46 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed


Get ready for Mashable‘s weekly roundup! This week, we’ve performed original Google+ analysis, prepared you for the Mac OS X Lion release, and pointed you toward the best fictional Twitter accounts. We’ve celebrated startups and mourned space shuttle finales.

So review the list of important resources you may have missed over the past week. Tune in for more great stories and tools coming at you sooner than you can say “Spotify.”


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Image courtesy of Flickr, webtreats.

More About: business, List, Lists, MARKETING, Mobile 2.0, social media, tech, technology

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40 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed


Whew! This week was awash with news. So, we transformed that news into advice, tips and how-to’s that you can reference for years to come.

Take Facebook’s video chat launch — we’ll guide you in setting it up. Or the space shuttle launch — we provide the Twitter accounts for dozens of astronauts and space experts. And Google+ has been on the minds of millions — we present its pros and cons. Mashable not only releases breaking news, we help you learn how to apply it to your business, your interests and your personal life.

If spare time for reading didn’t exactly factor into your busy week, here’s a roundup of resources that appeared on Mashable.


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42 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed


No doubt your summer celebrations this weekend will leave you little time to catch up on reading. To help you out, we’ve compiled a handy roundup of this week’s most helpful, informative and inspiring stories.

We’ve celebrated iPhone’s birthday, we’ve pondered celebrity impact on social good, and we’ve laughed over geeky gadgets. This week Mashable overflowed with engaging content. Find out what you missed!


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44 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed


Wow, we have a ton of resources this week. And we’re perfecting one of the most engaging ways to view news: the infographic. Our team loves them and we know you will too. Enjoy the infographic posts below.

We’ve also generated helpful How-Tos, gathered tons of apps and presented cutting-edge technology for your business. For a rich roundup of resources, search no further. We’ve got your back.

Looking for even more social media resources? This guide appears every weekend, and you can check out all the lists-gone-by here any time.


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47 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed


This week the weekly roundup delivers news, advice and trends aplenty. Searching for the next Facebook? Nervous about the security of mobile payment options? Eager to incorporate game-like incentives into your workplace? We’re here to satisfy your curiosity and fill you in on all that you may have missed this week.

Looking for even more social media resources? This guide appears every weekend, and you can check out all the lists-gone-by here any time.


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iPhone App Turns People You Meet in Person Into Facebook Friends


A new mobile app startup hopes to help you connect with people nearby on Facebook — by cutting down on the friction of the friend request.

The startup, Friendthem, has just released its free iPhone app [iTunes Link] that is designed to let people see the Facebook users around them and then send a friend request immediately, or file the request away for later.

In other words, it’s easy to friend someone at a meeting or a party — or to pretend that you’ll do so later.

We spoke with Friendthem founder Richard Passer about the app and why he believes that the friend request deserves to be “elevated to its proper status as the gateway to all social networking connections.”

Whether you meet someone at a bar, in the park or at a conference, friending that person on Facebook or following them on Twitter or Foursquare is now a common social norm. But the process of actually finding and sending a friend request can be complicated, thanks to the sheer number of people on Facebook. Searching for a common name like “Jason Smith” can yield dozens of results. If a users hasn’t shared their photos with non-friends, or updated their location recently, tracking that person down can be difficult.

So people who want to connect on Facebook can use Friendthem as kind of a hybrid meeting place. You get to control what information about yourself is shared with others. You choose whether your name or photo is displayed. You can decide to show off your hometown, or not.

Other users that have Friendthem installed and are close by can then see you in the app, and choose to initiate a friend request now or later.

This video shows the app in action:

The app doesn’t require any sign-up — simply login using Facebook and then choose what information you want to make visible. For users that don’t want to be listed in certain areas — like at the office or on vacation — Friendthem lets users create geo-fences, or areas where they will be hidden from the app.

Friendthem is different from apps like Hashable or Bump because the focus is on building relationships within Facebook. If you share any mutual friends with someone nearby, Friendthem will let you know.

Still, will users download and install yet another social app? Passer was optimistic on this point. He believes that the utility of Friendthem will outweigh the hassle of another download. We’re not convinced that’s true, but the fact that three users were found within our city block while testing the app — which has had zero publicity so far — could prove him right.

The app is out for iPhone now and an Android version will be released in the next few weeks. A Windows Phone app is also in the works.

In the future, Passer will also look at developing apps that connect users to other Twitter or Foursquare followers. For now, however, his focus is on Facebook.

In an ideal world, Facebook would open up its mobile API in such a way that users could opt to use Friendthem from a standard Facebook app, and then just by having Facebook for iPhone or Android installed, Friendthem users could send requests.

For now, however, it’s an idea with promise. The “Friendthem Later” feature is particularly nice because it tags the location where the person was located with the request — great for those nights when you can’t remember who you met or where.

Sending a friend request in the app takes place using the standard Facebook mobile API. Users still have to send a message and confirm the request, so accidentally sending friend requests shouldn’t be a problem.

If Friendthem can gain a critical mass of users, we could see this being an app we would use every day.

What do you think about using location-aware technology to help aid in friend requests? Let us know in the comments.

More About: facebook, friend request, friendthem, iphone apps

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4 Rules of Engagement for Mobile Marketing

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Carla Paschke is Director of Mobile Innovation at Engauge where she is responsible for providing best-in-class mobile strategies for clients, including Coca-Cola and Chick-fil-A. Follow her on Twitter @carlapaschke.

Smartphones, the most powerful data-collection tools ever created, don’t just tell brands what consumers want but where consumers are. Sometimes they even tell brands what consumers are doing at different times of the day.

Location, activity and time are a powerful combination, however, many companies, in a rush to seize a toehold in the exploding mobile market, mistakenly focus on the technology instead of the people using it.

Their messages lack relevancy and consumers filter them out the mobile equivalent of telemarketing. To be relevant to consumers, and to slip past the filter, companies must shift their approach to mobile marketing.

Consumers no longer passively participate in campaigns. Instead, they respond in real time, influencing both the scope and direction of promotions. It’s a two-way conversation. It’s not enough to release a sparkly new mobile app. Innovative applications are important, of course, but brands have to do more.

Brands have to motivate people to act by designing campaigns as dynamic and flexible as the mobile market, which now includes search, social, video, music, gaming, payments, retail transactions, location-based services and augmented reality.

Brands need a deep understanding of how mobile apps can drive views, downloads and checkins, and how to schedule specific calls-to-action around release dates, product trials and related campaigns, both on and offline.

Brands need real-time information monitoring from mobile apps and social media to get a broad perspective. They also need to zoom down to ground level, tailoring the user experience on an individual level.

Further, brands must build these new mobile capabilities atop a solid strategic foundation. Rather than developing a series of one-offs, brands should consider how their mobile applications integrate with the mobile web.

With all this in mind, here are four cardinal rules to consider.


1. Send Useful Signals, Not Meaningless Static


According to Gartner, the mobile advertising market is expected to double to $3.3 billion in 2011 and swell to $20.6 billion by 2015. Yet many of these mobile ads will never be seen. Bombarded by emails, Facebook status updates and tweets, consumers are overwhelmed by noise.

This dynamic isn’t going to change. A wise brand strategy, then, swims within the current instead of against it, presenting itself as a useful component of the filtering process.

Mobile isn’t a channel for disruption. For example, if you’re a brand targeting dieters or health-conscious consumers, develop an app to filter the latest research on super foods or the latest cancer discoveries.


2. Create Two-Way Conversations to Build Brand Value


From a messaging standpoint, the great novelty and power of a mobile device is context: A mobile phone is the only consumer appliance that knows where it is at all times.

Companies can unlock that power by sending hyper-targeted messages based on narrow windows of opportunity or location. But the process shouldn’t end there. Brands and their agency partners need to know how to get consumers to talk back, to register their preferences in low-key, frictionless ways.

Multi-billion-dollar companies have been built atop algorithms tied to small clickable buttons — think about the “Like” button on Facebook, or the “Was this review helpful to you?” button on Amazon. For Amazon, simply adding that question to each product page brought in $2.7 billion of additional yearly revenue. When people see that their input actually does have some effect, they appreciate it and come back. The more they register their preferences, the more trust brands will build.


3. Socialize the Content & Campaign With Conversation


As social networks have become seamlessly integrated into the rituals of daily life, it’s not surprising to see that the social network market has become saturated.

Overall growth is slowing. In 2010, 134.6 million people used social networks across any technology platform each month, and in 2011, that number will rise by a little more than 3%, according to eMarketer. But consider that social networking is now the fastest-growing mobile activity.

Brands need to take this shift into account as consumers get in the habit of checking Facebook on the run and ignoring brands that don’t respect the coin of the Facebook realm: direct interaction.

Facebook is a tool for conversations. Ad campaigns are conversations too. This is a nice coincidence and a useful one to any brand that knows how to effectively integrate the sometimes chaotic feedback that comes streaming in from this new class of smartphone-liberated consumers, jabbing at their phones in stores, schools, trains and homes.


4. Understand and Apply Usage Data


By combining three types of mobile data — location, activity and time — it’s now possible for marketers to assemble a subtle and detailed picture of consumer behavior, one that also takes into account the shifting personas of consumers. A mom, for instance, is a different person at 7 a.m. when she’s getting the kids ready for school, than she is at 9:00 a.m. when she gets to the office.

Can a savvy marketer shift her message to stay relevant to that mom within a few hours? Relevancy is both the challenge and the opportunity of the revolutionary data-collection capabilities of smartphones.


Image courtesy of iStockphoto, fotosipsak, and Flickr, mag3737

More About: business, engagement, MARKETING, Mobile 2.0, smartphone

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51 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed

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Hello and welcome back to Mashable‘s weekly roundup of tool and resources for your daily life. This week we have some cool stories on how to start marketing on SCVNGR, social media campaign case studies, top announcements from both E3 and Apple’s developer conference as well as a gallery of Google’s best animated doodles.

Looking for even more social media resources? This guide appears every weekend, and you can check out all the lists-gone-by here any time.


Editors’ Picks



Social Media


For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.


Tech & Mobile


For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.


Business & Marketing


For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.


Image courtesy of Flickr, webtreats

More About: business, facebook, Features Week In Review, gadgets, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, social good, social media, tech, technology, twitter

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50 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed

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Mashable‘s back this week with another whopping list of tools and resources for your digital life.

This week we have stories about how to make a 3D video using YouTube, a look back at the history of WordPress and some great May roundups like the most shared stories on Mashable and the top 20 most shared ads.

Looking for even more social media resources? This guide appears every weekend, and you can check out all the lists-gone-by here any time.


Editors’ Picks



Social Media


For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.


Tech & Mobile


For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.


Business & Marketing


For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.


Image courtesy of Flickr, ansik

More About: business, facebook, Features Week In Review, gadgets, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, social good, social media, tech, technology, twitter

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Groupon, LivingSocial Launch Realtime Deals Battle in New York


Groupon and LivingSocial plan to battle in the New York market with competing local daily deals services.

Groupon’s expansion, which started Wednesday, builds upon the May 20 debut of Groupon Now in Chicago, Groupon’s hometown. Groupon Now also launched in San Francisco on Wednesday.

LivingSocial, meanwhile, plans to introduce its Instant Deals platform in New York on June 8. New York will be Instant Deals’ second market after Washington, D.C., LivingSocial’s hometown. LivingSocial plans to offer $1 lunch deals to kick off the service, a strategy it used in Washingon, D.C. in April. The new offerings from both broadcast short-term deals (lasting a few hours or all day) to users’ mobile phones when they’re nearby.

In New York, Groupon will offer deals with Artichoke Basille’s Pizza and Brewery, Infinity Shoes and Butter Lane Cupcakes. In San Francisco, Groupon’s partners include Gaspare’s Pizza House & Italian Restaurant, Georgiou Studio and Frankie’s Bohemian Cafe. LivingSocial has not named its partnering vendors.

Groupon and Living Social first revealed their local daily deals platforms in March. The two face competing entries from Facebook and AT&T, among others.

Image courtesy of Flickr, wwarby

More About: att, daily deals, facebook, groupon, Groupon Now, LivingSocial, Mobile 2.0

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