الأحد، 26 فبراير 2012

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Sunday, February 26, 2012
TRENDING STORIES IN BUSINESS & MARKETING
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3 Things Retailers Can Learn from Mom and Pop Facebook Stores
ALL STORIES IN BUSINESS & MARKETING

34 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed
Saturday, February 25, 2012 3:30 PMMatt Petronzio

This year's Mobile World Congress is fast approaching -- are you caught up on all of Mashable's digital media resources? If not, don't fret. Here's our convenient and comprehensive weekly features roundup.

This week we have a list of free Android apps you'll use every day, tips for reaching voters successfully via social media and how to get your Facebook friends' birthdays onto your Google calendar. We've also covered everything you need to know about the new PlayStation Vita, tips for small business marketing on Facebook and an explanation of how Google's +1 button affects SEO. You'll even find an interview with Zooey Deschanel and Sophia Rossi as two of the three co-founders of HelloGiggles, a new website for empowering young women.

If you're looking for the best social media, business and technology resources, you've come to the right place:

Editor's Picks

Pinterest or Porn-terest? What the Social Network Is Doing to Keep It Clean

If you've browsed Pinterest, you may have seen a nude photo or two. Here is Pinterest's policy and what its team is doing about it.

5 Tips for Reaching Voters in the Social Stream

2012 might be the year where social media marketing can make or break a political campaign. Here are tips to drive political awareness using new media channels.

How HelloGiggles Creates a Positive Online Community for Young Women

HelloGiggles is warming up the cold, often critical world of the web, with fun and empowering, lady-friendly content.

How Google's +1 Button Affects SEO

Google's +1 button doesn't share content to the stream the way the Facebook "Like" does, but there must be a connection to search. Here's what we know so far.

The 10 Most-Followed Brands on Pinterest

Zoomsphere has compiled a list of the 10 most-followed brands on Pinterest.

10 Free Android Apps You'll Use Every Day

We have rounded up 10 solid apps that will make your daily routine, and life in general, much easier.

Social Media

5 Tips for Using LinkedIn's Mobile Site

Not interested in tacking on another app to your smart phone? Check out these tips for using LinkedIn's mobile site.

10 Creative Pinterest Board Hacks by Mashable Readers

Last week, we shared tips to trick out your Pinterest Boards with a simple hack. Then, we asked you to share your own creations!

10 Awesome Animated Google+ Profiles/a>

We've seen some great Google+ profile hacks in the past, but there's a new breed of design in town -- the animated Google+ profile.

How to See Facebook Birthdays in Google Calendar

One of Facebook's most useful features is the way it alerts you to the birthdays of all your buddies. Did you know that you can export this valuable data to other calendar applications?

8 Ways Pinterest Is Inspiring Projects

Mashable and CNN iReport asked how you were using Pinterest for project inspiration. Here are the results you sent us.

10 Non-Profits Leveraging Pinterest for Social Good

Non-profits are flocking to Pinterest and utilizing its features to gain exposure and build support.

How to Hide From Annoying Friends on Facebook Chat

Whether you want to chat in secret from the boss, hide from your annoyingly talkative cousin or only appear as online to one special person, we can help you out.

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

Business & Marketing

9 Hot Tips for Small Business Marketing on Facebook

Think you need a large budget and a whole army to maintain a marketing campaign on Facebook? Think again. Here are a few time-saving tricks.

Is YouTube Too Big to Fail?

YouTube won't be getting government money anytime soon, but as it fights copyright lawsuits, court decisions could be setting precedent for a "judicial bailout."

Yelp: From Scrappy Startup to $100 Million IPO/a>

Yelp will hit the stock market on March 2. Here's a look at how far they've come in terms of user growth and revenue.

What Marketers Can Learn From Whole Foods' Organic Approach to Pinterest

Take a look at just how the organic grocery company is targeting users of Pinterest in a winning way.

How to Fix Microsoft With Marketing

A company cannot be truly effective unless it markets life-improving products, but Microsoft sees itself as a product engineering organization.

3 Things Retailers Can Learn from Mom and Pop Facebook Stores

Social commerce is thriving. Here are three things small sellers can teach large retailers about Facebook commerce.

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

Tech & Mobile

5 Places to Get Digital Textbooks

The days of shuffling that 10-pound textbook to class or those countless fiction novels in your backpack are over. Check out these five digital text services.

The Evolution of Online Travel/a>

From the very first electronic system to the hottest travel websites on the Internet, here's how we've changed the ways to get away.

5 Ground-Breaking Competitions for Innovative Youth

Hosted by major companies and organizations, these five STEM competitions are giving young people a chance to innovate.

5 Key Components of a Successful Interest Graph

What's involved when building a complete and expressive interest graph platform? How can the resulting graph effectively optimize data?

Everything You Need to Know About Wireless Spectrum/a>

Want to know more about spectrum, the invisible signals that wireless devices such as cell phones rely upon? Look no further.

PlayStation Vita: 15 Games You Can Play at Launch

On Feb. 22, the PlayStation Vita and its games were released in the U.S. Find out what games you can play.

How Mobile Payments Are Revolutionizing Public Transit

Various countries worldwide are experimenting with new ways to reach out to travelers and make the payments process a lot easier.

Snow Day: 10 Wonderful Wintery iPhone Photographs

From the first frost through to adventures in sledding via some beautiful nature scenes, our gallery captures many aspects of wintery weather.

PlayStation Vita: Everything You Need to Know

Mashable answers all your questions about PlayStation's new mobile gaming device, Vita.

Nostalgia Overload: New Tumblr Challenges You to Draw Classic Video Game Maps From Memory

"Mapstalgia" is a Tumblr blog where readers submit video game maps they've drawn from memory. What is it about game worlds that make them so memorable?

What You Need to Know About Building a Mobile App for Your Brand

So, you're interested in a customized mobile app for your business. Here are some major points to consider before you start your project.

5 Essential Mobile Apps for Keeping Up With U.S. Politics

Use these five politically-minded apps for your smartphone or tablet to stay on top of the latest U.S. election and government news.

10 Best Strategy Games for Android

Looking for a mobile gaming fix that's a bit more cerebral? We've plucked out the 10 best strategy games from the Android market.

8 Free Apps for Planning Your Perfect Night Out

The weekend is finally here and you're ready for a great time with your friends. We've assembled a list of free apps to plan your perfect night out.

Happy Birthday, Steve Jobs: A Look Back at the Man Who Changed Tech

Feb. 24, 2012, would have been Steve Jobs's 57th birthday. We'd like to wish the man who changed the face of technology a happy birthday with some of our favorite coverage of him throughout the years.

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

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, akinbostanci.



Gogobot is Like Pinterest for Your Travels
Saturday, February 25, 2012 1:28 PMKate Freeman

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Gogobot

Quick Pitch: A travel planning site sourcing recommendations from your social network.

Genius Idea: Gogobot is like a Pinterest for vacation travel. You can plan trips, read friends' reviews, see their travel photos and create wish lists.

Travis Katz figures that between all your friends and contacts on Facebook, they've collectively traveled to tons of places. So when you're planning a trip, why not collect that information in one place?

"Almost any place you want to go, you probably know someone who's been there," Katz says.

Gogobot is one of the new integrated Facebook apps announced in January. It lets you plan a trip using advice, photos and check-ins from Facebook friends.

One of the cool things about Gogobot is you can verify people's identities. Of course, you know your friends, but unlike other travel sites, if you read a review from a stranger, you can see that reviewer's photos, see his face, know his name and connect on Facebook.

Katz came up with this idea while working for MySpace doing international business in London. He and his wife were living in London and constantly traveling around Europe. They would spend an entire weekend day planning a trip -- trying to figure out where to stay, what places to see, where to eat and never knowing if the information on travel websites was up-to-date or trustworthy.

Katz says they would search for friends who had been to the destination they were planning to visit. He says he realized how valuable that information would be all in one place on the Web.

"Gogobot unlocks all of this rich information and make it accessible," he says.

The most popular feature is the Gogobot passport, Katz says. (I had fun using this feature, too). You can add places you've been, photos you've taken and write reviews. You can browse through others' passports and add those destinations to your trip. The plus icon means "add to my trip," the check symbol means you've visited that place and clicking the heart will add the destination to your wish list.

Let's say you're interested in visiting Thailand. Click "destination" and you'll see a world map. Click on the region you'd like to visit, in this case Thailand. The results show who's visited Thailand -- a total of 8,714 Gogobot users. The list begins with the people I'm connected with on Gogobot and then lists strangers. I clicked on the second contact listed, someone I know. I can see his profile and view the countries he's traveled to by map or list (Map is easiest if they've been to a lot of places). He left a photo of a place he recommends visiting in Thailand: Phang Nga Bay. I can click on the heart icon on this photo and add this destination to my wish list.

Check-ins on Facebook are also grouped in the passport to create a comprehensive profile of the places you've visited. This way, you can capture the smallest details, like where you went to get gelato in Venice.

Katz brought up a good point about check-ins on Facebook and Foursquare -- that information gets washed away so quickly. After 30 minutes or so, it's buried in the news feed. On Gogobot, the information is captured in your profile.

"A lot of people have described it as a Pinterest for travel," he says.

The Gogobot mobile app for iOS launched in October. With the current app, you can take trip plans on-the-go and create digital postcards. It makes it easy to access phone numbers of the hotels where you're staying, addresses and other information from travelers on the app. A new version of the app will be available early next week. The new version will also let you explore more than 60,000 destinations worldwide and find popular places.

"Everything on the list is personalized for you," he says. "Results are different for everyone.friends' recommendations will show up first in cities you're visiting."

Gogobot attracted significant major funding. The company raised $19 million in venture capital money from Battery Ventures (involved in Angie's List and Groupon), Google's Eric Schmidt's Endeavor fund and the GM of Squares.

What do you think about Gogobot? Will you use it? Tell us in the comments.

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, 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.



 
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