Popular social media destination Digg is no stranger to video production. In fact, they have five different video shows that go out mostly on a weekly basis, best known of which is Diggnation, where Digg founder Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht discuss most popular stories on Digg.Now, at DiggTV, you can follow all five shows at one place. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but for Digg fans it’s a nice one-stop shop for all their Digg video needs. Besides Diggnation, the shows include the Digg Reel, in which Andrew Bancroft covers top videos on the web, Diggcetera, which is a mashup of various Digg videos, Digg Townhall, in which Kevin Rose and Digg CEO Jay Adelson answer questions from the Digg community. Finally, perhaps the most interesting show is Digg Dialogg, which features interviews with stars such as Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Tony Hawk. Reviews: DiggTags: Digg.tv
Prices? What prices? Doesn’t Google give out everything for free, one may ask? Relax. We’re talking about extra storage; for example if free storage that comes with Picasa Web Albums or Gmail isn’t enough for you, you can purchase extra storage space for a price. Today, Google is dramatically slashing that price. You can now buy 20 GB for $5 a year, which is pretty darned cheap compared to the old price: 10 GB for 20 bucks per year. Furthermore, Google has increased the amount of storage you can purchase. If you have a lot (we really mean a lot) of family photos, you can store them all at Google’s servers in the clouds, as the cap is now 16 terabytes. Extra storage will act as an overflow for the free storage, meaning it only starts being used when you reach the limit of free storage. If you already have an extra storage plan, it will be automatically upgraded.Tags: cloud, Google, storage
Back in June, popular Twitter desktop app TweetDeckmade a splash when it launched its iPhone app. It was significant, as it was the first Twitter iPhone app to integrate with a desktop version and it provided a very real challenger to the TweetieiPhone app. Since then, there have not been major updates to the app, while Tweetie got a whole new version. Now TweetDeck is fighting back with its first major update (v. 1.1.1), one that includes full integration with Facebook.This Update is Chock Full of New FeaturesLet’s start with the biggest addition to TweetDeck for iPhone: Facebookintegration. Just like the desktop app, you can create Facebook columns, read status updates, write on walls, add comments, and update your Facebook status. By all accounts, it is a major addition that seamlessly integrates Twitter and Facebook into one iPhone app.That’s not the only new thing about this app, though. It also boasts integration with 12seconds.tv. For those with the iPhone 3Gs, you can now record and send out 12 second videos through your Twitter and Facebook accounts. The ability to see trending topics has also been added, as well as Bit.ly support and the ability to save drafts.Finally, for those who really hate typing on the shortened iPhone keyboard, TweetDeck now includes landscape support. Yes, thee have a been a ton of additions, and they’re all very nice.When Tweetie 2 launched, it took a giant leap ahead of TweetDeck for iPhone in terms of features and support. That is no longer the case. In fact, TweetDeck’s Facebook integration is a major differentiation point from the Tweetie 2 app. The debate over which Twitter iPhone app is best has been reopened.If you want to learn more about TweetDeck for iPhone’s new features, the company has included a useful demo video, embedded below: Reviews: Facebook, TweetDeck, Twitter, tweetieTags: iphone, tweetdeck, twitter
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: GraphiteQuick Pitch: Graphite is an easy-to-use web-based application that allows individuals to calculate calorie intake and expenditures.Genius Idea: Keeping track of what you eat and how many calories you burn is the key to losing or maintaining weight. Graphite takes a fast, no-nonsense approach to logging and graphing your caloric and exercise information.Graphite is a caloric tracking tool that makes it extremely easy to record and keep track of what you are eating, how many calories you are burning (based on your daily activities) and what your different caloric and fitness goals need to be in order to achieve a certain weight.What we like about Graphite is that the interface is very, very clean and easy to use. There aren’t lots of options or buttons; you just have access to you information and your dietary goals. You can enter in what you eat and Graphite’s library of food sources will pull up results in real time that you can add to keep track of your calorie counts. Likewise, you can add in your exercise regimes to track the calories you are burning.Graphite comes with tools that tell you what your daily caloric baseline is for maintaining your current weight. You can then set goals for how much weight you want to lose and see your caloric numbers change accordingly. You have access to graphs that chart your weight, exercise and caloric intake over time and you can see how you are progressing towards your goals.You can sign up for a 30-day free trial of Graphite but after that, the service is $5 a month or $50 a year to use. For users who want an easy, cruft-free way to track dietary changes, Graphite is a great option.Do you track your diet and energy regimes? What tools do you use? Let us know in the comments.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: PHPTags: diet tools, graphite, health, weight loss
One of the hottest trends right now is the rise of location-based services(LBS), which helps friends network and find each other based on their location. Foursquareand Looptare prime examples of these growing networks.Google has its own LBS service as well: Google Latitude. Today, the search giant announced some major additions to Latitude that bring it in line with its fast-rising competitors. Primarily, Google Latitude has added location history and location-based alerts.Locationhistoryis fairly straightforward: Google will store all of your past locations and will use that information to create visual histories of your trips and adventures via Google Maps. If you take a bike ride across Indiana for example, you can track the route you took along with the times in which you arrived.The other feature is Google Location Alerts, which sends you notifications when your friends are nearby via email or SMS. To make sure you don’t get a text every time you go to work and see your Google Latitude-using co-workers, Latitude utilizes your location history to eliminate notifications when you’re in a location you regularly visit. It even incorporates time, so if you’re at work but at 3 AM, you’ll get notifications once again.Google Needs to Push Apple for a Latitude AppBoth features are good additions to Latitude, but we can’t help but feel that Google’s coming short in the LBS space. While Latitude has an Android app, it doesn’t have an iPhone equivalent, just a mobile site. This leaves Latitude without the ability to send push notifications, a major reason why Foursquare has been a red-hot product.For Latitude to make deeper inroads, we believe that it needs an iPhone app. There is a complete difference to the user when they download an app versus opening it up in the mobile web. It could even automatically send your location utilizing the same method that Loopt is testing. Google could turn into an even stronger competitor in the LBS space.Whether Apple would cave into Google pressure is, of course, another matter. They’ve told Google that they didn’t want a Latitude app, and the search giant complied. Things have changed though, especially in the relationship between the two companies. Thus we wonder if Google should now try to force Apple’s hand, especially in light of the Google Voice debacle.Reviews: Android, Foursquare, Google, Google MapsTags: Google, lbs, Location Google Latitude, location-based service
In an age where privacy is becoming increasingly hard to come by, the British government is further hastening its demise for citizens in the UK. According to The Telegraph, all internet service providers and telecommunication companies will be legally required to store records of all personal communications for one year.Moreover, that data will be made available to a wide range of 653 public bodies including police, fire and ambulance services, the Financial Services Authority, prison governors and local councils. Obtaining access to the data won’t even require the permission of a judge; authorization from a senior police official or equivalent department head at a local authority will suffice.The original plan, named rather ominously the “Intercept Modernisation Programme,” was to create a single government in-house database to compile and store all the data, but widespread opposition and privacy concerns held officials back from that brink. Nevertheless the new legislation, slated to come before Parliament after the next general election, will dramatically increase the amount and types of personal communications data that can be relatively easily obtained. And of course, UK taxpayers will be footing the bill for all that storage, tothe tune of £2 billion over the next 10 years.All of this is, of course, under the guise of fighting terrorism. Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling indicated one of the many problems with the sweeping legislation is the potential for “mission creep,” in which new powers introduced ostensibly for one purpose “end up being used for completely different purposes. We have to stop that from happening.”What do you think about the new UK law? How much access is too much? Let us know in the comments.Image courtesy of iStockphoto, NikadaReviews: iStockphotoTags: COMMUNICATIONS, isps, law, legislation, privacy, uk
One of the core philosophies of Google, and one of the reasons it has been so successful, is efficiency. It’s about both being as efficient as possible when serving search results and processing data and creating product that push the limits of efficiency for the user (as an example, Google’s trying to make communication more efficient with Google Wave).Maybe that’s why we’re not surprised that Google is finally looking to tackle the underpinning code that runs the web. Today the search giant released Go, an open-source development language that Google believes will combine performance with speed, and one that the company probably hopes will reshape the development and software industries in its favor.Go is based on the C programming family, one of the most widely used programming language trees in the world. However, the twist is that incorporates elements of Python (a preferred development language within Google) and the Pascal/Modula/Oberon family to make faster and more dynamic programs.Why Did Google Make Its Own Language?In its Go FAQ, Google explains the main motivations behind the project:“No major systems language has emerged in over a decade, but over that time the computing landscape has changed tremendously. There are several trends:- Computers are enormously quicker but software development is not faster.- Dependency management is a big part of software development today but the “header files” of languages in the C tradition are antithetical to clean dependency analysis—and fast compilation.- There is a growing rebellion against cumbersome type systems like those of Java and C++, pushing people towards dynamically typed languages such as Python and JavaScript.- Some fundamental concepts such as garbage collection and parallel computation are not well supported by popular systems languages.- The emergence of multicore computers has generated worry and confusion.”Summary: Google believes that the web and computing have changed dramatically in the last ten years, but the languages powering that computing have not. But when you get down to it, Google could benefit a great deal from not only having a more efficient programming language, but having one it designed being used in thousands web and software apps.If you want to learn more, Google (as usual) has released a detailed, hour-long Google Tech Talk on the new language (embedded below). However, if you’re a developer and just want to get started, we suggest checking out the Go Tutorialand writing your first program.Reviews: GoogleTags: developer, development, Go, Google, programming, trending
Typekittakes a cloud-based approach to fonts on the web, serving up an extensive library of designer fonts that be incorporated into a site simply by dropping in a line of code. We first wrote about itback in May when the project was first announced, and now the service is live. What that means is web designers can get easy access to creative fonts without having to spend the time preparing images or Flash files to render them, ideally resulting in time and cost savings in the design stage. It should also provide a more lightweight experience for your web server, because it won’t have to serve up the comparatively heavyweight image or Flash files to render a variety of design-quality fonts.It also means all that text will be searchable and indexable by Google instead of locked up in an image or Flash file. That means a search engine optimization boost could be in store for sites that opt for Typekit, as well as better accessibility which makes for improved user experience. The caveat attached to all the benefits is that only browsers that support the CSS @font-face rule will be able to serve Typekit’s fonts. That means support is limited to Firefox 3.5 and up, Safari 3.4 and up, and Internet Explorer version 5 and up. That could rule out its adoption by webmasters whose sites must support older and legacy browsers.Typekit is employing a freemium business model, with a non-expiring “Trial” tier you can access for free with certain limitations (5 GB monthly bandwidth, smaller font selection, only 1 site and 2 fonts per site supported, and a Typekit badge required). Personal plans start at $24.99 per year with two more tiers above that and negotiable enterprise pricing available as well.What do you think of the cloud-based approach to font serving? For the web designers and developers in the house, is this a service that tempts you? Why or why not?Reviews: Firefox, Google, Internet Explorer, SafariTags: accessibility, cloud computing, CSS, fonts, typekit, web, web design
This sounds like our worst nightmare, but a WiFi Body Scalehas hit the market, and it’s designed to auto-tweet your every weigh-in along with the number of pounds you need to gain or lose to reach your goal.The enhanced $159.99 scale is available for purchase from the manufacturer’s website. Previously able to record weight data and track it via an iPhone app, the addition of auto-tweeting is apparently a motivational feature to keep you focused on your weight-loss (or gain) goals.Should this seemingly outlandish functionality appeal to you, you can configure your Twitter account for auto-posting on a per weigh-in, daily, weekly, or monthly basis after the initial Twitter activation process. The scale records your body weight, lean & fat mass (ouch), and body mass index, all of which is posted to your personal webpage and/or the iPhone application. If you opt to enable auto-tweeting, your tweet will include your current weight and how many pounds you need to lose or gain until you reach your goal. The scale also can track up to eight users per month, so if you and your friends have no shame about your respective weight goals, you could use Twitter and the WiFi Body Scale to start a fitness competition with the world as your witness.I personally can’t think of anything more humiliating than posting my weigh-ins as progress reports to Twitter, but should the tweeting WiFi body scale appeal to you, let us know in the comments.Here’s an older video demonstration of how the scale works to track your progress over time online:Reviews: TwitterTags: auto-tweet, twitter, wifi body scale
Mashable is proud to announce our 2nd Annual MashBash SXSWi, an evening celebration during Austin’s annual South By Southwest festival. On Sunday, March 14th 2010 from 10pm till 1am, Mashable will be hosting an official SXSWievening event at Buffalo Billiards in Austin, Texas. Last year, Mashable packed a 600 person venue, so this year, due to popular demand we’ve reserved one of the largest venues in Austin. The venue capacity is 1,600 and will be set up with WiFi, a game room, a stage for a music act and a 2 hour open bar… so get ready for a night of excitement, networking and music.We will be working with our sponsors from now until after the event, to continue the great buzz for everyone attending, work on some great giveaways and also provide the most unique and memorable SXSWi night ever. So, if you want to be one of our sponsors, contact us now at sxsw (at) mashable (dotcom)Reviews: MashableTags: MashBash, sxsw, sxswi
Open Web Awards Nominations will remain open until 11:59 pm ET on Sunday, November 15th. Submit your nominations here.Ah, Twitter. Out of all the web-related companies, we’ve probably talked about Twitter the most throughout 2009, but we’ve had a very good reason. Twitteris more than just another startup; it’s a communications platform, a service that promises to one day become the new SMS. It’s the talk of the town, and it’s been in the spotlight throughout the entire year. The numbers say it all: Twitter has been growingalmost exponentially throughout most of 2008 and 2009, and it has become an important part of life for everyone who wants their voice to be heard. And heard it was. Because of Twitter’s immense growth in popularity, many companies started introducing social media policies, many of which banned the use of the service. Individuals like Chad Ochocincoprotested the practice, causing a huge controversy – and even more popularity for Twitter. Most importantly, it escaped the realm of technology and entered the mainstream; with TV hosts, famous actors and athletes tweeting, it’s become a part of our everyday life. Twitter was also one of the most important places to get real-time news in 2009. When a plane crashed into the Hudson river, or the San Francisco Bay Bridge was closed down, where did we learn about it (and see first photos of it)? Twitter. And don’t forget all those funny tweets or nuggets of wisdom you’ve picked up there. Still, when you think about Twitter, its most important feat is simplicity. It has enabled thousands of developers to tap into this source of information and create applications that extend Twitter’s functionality. That’s why this year, Mashable Open Web Awards has an entire categorydevoted to Twitter, the apps around it, and the people that use it. Now’s the time to vote for your favorites!Vote for your favoritesWe’d like to know your choices for Best News Source to Follow, Funniest Tweet, Tweet of the Year, Best Twitter App, Most Interesting Twitter User to Follow, and Twitter User of the Yearin this year’s Open Web Awards.The nominating process is simple, just visit the Open Web Awardssite, sign in with Twitter or Facebook, and tell us your favorites. Nominations will remain open until 11:59 PM, ET on Sunday, November 15th.Some of the leaders in the Twitter categories so far are (in no particular order):Best News Source to Follow- @BreakingNews- @Statesman- Tweetepedia- @CNN- @ivetesangalo- @TheFeed- @Causecast- @TheOnion- @FingertipNews- TweetPortalFunniest Tweet- @Shitmydadsays- @Serafinowicz- @Ivetesangalo- @JonathanRKnight- @ricky_martin- @BlakeShelton- @HugoGloss- @Psych_USA- @kpereira- @phillisdorrisTweet of the Year- “This is history.” @BarackObama- “From orbit: Launch was awesome!! I am feeling great, working hard, & enjoying the magnificent views, the adventure of a lifetime has begun!” @Astro_Mike- “#Firefox reached 1000 million downloads on 2009-07-31 15:00 UTC.” @FirefoxTweets- “http://twitpic.com/135xa – There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.” @Jkrums/ Twitpic- “I #BlameDrewsCancer for asking @sarahcooley to marry me on Twitter…and for the impending parental smackdown for doing so.” @DrewMost Interesting Twitter User to Follow- @Ivetesangalo- @KitchenBitch- @PauloCoelho- @DerrenBrown- @MaureenJohnson- @Tornadoliese- @Donniewahlberg- @Shitmydadsays- @StephenFry- @Alyssa_MilanoTwitter User of the Year- @SookieBonTemps- @Mpaynknoper- @Ivetesangalo- @Realwbonner- @Alyssa_Milano- @Collective_Soul- @Donniewahlberg- @StephenFry- @Crystalchappell- @TornadolieseBest Twitter App- Favotter- TweetDeck- Power Twitter- Tweetie- Digsby- Favstar.fm- Seesmic- Brizzly- Echofon- Twitter KarmaContinue to nominate your favorites at Mashable.com/OWAThanks to our Partner: MOTOBLURMOTOBLURfrom Motorola was built expressly for the way people communicate today. It’s the only service that automatically delivers and organizes your conversations, contacts and content from all your favorite sites and sources in easy-to-manage streams. Whether it’s Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, text messages, Gmail or work e-mail, MOTOBLUR keeps track of it all and serves it up on a customizable home screen and integrates it through the phone. Plus, with MOTOBLUR you have peace of mind, because all of your info is backed up and secure. Discover MOTOBLUR on Motorola CLIQ available at T-Mobile. It’s time to spend less time managing life and more time living it.Reviews: Brizzly, Digsby, Echofon, Facebook, Firefox, Gmail, MySpace, Power Twitter, Seesmic, TweetDeck, Twitpic, Twitter, tweetieTags: open web awards, owa, twitter, twitter apps, twitter users
Any news organization’s web site can get a story picked up by popular sites such as Drudge Report, Huffington Post, Digg, or even Fark, resulting in a bump in page views. But that’s a traffic anomaly. A key metric media companies want to grow is their local audience, because local traffic is where the money is.“Local advertising pays the bills in most cases and local advertisers want to reach people who can actually come to their stores,” said Serra Media CEO Mark Briggs, author of “Journalism 2.0,” and the upcoming book “Journalism Next,” in an e-mail interview. “And, as national news has become a commodity, local news is the differentiating factor most local news operations are emphasizing these days. Or, at least they should be.”Local media companies are working with social media tools and user-generated content contributors to expand their local reach.“I sense an inevitability is setting in with media companies with regard to social media. Those that thought … it was a fad that would quickly fade away are beginning to resolve themselves to the cold reality that social media is here to stay and will have to play a role in news coverage and audience building for a long time to come,” Briggs said.The “Unbrand” ApproachAttracting local audiences can be a matter of launching a new, separately branded site with a targeted topic or geographic reach. That’s what the Chicago Tribune Media Group did in August, when it launched ChicagoNow, a local blog hub dubbed a “new web site created by Chicagoans for Chicagoans.”Bill Adee, editor for digital media for the Chicago Tribune, told me the Tribune has a huge local audience but there are certain areas they don’t index well. With ChicagoNow, he said, they wanted to focus on blogs, topics and people that visitors don’t get from ChicagoTribune.com. The site has just over 120 local blogs so far and Adee said the Tribune uses its other brands to promote the new site and its bloggers.For example, he pointed out that if the Tribune’s cable TV station needs an expert on the Chicago Transit authority, they have one. “That’s something we can offer that a lot of other properties can’t,” he said.ChicagoNow bloggers are paid $5 per 1,000 local page views, according to Adee, who said they focus their bloggers on Facebook and Twitter and encourage them to comment on other ChicagoNow blogs. About every month or so the site hosts a party so everyone can meet the new bloggers. The site had 1 million unique visitors in September and 45% were local — double what they expected to have at this point in the site’s development and they’ve hit every page view goal so far, he said.“I think it’s gone beyond my wildest dreams so far,” he said.Neighborhood News CoverageEarly last year, journalists Cory Bergman and his wife, Kate, started a Seattle-area neighborhood network of news blogs called Next Door Media, which won the Online News Association’s first Community Collaboration award in 2009.Cory Bergman said in an e-mail interview that about 80% of their stories come from their neighbors and what they post in the blogs’ forums, comments, e-mail, Facebook and Twitter. Experienced journalists who live in the neighborhood cover stories they find via those methods, using traditional journalism skills to gather and confirm information. When the stories are posted to the blogs, a hat tip is given to the user who originated the idea.“In essence, we’re providing a layer of journalism over an empowered community. It’s a neighborhood answer service, rooted in journalism,” he said. Bergman said when it comes to breaking news, because the writers live in the neighborhoods they cover, they often beat traditional local news media to the scene. When a house fire broke out recently, they received seven e-mails and two photos in 15 minutes, he said. He also added that Facebook and Twitter have been instrumental in helping Next Door Media get the word out about their sites, especially as they expand to new neighborhoods. MyBallard.com gets 600,000 monthly page views and 50,000 unique users and 95% of the traffic is from Seattle, which is “significantly higher than an average local news site and the engagement numbers are off the charts,” he said.The company’s success is two-fold, according to Bergman. Editors care about their communities and go the extra mile to provide local news coverage that traditional media companies are increasingly unable to cover, he said, and also the site is not afraid to trust its neighborhoods.He pointed out that launching successful sites isn’t easy and recommends news organizations partner with promising neighborhood sites rather than competing with them.“Hyperlocal is a lot of work. There’s no magic formula. We’ve invested a lot of time in covering stories, attending community meetings and introducing ourselves to just about everyone. It’s about people and relationships and trust, not just code. It takes patience, which is rare quality these days,” he said.Going Viral LocallyInternet memes can spread fast using social media, and news topics are no exception. What started out as crowdsourcing for a news story morphed into a local meme in the Twin Cities when WCCO-TV reporter Jason DeRusha, asked his followers on Twitter how someone gets an official day designated for them. He tweeted: “It’s National Cheesecake Day. How do you get a ‘day’ anyway? Good Question at 10. (Anyone have power to declare DeRusha Day?).”That’s when the meme began. DeRusha didn’t anticipate how quickly the “DeRusha Day” movement would snowball. A Twitter user started a #DeRushaDay hashtag, and then someone created a poster, another person launched a web siteand someone else started online petitiondevoted to the cause, which were all tweeted about. The end result? Sept. 21 was officially proclaimedDeRusha Day by the mayor’s office and a party marked the event.So the viral nature of social media inadvertently spread among Twin Citians an idea that was closely tied to WCCO’s brand. How can others duplicate this success? Certainly going where your readers/listeners and viewers are is a start. Then you must regularly engage with locals in that social media space in a two-way conversation, rather than simply push out content. In DeRusha’s case, he uses social media in the story gathering process, often talking about the stories he works on and getting feedback from fans and followers. On TV he invites viewers to go to his blog and then discusses news stories there with them.“I’m really interested in closing the loop between online fans, who follow me in the process, and TV viewers,” he said. “How do I get those web people to tune into the TV at ten? I try to put those people on TV. That seems to help.”John Daenzer, WCCO’s director of new media, said in an e-mail interview the station’s use of social media has absolutely helped grow its local online audience. “We wouldn’t be as aggressive as we are about engaging in all sorts of social media if we thought otherwise. And we work very hard to ensure that when we use social media we’re not just pumping out promotional garbage. We also want to participate in the conversation and give folks new ways to connect with each other,” he said.Facebook referrals to WCCO.com surged 1,287% in August and 1,082% in September over the same period last year, according to Daenzer’s data. Twitter referrals for August were up 1,029% over August 2008.Keeping a Local FocusAustin-American Statesman social media editor Robert Quigley has been the voice behind @statesmanon Twitter since 2008. He also tweets for @hookemfans, the Twitter account for the Statesman’s football fan site Hookem.com, which relies heavily on aggregation and social media.“Growing local audience is our local bread and butter,” Quigley said in an e-mail interview. “Our marketing department, through ads you can find on YouTube and many other campaigns, has been highlighting the work we’ve been doing online and in print. We’re making sure we understand and are serving that community through Statesman.com and Austin360.com.”He keeps a focus on quality local content. His consistent highlighting of Statesman’s content, engagement in dialogue with the audience and crowdsourcing is also paying off. Facebook and Twitter are both in the top 10 in referring traffic to the newspaper’s sites, according to Quigley, who tweets about every 45 minutes Monday through Friday, but tweets more often when news is happening. He also typically updates the Statesman’s Facebook Fan page a few times a day with stories, photo galleries or videos.Quigley said newspapers and other corporate brands should use social media as a two-way communication tool. “I follow back most people who follow us, which I think shows a level of engagement (and allows me to receive news tips privately through direct messages),” he said.More social media resources from Mashable:- The Journalist’s Guide to YouTube- The Journalist’s Guide to Twitter- The Journalist’s Guide to Facebook- 12 Things Newspapers Should Do to Survive- How Social Media is Radically Changing the NewsroomImage courtesy of iStockphoto, ProfessorVasilichReviews: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, iStockphotoTags: journalism, local blogs, local news, media, social media
Last Friday evening, an intoxicated woman stumbled onto the tracks of Boston’s North Station as an oncoming subway train fast approached. Video surveillance of the near miss has just hit the web and is fast picking up buzz, as shocked viewers share the raw footage in disbelief.Fortunately the unnamed woman survived the incident, but it wasn’t without fast thinking from Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority employee, Jacqueline Osorio, who quickly phoned the train operator who was then able to tug the emergency brake just in time.The clip also reminds us of another recent incident, where video surveillance footage captured a baby stroller hit by a trainin Australia. Remarkably, both incidents ended with relatively happy endings.Several different media outletsin the Boston area picked up the story, but now that the video has surfaced online, we expect to this video footage, in its many forms, to go viral.Thanks to tipster Q Parkfor the find.Reviews: AustraliaTags: Boston, north station, subway, trending, video surveillance
Late last month Amazon announced they’d be making a version of the Kindle software for the PCas well as the Mac. The Mac version has yet to ship, but the PC version is now availableas a free downloadin over 100 countries.Kindle for PC joins the Kindle for iPhoneapp in a push to a more platform-agnostic strategy for the online book giant. No matter which platform you happen to be reading on, Amazon’s Whispersync technology will save and synchronize your stopping place and any bookmarks you’ve created. The idea is to create a seamless reading experience even as you change devices.You can of course read your purchased titles on the software, as well as browse and purchase new books from the Kindle Store. The PC version also has the added advantage of being able to read in color, which should come in handy for specific types of content including graphic novels and other graphic-intensive titles. Windows 7 users will have the added ability to use finger gestures to enhance the reading experience, including using a finger pinch to zoom in and out and finger swipes to turn pages.Ars Technica spent some hands-on timewith the new software and found some hiccups with the download process that may be due to first day kinks and server overload. They also note you won’t be able to transfer your magazine or blog subscriptions to the PC version of the Kindle software.Are you a Kindle user who plans to enjoy the benefits of cross-platform digital book reading? If you’ve used the application, what are your thoughts? What other platforms should Amazon add Kindle support to next?Reviews: KIndle, Kindle for IphoneTags: amazon, amazon kindle, digital books, ereaders, Kindle, kindle for pc
