We’ve reported on the story about Drew Olanoff, who was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year and started a campaign to raise money for LIVESTRONG, auctioning the Twitter name @drew to the highest bidder. Drew Carey bid $25,000 for the name, and additionally said he’ll donate $100,000(if he managed to reach 100,000 followers at his Twitter account, @drewfromtv, by Nov. 9th), and then raised the bid to 1 million dollarsif he can reach 1 million followers by the end of the year. Reaching one million followers is no small feat, so Drew Olanoff built a website, located at milliondollardrew.com, to promote the campaign. Visually, it’s somewhat similar to the old Million Dollar Homepage(anyone still remember that project?), only instead of tiny pixelated images, it consists of Twitter images. We’ve no doubt that the project will be a success. Carey said that he’ll donate as many dollars as @drewfromtv gets followers, so even if it doesn’t make one million, LIVESTRONG will still get a hefty donation, but we certainly hope it will.Reviews: TwitterTags: Drew, drew carey, drew olanoff
Personally, I prefer the old school horror-movie, large-scissors-in-your-back style costumes for Halloween. But if you’re not the morbid type, why not dress up into your Facebook profile thisyear? Halloween is coming soon, it’s time to start preparing!It’s really not that hard; the idea is to slap a poster of your Facebook profile onto a whiteboard, and attach it to your body with a belt. Of course, if you’re the creative type, you’ll figure out advanced ways to do it, but even this basic setup will do just fine. And yes, don’t forget to cut out a large hole for your head (and the head of anyone else who wants to take a picture of you). Make sure you add funny/fake bits to the actual text on the profile screenshot; for me, this is probably the only chance to be the weekly winner of Music Challenge. The folks over at reface.me found no less than 50 Halloween costume ideas; you can see our selection below. Reviews: FacebookTags: facebook, Halloween costumes
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announced today that Twitter will launch two wines – a Pinot Noir and a Chardonnay –in partnership with Room to Read, a San Francisco-based non-profit that helps improve literacy rates in poor countries.Stone describes the project, titled “Fledgling Wine“, in the video below. It’s certainly a departure from the site’s microblogging roots, but all for a good cause. What do you think: will you buy a Twitterwine? Let us know in the comments.Reviews: TwitterTags: twitter
Each Friday we choose a Lunchtime Polltopic to get a sense of how Mashable readers feel about the chosen topic of the week. Below are the results from last Friday’s poll, where we asked your favorite iPhone apps.Is your favorite app not represented in the list? Let us know in the comments! And to make sure your vote counts next time, be sure to check back tomorrow for the next edition of the Lunchtime Poll.Top 10 Mashable Reader iPhone Apps10. Tweetdeck9. Twitterrific8. Pandora7. Jaadu VNC6. Kindle for iPhone5. Echofon4. Evernote3. Tweetie2. Shazam1. FacebookInterestingly, 4 of the top 10 were Twitter clients. Shazam surprised me at number 2 — apparently Mashable readers are always forgetting the name of that song(we kid — the app does have other nice social sharing features too). But the grand prize winner in the poll was easily Facebook, who trounced everyone else handily by a wide margin.Were there any surprises for you in the top 10?Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ericsphotographyReviews: Echofon, Evernote, Facebook, Kindle for Iphone, Mashable, Pandora, Shazam, TweetDeck, Twitter, Twitterrific, iStockphoto, tweetieTags: apple, apple iphone, iphone, iphone apps, polls
Fed up of Balloon Boyalready? You’ve got a long road ahead of you: the story of Falcon Heene, who the world’s media believed to be flying over Colorado in a helium balloon as he hid in an attic, has rapidly become the next big Internet meme. Twitter users – perhaps pushing the boundaries of good taste – have taken to mashing up the Kanye West“Imma let you finish” joke with the balloon boy meme, with mixed results. Meanwhile, there’s a Zazzle store selling Balloon Boy t-shirts.Perhaps the funniest reaction to the story we’ve seen comes from Facebook, however: a Facebook status update and subsequent comments evolved into a rewrite of the theme tune to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The result is nothing short of hilarious:Fresh Prince of the Air: Facebook Thread[via Reddit]Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, reddit.comTags: balloon boy, facebook, falcon heene
Now that Balloon Boy is safe, it’s been revealed his family participated in reality TV show Wife Swap, and there’s even a t-shirtabout the whole affair, the question seems to be turning to: was this whole thing a hoax?An interview this evening on CNN is raising all sorts of questions and is likely to be making the rounds well into the night. Asked why he didn’t respond to his family calling his name, Falcon says, “you guys [his parents] said we did this for the show.” His parents, seemingly stunned by the answer, quickly try to change the story.The video’s embedded below. What do you think: has the media been punk’d by Balloon Boy? Share your thoughts in the comments.Tags: balloon boy, falcon heene, video
This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.Name: TwitoasterQuick Pitch: Twitoaster is a Twitter service. It threads and archives your Twitter conversations, bringing you all the background, context, and statistics you need. Genius Idea: One of the best features that third-party Twitter clients like Tweetie offer is threaded tweets. This makes it much easier to go back and follow a conversation. Twitoaster brings enhanced tweet-threading to the web in a searchable, manageable way and also provides analytics and statistics.We mentioned Twitoaster in our post about becoming a Twitter Analystbecause of its analytical value. Twitoaster compares stats from users across the service to show the total number of replies a user gets each week and ranks those replies to tweets ratio overall and in various categories. Twitoaster is also able to show off the daily and hourly peaks for replies.In addition to providing analytics and visual threading, Twitoaster archives all of your replied conversations so that you can go back to search and access them later. This can be really helpful, as New York Times columnist David Poguefound out when compiling tweets for his book about Twitter. Because Twitter doesn’t keep an archive of everything, Pogue was able to use Twitoaster to go back to conversations and find the tweets he wanted to highlight and mention in his book.Twitoaster also has an APIthat allows developers to integrate its features into their own applications. The Twitoaster WordPress pluginwas built using the API and it offers a way for blog owners to post tweets responding to their blog entries inline in their WordPress entries. You can also display two analytics widgets on your site to show off how many replies you generate.The combination of search, archiving, analytics and visual way of better following conversation threads makes Twitoaster a great tool for any Twitteruser’s toolbox.Have you used Twitoaster? What are some of your favorite Twitter tools? Let us know!Spark of Genius Series Sponsored by Microsoft BizSparkBizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platformfor their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest– use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”Reviews: PHP, Twitter, WordPress, tweetieTags: twitoaster, twitter, twitter tools
Now that the so-called “Balloon Boy” has been foundalive and well (in his family’s attic, not in the balloon), the story is quickly morphing into an amusing Internet meme, complete with its own Kanye jokes. Of course, the smartest of Internet meme chasers are trying to make a dollar out of the whole thing with merchandise.And as such, the “Go Falcon, Go!” t-shirt is now available on Zazzle, featuring the floating jiffy pop popcorn bag that the entire nation seemingly had its eyes fixated onthis afternoon. College Humor also has its own clever take on the whole story, complete with references to the massive influence it had in the world of social media:Seen other clever takes on the balloon boy story? Share your favorites in the comments.Tags: balloon boy, internet memes
Back in March, well-known tech icon and Digg Founder Kevin Rose made some waves in the Twittersphere when he launched WeFollow, a user-generated Twitter directory. Anyone on Twitter could be added and categorized by tweeting at @WeFollow and using relevant hashtags to describe the person (#tech, #entrepreneur, #celebrity, etc.). It was an interesting experiment by Rose. And, with his massive Twitter reach, it quickly became a hit in the Twittersphere. That was March. Since then, WeFollow has shed more than half of its initial traffic, according to Compete. But while we haven’t heard anything new about WeFollow for months, we have noticed a subtle change to WeFollow.com: the copyright message has changed. It looks like WeFollow is now the property of Digg.The following image is from the footer of WeFollow.com on March 22nd, not long after they launched. You’ll notice that the copyright is attributed to WeFollow.Image Credit:Shinyaivia FlickrWe’ve also confirmed that the copyright was attributed to WeFollow in June of this year as well. Now, take a look at the footer of WeFollow.com as it is presently:Sometime between June and now, the copyright, and most likely the ownership, of WeFollow transferred to the social voting service. This raises a lot of interesting questions that we’d like to have answered:- Was WeFollow its own company originally? Did it have any association with Digg when it first launched?- Did Digg acquire Kevin Rose’s side project? If so, did it involve a payment or stock?- Why was this done under-the-radar? - Does Digg plan to do anything with WeFollow? If so, what?WeFollow has a wealth of information on Twitter users and still gets a respectable amount of traffic. Digg could utilize that to really push into the Twitter space, but it’s tough to tell. The company clearly didn’t want to publicize the change, but exactly why we don’t know.We’re currently awaiting a response from Digg to clarify some of our questions.Reviews: Digg, Flickr, Twitter, WeFollowTags: digg, kevin rose, twitter, wefollow
Update: It appears this feature is only available to a “small group” of users right now (though Twitter’s expanding it), who were also told “not to tweet about it” in the banner atop their pages. We missed that in our excitement. Sorry about that.Twitter appears to be in the midst of rolling out its new “Lists” featurethat allows users to create a list of people that others can follow with one-click.To create a list, just go to your Twitter page, where there’s now a section on the right-hand sidebar called “Lists.” Click “New List” and you’re on your way to giving your followers an easy way to follow your favorite Twitter users.There are a couple different ways to add people to a list. You can either browse through the list of people you follow, which can be quite cumbersome if you follow a lot of people, or, you can just visit their profiles one-by-one and add them to the list of your choice, using a new “Lists” pull-down that appears in user profiles. Currently, there doesn’t appear to be a way to simply list usernames in order to quickly build a list, which would be handy.Want to know what lists include you? Now, next to your Follower and Following count is a “Lists” count, replacing what used to be your “Tweets” count (which has been made smaller and bumped up above these three numbers). Click on this number and you’ll get a page showing the lists that follow you and the lists that you are following.This is essentially taking the whole concept of “Follow Friday” and building a killer feature around it. It doesn’t appear to be live for everyone yet, but I’ve created a team Mashable list that you can try to check out here. Reviews: Mashable, TwitterTags: twitter
The Internet has been captivated by news of a balloon flying over Coloradothis afternoon that was believed to be carrying a 6-year-old boy. Fortunately, this story has a happy ending: the boy has been found safe and at home. As the story has been developing, more details have emerged. The boy’s name is Falcon Heene, and his family was featured on the ABC reality show Wife Swap. His father, Richard Heene, is known to be a storm chaser.Additionally, a number of videos featuring the family are surfacing on the Web. Below, a clip from ABC News about his family’s storm chasing fascination, an apparent music video made from Wife Swap footage, and a video that Richard Heene uploaded to CNN’s iReport. Richard Heene’s iReport VideoHeene Family on ABC NewsBalloon Boy on Wife Swap
In an interesting about-face, Apple has apparently just opened up in-app purchases to free iPhone apps. Previously, in-app purchases had only been available to paid apps, leading to a situation in which developers had to create two versions of the same app if they wanted to offer a trial version of a paid app. Customers had no way of upgrading without downloading a second program, and no way to share data between the two versions of the app.The change will be a boon to developers, who can now offer a direct upgrade from trial versions as well as offer virtual item sales within popular free apps. That’s been a lucrative source of revenue for some developers following the free to play, pay for virtual goodsbusiness model growing more widely popular in the video game industry. That Apple has brought that possibility to its insanely popular mobile platform, and now improved it significantly, is surely good news for companies out there trying to capitalize on the App Store economy. Have you made any in-app purchases yet? If so, what did you pick up?Reviews: App StoreTags: apple, gaming, in-app purchases, iphone, microtransactions, Mobile 2.0, virtual goods
Earlier this year, part of the royalty-collecting arm of the music industry ASCAP sued AT&T. Their argument? That each time a cellphone ringtone goes off, you’re listening to a performance of that song — a performance that requires a royalty payment to ASCAP.Thankfully, federal judge Denise Cote has ruled that a ringtone going off does not constitute a public performance, because the carrier has no way to control when a ringtone plays nor any expectation of revenue when it does.She also said there was no way to determine whether the threshold for “public performance” would be met for any particular ringtone playback, since it usually requires a “substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of its social acquaintances is gathered.”That means carriers won’t have to pay royalties on ringtone plays. It also has implications for another recent suit we reported on recently, in which the music industry is seeking royalties on 30-second song previewsand performance fees for TV show downloads. Part of the language in the judge’s ruling also considered a ringtone download as not being a public performance either, which could set a precedent for the other suit in which ASCAP/BMI are seeking royalties on downloads.These types of lawsuits seem to indicate that the royalty organizations are very much feeling the squeeze as the overall music industry faces dropping sales and financial decline. What do you think — are ASCAP simply doing their jobs to try and replace lost revenue? Or are they reaching too far? Image via Music ToolsTags: ASCAP, att, BMI, cell carriers, lawsuits, Mobile 2.0, music industry, ringtones
Google is out with its latest earnings report, and, while not demonstrating the type of growth we were used to seeing several years ago, the company is still putting money in the bank at a healthy clip. For the search giant’s third quarter, they reported $5.7 billion revenue, up 7% from the same time last year. Moreover, the company generated $2.54 billion in free cash flow during the quarter, bringing the company’s total cash on hand to a staggering $22 billion.The significance of that, of course, is that it gives Google a war chest rivaled only by the likes of Apple and Microsoft to continue to invest in new products and make acquisitions. The company says as much in its earnings release, stating “we expect to continue to make significant capital expenditures.”There are already a number of majorly ambitious Google projects in the early stages requiring vast resources: Google Wave, Google Voice, Google Chrome OS, and Google Caffeine, just to name a few. With that type of money in the bank, they can certainly to continue investing in them for the long haul.Meanwhile, CEO Eric Schmidt offered some positive comments on the overall outlook for Google and the economy, saying “While there is a lot of uncertainty about the pace of economic recovery, we believe the worst of the recession is behind us and now feel confident about investing heavily in our future.”So far, Wall Street seems to be reacting positively to the news: shares are up about $11 since the news was released a little after 4pm ET. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, tforgoReviews: Google, Google Voice, Google Wave, iStockphotoTags: Google
