles? I thought it was strange that the guy didn't sell this information, since many companies would be interested. Turns out they are interested. More »


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    Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:37:15 -0700 Women on the Web: Vrouwen doen het 8 procent langer http://dearmedia.posterous.com/women-on-the-web-vrouwen-doen-het-8-procent-l http://dearmedia.posterous.com/women-on-the-web-vrouwen-doen-het-8-procent-l
    Marketingfacts
    Wereldwijd bezoekt gemiddeld 75,8 procent van de vrouwen social networking sites tegenover 68,7 procent van de mannen. Ook blijken vrouwen intensievere gebruikers van dit type netwerken dan mannen. Hoewel mannen in aantal meer online zijn, ‘doen’ vrouwen het 8 procent langer. En al helemaal op retail sites: daar zijn vrouwen 20 procent langer online actief dan mannen. De smartphone verhouding tussen man en vrouw is trouwens 60/40. Zo. Dat zijn maar een paar feitjes uit het onderzoek “Women on the Web: How Women are Shaping the Internet” (persbericht, comScore) van comScore dat deze week het licht zag. Over vrouwen en online retail, zoekgedrag, social, mobile en entertainment. Hieronder wat quotes voor context, een tabel over social en het volledige rapport. Lees meer over: Women on the Web: Vrouwen doen het 8 procent langer.
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    Wed, 21 Jul 2010 05:27:26 -0700 Films in de cloud http://dearmedia.posterous.com/films-in-de-cloud http://dearmedia.posterous.com/films-in-de-cloud
    B R I G H T

    Met UltraViolet krijgen consumenten een digitale kluis voor speelfilms, die zijn af te spelen op verschillende apparaten. 

    Een samenwerkingsverband van in totaal zestig elektronicafabrikanten en filmmaatschappijen, onder leiding van Sony, komt met een nieuwe dienst waarmee films voor consumenten online zijn op te slaan in hun profiel. De naam van het initiatief luidt UltraViolet. Filmbedrijven en fabrikanten beginnen binnenkort met de eerste testen.

    Door films te verplaatsen naar de cloud kunnen mensen ze bekijken op meerdere apparaten zonder bestanden te hoeven kopiëren. Het UltraViolet-logo moet uiteindelijk komen te staan voor digitale content die altijd en overal te consumeren is. 

    Het UltraViolet-systeem beschermt de auteursrechten via diverse vormen van kopieerbeveiliging (DRM), waaronder die van Adobe, Microsoft en Marlin. Het filmplatform werkt met een nieuw bestandsformaat dat op alle apparaten van aangesloten merken af te spelen zal zijn. Er is keuze uit streamen of downloaden. Bij elk UltraViolet-account hoort een online kluis voor digitale rechten die toegang geven tot aangeschafte films. 

    Grote afwezigen in het consortium zijn Walt Disney en Apple. Walt Disney heeft een alternatief, KeyChest en Apple heeft natuurlijk zijn eigen iTunes Video Store, waarbij in de Nederlandse versie nog altijd geen speelfilms zijn te vinden. De komst van UltraViolet moet volgens de eerste commentaren duidelijk maken hoe groot de macht van Apple op online videoverhuur in de VS is.

    1 reactie

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    Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:12:11 -0700 There's 100 Million iOS Devices Out There [Apple] http://dearmedia.posterous.com/theres-100-million-ios-devices-out-there-appl http://dearmedia.posterous.com/theres-100-million-ios-devices-out-there-appl
    Gizmodo

    Sure, the 225,000 apps in the App Store says a lot about the iOS ecosystem, but the number of actual things running iOS maybe says a lot more: Apple's sold 100 million of them. In case you were wondering why Apple's treating iOS like the future. [Apple[ More »


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    Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:03:41 -0700 Facebook Credits: The World's First Global Currency? http://dearmedia.posterous.com/facebook-credits-the-worlds-first-global-curr http://dearmedia.posterous.com/facebook-credits-the-worlds-first-global-curr
    ReadWriteWeb
    facebook-logo.png

    Facebook is standing at the foot of a virtual cash mountain. The social networking behemoth recently announced a plan to expand the Facebook Credits program beyond its beta confines. A network-wide rollout of the virtual currency application would streamline transactions online and, in effect, pave the path to the world's first global currency.

    It's also going to help Facebook scale one of its last major economic hurdles - monetizing its millions of international users. Now translated into more than 100 languages, Facebook will do more than $1 billion in revenue this year. It has surpassed the 500 million member mark, with a surge of interest across Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and points beyond. In fact, adoption rates have soared exponentially in the last year.

    Sponsor

    Chris Birk (@cjbirk) is director of content and communications for VA Mortgage Center.com, the nation's number one dedicated VA lender, and Growth Partner, a unique firm that provides angel investment and online marketing expertise to emerging companies. A recovering journalist, he also teaches at a private Midwestern university. He blogs at Write Short Live Long.

    Here's a quick look from Nick Burcher.

    Country

    Number of Facebook users March 2009

    Number of Facebook users 31 March 2010

    12 month growth %

    Taiwan

    205,500

    6,107,100

    2,872

    Philippines

    1,026,300

    11,561,740

    1,027

    Thailand

    284,340

    2,895,320

    918

    Brazil

    395,940

    3,602,100

    810

    Indonesia

    2,325,840

    20,775,320

    793

    Czech Rep

    444,120

    2,421,720

    446

    India

    1,561,000

    7,809,800

    400

    Mexico

    2,142,080

    9,208,560

    330

    In all, international users comprise about 70% of Facebook's total user base, but the company has so far lacked a consistent mechanism for turning those more far-flung users into dollars. Banner advertising in most cases doesn't provide a worthwhile return on investment internationally. At the same time, bandwidth costs have forced the company to take a loss in hyper-growth countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

    Enter the power and mind-boggling reach of Facebook Credits. As Chris Morrison at Bnet and others have pointed out, the full-scale credits program will clearly lower the adoption barrier for millions of international users, who will be able to buy credits from a single point of purchase and spend them on games and apps across the network. Facebook earns a 30% cut of the revenue; there's going to be a lot of that.

    Looking back, the credits program got a bit lost in the privacy kerfuffle that came out of the f8 conference. The implications of rolling out the program may also revive another popular source of frustration for users: playing makeover. With Facebook's new concentrated push toward virtual currency, could a new layout be coming sooner than expected? Many of the company's 500 million users are just getting used to the new one unleashed on the public in February.

    At the same time, the potential implications of a virtual global currency are staggering, if not difficult to pin down precisely. Facebook users have already shown a willingness to shell out for virtual goods in online games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars. The software company behind these, Zynga, is expected to make more than $450 million this year, the bulk from virtual purchases.

    With a beefed-up Facebook credits program, users both domestic and abroad may soon be purchasing real goods through companies that utilize Facebook Connect. It isn't difficult to imagine going to the Crate & Barrel website and purchasing a wedding gift with Facebook Credits.

    Consider what one-click purchasing could do for targeted Facebook ads: Advertisers and social marketers might have unprecedented access to real-time data on spending patterns and international purchases. Mobile carriers stand to benefit, too, as international consumers are increasingly more adept at using smartphones for financial transactions.

    A virtual currency could also be a boon to entrepreneurs in developing nations. Consumers could use credits to purchase directly from artisans in Brazil or Thailand. That may require Facebook to ultimately abandon the dollar as its exchange root, but it certainly presents a unique opportunity for micropayments to blossom.

    There's increasing chatter about Facebook giving Google a run for its money. But in some ways it may also carry the torch once wielded by PayPal, which held a similar vision of a truly global currency.

    Discuss

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    Tue, 20 Jul 2010 23:53:43 -0700 The State of Internet Music on YouTube, Pandora, iTunes, and Facebook [Data] http://dearmedia.posterous.com/the-state-of-internet-music-on-youtube-pandor http://dearmedia.posterous.com/the-state-of-internet-music-on-youtube-pandor
    Gizmodo
    "The music business historically has been built around albums. This album-centrism is like saying the sun revolves around the Earth. We don't listen to albums now; we listen to collections of songs." More »


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    Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:18:55 -0700 Adobe to Roll Out New Publishing Software for Tablets http://dearmedia.posterous.com/adobe-to-roll-out-new-publishing-software-for http://dearmedia.posterous.com/adobe-to-roll-out-new-publishing-software-for
    Mashable!


    Adobe is working on a new kind of creative software specifically intended to help you publish digital magazines for tablet devices such as the iPad, the company revealed today.

    This new software, which will soon take its place in the Creative Suite pantheon, will be downloadable from Adobe Labs and will include tools that bridge the gap between print-oriented InDesign and software for interactive formats.

    The company’s goal is to make it simpler for more publishers to create and profit from tablet magazines like Wired’s hugely successful iPad offering. Wired used InDesign and a mix of other software to make its product.

    The new Adobe technologies will focus on mobile hardware-specific needs, including 360-degree image rotation and pinch/swipe gestural navigation for panning and zooming. This is currently accomplished through an AIR utility, the Interactive Overlay Creator. In future versions of InDesign, the Interactive Overlay Creator will be an integrated feature.

    Adobe is also making it easier to add mobile-friendly multimedia to slick, print-reminiscent layouts. From what we can see in a brief demo, it looks like designers will have a lot of fun taking an on-screen mockup to a .issue format magazine with relative ease. We can’t wait to try it out ourselves.

    Adobe will let you import layouts from InDesign to the new workflow. From there, you’ll be able to add metadata, experiment with portrait and landscape layouts, and export content to the .issue format — a brand-new, ready-to-render file for digital magazines.

    Here’s an overview of what Adobe is calling the Digital Magazine Workflow/Digital Content Builder:

    When the new software becomes available for download, you’ll also get some handy documentation showing you how to implement the digital content builder into your current workflow.

    And although the iPad is clearly the starting point for tablet magazine publishing, don’t think Adobe’s software will be limited to creating content for this device only; other tablets will also play nicely with Adobe-created digizines.

    Designers, what’s your opinion so far? Have any of you had the chance to play with this workflow yet?

    More About: adobe, Creative Suite, CS5, InDesign, ipad, magazine, Wired

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    Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:14:37 -0700 What Search Engines Could Do With Location Data http://dearmedia.posterous.com/what-search-engines-could-do-with-location-da http://dearmedia.posterous.com/what-search-engines-could-do-with-location-da
    ReadWriteWeb

    Foursquare says it's in talks with all the major search engines to index the startup's location data. We're hearing that Google in particular may be in talks with all the major players in the location based social networking market. What would a big search engine do with a little startup's check-ins and annotations about locations? Here are some ideas.

    The paid partnerships between Google, Microsoft and Yahoo with Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and more that were launched last Fall could provide a model, but location provides new opportunities, as well. Isn't it amazing that on a web so dependent on Google, there are emergent new kinds of websites so valuable they can charge giant search engines for their content? Here are some things Google might do with that content.

    Sponsor

    Real-time search

    Last Fall Google started including Tweets, fresh blog posts and more in a live scrolling box on the search results page for particularly hot search queries. Mobile location based social networks, their comments and tips, could help populate those kind of search results for certain keywords or venues.

    Searching for the big basketball game? Why not include the notes and tips of people checking in at the game right now in the results? Check-ins in general have a lot of potential. Google-backed social TV app Miso or entertainment check-in app GetGlue could power media check-ins that would make search results much fresher.

    Super Social Maps

    Why not annotate map search with live and archival location check-in notes, annotations, tips, etc? Imagine searching for directions to a venue and being told how many people and which friends were currently checked-in there on Loopt, Whrrl and Foursquare. Seeing not just restaurant reviews from CitySearch and Trip Advisor but quick tips from location networks? Sounds like a great idea to me.

    Mobile Search

    No need to go into too much detail about this: check-in app content would be a very logical addition to mobile search results. The growth of branded layers of content annotating locations means that a Google mobile search could become a search for nearby content published by the Independent Film Channel, the Huffington Post, etc. That makes mobile search and location networks more appealing for everyone.

    Privacy, monetization, relevance, personalization, temporal strategies and other matters still need to be figured out. These networks are still very small. The largest among them, Foursquare, has a reported 2 million users. That's less than 25% the size of StumbleUpon, for example. Just over 1/3 the size of curation blogging platform Tumblr.

    The potential for location based social networks is huge, though. And the search engines know it. That's why they are talking to the startups. For these little startups, this kind of monetization could be an important life-line to fund their continued innovation, too.

    Discuss

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    Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:11:41 -0700 Amazon eBooks starting to blow the cover off of hardcover sales http://dearmedia.posterous.com/amazon-ebooks-starting-to-blow-the-cover-off http://dearmedia.posterous.com/amazon-ebooks-starting-to-blow-the-cover-off
    The Next Web

    Over the last three months, Amazon has sold more eBooks than hardcovers through its Kindle service (i.e. not just being read on the Kindle device, but across devices).

    While paperbacks are still probably outselling eBooks (Amazon did not specify this) as Jeff Bezos was quoted as saying, “astonishing when you consider that we’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months.”

    143 eBooks were sold for every 100 hardcover books over the last 90 days, and in the last month alone, that number has risen to 180 eBooks for every 100 hardcover books. Also detailed in the press release:

  • Amazon sold more than 3x as many Kindle books in the first half of 2010 as in the first half of 2009.
  • On July 6, Hachette announced that James Patterson had sold 1.14 million e-books to date. Of those, 867,881 were Kindle books.
  • Five authors–Charlaine Harris, Stieg Larsson, Stephenie Meyer, James Patterson, and Nora Roberts–have each sold more than 500,000 Kindle books.
  • Of course, hardcovers still generally cost more than eBooks, so overall revenue may still be higher from hardcover books, but volume should quickly overcome the price difference if it continues on this path. Pretty astonishing stuff indeed.

    Certainly one of the major drivers over the last 90 days has been the introduction of the iPad (and Kindle for iPad) as well as the Kindle app for Android, not to mention the lower price of the Kindle itself. Amazon can’t be the only one that is happy to hear this news, as nearly all of the major booksellers at this point are firmly in the eBook game, as well as Apple and soon Google. To Amazon’s competitor’s ears, this is certainly an announcement that they will interpret as “a rising tide lifts all boats,” but is it, or is Amazon continuing to build a bigger lead?

    Think about the numbers here for a second and think how many hardcover books that Amazon probably sells in a month. Now consider that if this trend continues as Amazon is reporting, eBook sales (by number) will almost certainly be at least double that of hardcovers – with Amazon’s scale already, that’s going to be a very large number, and Amazon may just be widening a gap that it had firm control over for over for nearly two years.

    As our Alex Wilhelm pointed out last month, Amazon is obviously still killing it.

    (Note: Sales numbers do not include free downloads of Amazon’s 1.8 million out-of-copyright downloadable books.)

    Original title and link for this post: Amazon eBooks starting to blow the cover off of hardcover sales

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