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| Kit Kat Sent Chocolate Bar Into Space to Keep Felix Company [VIDEO] | | Monday, October 15, 2012 2:41 PM | Todd Wasserman |
|  Red Bull's not the only brand to benefit from Felix Baumgartner-mania. Shortly before Baumgartner's stunt, Kit Kat sent one of its chocolate bars into space to give him a "fun break," according to JWT London, the agency behind the stunt. SEE ALSO: Watch the Red Bull Stratos Jump - This Time in LEGO The Kit Kat, which was attached to a weather balloon and launched from Cambridgeshire in the UK, reached 116,490 feet -- a bit short of Baumgartner's 127,000 feet. The brand also shared the footage online a la Red Bull thanks to a GoPro camera attached to the chocolate bar. However, Kit Kat's view count for the event -- 10,000 -- doesn't come close to Baumgartner's 8 million-plus. |
| Yahoo Poaches Top Google Exec to be New COO | | Monday, October 15, 2012 2:18 PM | Seth Fiegerman |
| | Marissa Mayer just made her biggest hire yet. Yahoo has poached Henrique de Castro, a top executive from Google (Mayer's previous company), to serve as its new chief operating officer, the company announced Monday. In his new role, de Castro will oversee Yahoo's sales, media and business development efforts, and report directly to Mayer. De Castro played a key role in Google's global sales efforts as the president of global media, mobile and platform at the company. Before that he worked at Dell and McKinsey. For months, rumors have circulated that Mayer wanted to hire away de Castro fill an unspecified position at Yahoo. Yahoo will reportedly pay de Castro an annual base salary of $600,000, along with $36 million in stock grants, according to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Monday. "Henrique is an incredibly accomplished and rigorous business leader, and I'm personally excited to have him join Yahoo!'s strong leadership team," Mayer said in a statement. "His operational experience in Internet advertising and his proven success in structuring and scaling global organizations make him the perfect fit for Yahoo! as we propel the business to its next phase of growth." Since taking over Yahoo in July, Mayer has made several high profile hires, including bringing on a new chief marketing officer (Kathy Savitt) and a new executive VP for HR (Jacqueline Reses). Image courtesy of Flickr, nrkbeta |
| Twitter Seeks Woman for Its All-Male Board [REPORT] | | Monday, October 15, 2012 2:07 PM | Lauren Indvik |
| | Twitter is seeking to fill a vacancy on its board of directors -- and the spot is reportedly reserved for a woman. Citing "sources close to the situation," AllThingsD claims that Twitter has placed "top priority" on finding a woman to join its all-male board. Several candidates have already been interviewed for the role, but no one has been selected yet. Twitter's current board includes CEO Dick Costolo, co-founders Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams, former DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt, and a handful of well-known investors, including Peter Fenton of Benchmark Capital, Ronald Conway of SV Angel and Peter Currie of Currie Capital, among others. Flipboard CEO Mike McCue resigned from Twitter's board in July amid speculation that Twitter and Flipboard are on a "product collision course" - meaning that Flipboard may be positioned to become a more direct rival to Twitter, or a more obvious acquisition target for Twitter or one of its competitors. As AllThingsD points out, the boards of Silicon Valley tech companies are conspicuously lacking in women. Facebook had an all-male board until COO Sheryl Sandberg joined over the summer. Zynga, too, recently brought on its first female board member, Ellen Siminoff. In addition to a woman, Twitter may also be looking to Hollywood for another appointment. Peter Chernin, a former News Corp. and Hulu exec, is allegedly on the shortlist. Twitter declined to comment on the report. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Logorilla |
| Apple Hires Amazon Exec to Take Control of Siri | | Monday, October 15, 2012 12:41 PM | Seth Fiegerman |
| | Siri is about to get a new boss. Apple has tapped William Stasior, an executive at Amazon, to take over the Siri department, according to Kara Swisher at AllThingsD. For the past six and a half years, Stasior has run A9.com, an Amazon subsidiary that powers product search for the e-commerce giant. Stasior is taking control of Siri at a crucial time. Siri was acquired by Apple in 2010 and has lost both of its co-founders in the past year. The product has been criticized on and off for its inaccuracy ever since it launched with the iPhone 4S a year ago. Meanwhile, some of Apple's competitors are rolling out their own voice-operated assistants. Apple's new hire may just have the chops to improve Siri's functionality and keep the feature competitive with others on the market. Stasior has spent much of his career working on new search technologies, a skill set that should help him with the most immediate task at hand: Get Siri to pull up the relevant result to a user's query. Going forward, Stasior could also be instrumental if Apple chooses to turn Siri into a full-fledged mobile search product that customers use instead of Google. Image courtesy of Flickr, vasile23 |
| Etsy Accused of Exploiting Breast Cancer Awareness Month | | Monday, October 15, 2012 12:00 PM | The Daily Dot |
| | Breast cancer activists have accused Etsy of using breast cancer as a marketing tool without doing enough to help the cause. It's an alleged example of "pinkwashing," the corporate practice of selling pink products that don't actually fulfill their claims about donating toward breast cancer prevention. October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and with it comes an annual marketing effort to turn everything pink. Etsy is no different. This week, a newsletter titled "Tickled Pink," encouraged subscribers to buy bright pink handmade merchandise in order to "show your love to the women in your life." However, one blogger discovered that out of 24 products featured, only eight actually claim to support breast cancer causes, and some tenuously at that. The majority of showcased items use the pink ribbon logo or reference Breast Cancer Awareness Month without mentioning a donation. The blogger, Acacia of Pink Goose, is furious about the promotion. She's living with stage 4 terminal breast cancer, the disease she claims Etsy is profiting from. "Etsy's lack of ethics and oversight is bad enough," she wrote. "The fact that the majority of sellers are craven opportunists profiting off of our disease with cheap 'handmade' crap is bad enough. But the fact that fuckwits like little miss Nicholeactually promote these people as part of a fun, happy 'Tickeled Pink'marketing email is beyond infuriating." The woman Acacia refers to is Nicole Smith, a member of the Etsy marketing team who authored the newsletter. After Acacia's post, fellow blogger Jane Flanagan of Ill Seen, Ill Said wrote her own post about contacting Smith on Twitter and receiving an unsatisfactory response. Hi @seenandsaid. Thanks so much for bringing this to my attention. Always appreciate the feedback on how to improve and grow.— Nicole Smith (@smithnikki) October 11, 2012 "I'm so angry at Etsy's glibness and lack of sincere compassion, at their sellers' disingenuousness (though, of course, I don't blame the sellers who just happened to have pink products but make no "pink cause" connection who were included in the e-mail) and also at Etsy's own lack of participation in making any kind of contribution of pink causes, while they merrily use cancer to market their site and sellers," Flanagan wrote. "Pinkwashing" has become so widespread that the Better Business Bureau is encouraging consumers to purchase pink products with caution. It's an issue that can't be fixed overnight, but several bloggers are now clamoring for Etsy to address its part of this problem. Mary Andrews, Etsy's Lead Merchandising Specialist, told the Daily Dot that the company is taking bloggers' complaints seriously. "We really appreciate the feedback and thoughtful discussion regarding the Etsy Finds email around Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Our aim in the email was to acknowledge this national campaign of awareness. While we do not promote specific shop charities, nor did we make claims to do so in the email, we do support acts of generosity and compassion within the Etsy community. The email was meant for awareness, and created in a supportive spirit. We will take all of this into serious consideration as we map out improvements to our emails and how we promote awareness within our community in the future." Image courtesy of Flickr, G155 |
| How the Sprint Sale Could Affect You | | Monday, October 15, 2012 11:11 AM | TechNewsDaily |
| | Like college students on spring break, U.S. wireless companies are aggressively trying to hook up. On Oct. 3, T-Mobile and prepaid carrier MetroPCS announced plans to merge. And today, Japanese wireless company Softbank announced plans to buy 70% of Sprint. Both deals have to receive government approval. But if they both go through, only the T-Mobile and Metro PCS deal is likely to do much for customers, said Eddie Hold, a vice president with analyst firm NPD. That deal will bring a lot more phone choices to MetroPCS customers very soon and a better high-speed network in about three years. SEE ALSO: BYO iPhone to T-Mobile The main thing that the Sprint deal will do is shore up a company that's been losing lots of money in the past few years. That's not inconsequential to customers in a contract who may be worried about being tied to a money-losing company. And the deal will help Sprint to keep rolling out the high-speed LTE wireless service that Verizon and AT&T are also using for new smartphones (including the iPhone 5). But otherwise, Sprint will continue to pretty much work as it has. Even with more money, it's in no shape to buy T-Mobile, said Hold, and extremely unlikely to get government approval if it tries. (AT&T's attempt to buy T-Mobile was rejected by the government, and Sprint was one of the main parties arguing against it.) And Softbank, the third-largest wireless company in Japan, is unlikely to bring over any cool Japanese wireless tech, such as better mobile banking or NFC wireless chips to make purchases by swiping a phone. After all, U.S. carriers and phone makers have already been trying to push such tech, with little success. What you can expect is for this deal to keep things as they are: a country with the same four big carriers we've had for years. Image courtesy of Flickr, hyku |
| Learn How Mobile Will Change Media Forever | | Monday, October 15, 2012 10:56 AM | Tania Kasongo |
| | There's no question that the proliferation of HTML5, powerful smart devices and ubiquitous mobile bandwidth have significantly impacted the world of technology and media. That's why at this year's Mashable Media Summit, we're having an in-depth conversation on how mobile is changing distribution, monetization and design.
Darren Tome, director of product at Mashable, will lead a panel that explores this topic; he'll talk with industry leaders who think mobile-first when developing new products. Rob Grimshaw, managing director of The Financial Times, will share his experience working to make the organization's HTML5 web app a huge success. Bonita Stewart, vice president of Americas Partner Business Solutions at Google, will address how content creators can monetize using mobile apps and other opportunities that exist within mobile. And Larry Cherves, CTO at New York Media, will discuss his recent application of responsive design and cross-platform monetization for New York Magazine's recently redesigned property, The Cut. Other influential speakers in media will join them at the summit, such as Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, Kay M. Matadi, head of entertainment at Facebook, Jessica Bennett, executive editor at Tumblr, David Carey, president at Hearst Magazines and Joan Walsh, editor-at-large at Salon. The Mashable Media Summit is a one-day conference that explores how new forms of technology are redefining media. The brightest minds in the industry will come together Nov. 2 at the TimesCenter in New York City to explore the latest innovations in the space and the future of journalism. Get your tickets now before the event sells out! Image courtesy of iStockphoto, webphotographeer Mashable Media Summit Information
Date: Friday, Nov. 2, 2012 Time: 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Location: The TimesCenter, 242 West 41st Street, New York, NY 10036 Tickets: Purchase tickets on Eventbrite. A Look Back at Last Year's Mashable Media Summit Supporting Sponsor Sponsorship Opportunities A limited number of sponsor opportunities are available for the Mashable Media Summit. This is an excellent opportunity to get in front of Mashable's passionate and influential audience. Contact sponsorships@mashable.com for opportunities. |
| Jeff Goldblum Stars in PayPal's First National Ad Campaign | | Monday, October 15, 2012 9:59 AM | Seth Fiegerman |
| | PayPal is tired of being seen as just a mobile payment provider, so now the company is launching its first-ever national advertising campaign to change that impression. The new ad campaign, which was announced on PayPal's blog Monday, features four videos starring actor Jeff Goldblum discussing the advantages of using PayPal for shopping online and in stores, all with his trademark dry humor. PayPal will not air these commercials on television, but the company has made ad buys on Hulu, AOL and Yahoo, and the videos will also be featured on eBay's various web properties starting today. In one of the spots, Goldblum touts the ubiquity of PayPal being accepted for everything; in another he praises the convenience factor of not having to enter in your personal information over and over. "It's so easy and quick. You do it, you PayPal it, and you're done," he says in one video. "You want to move on with your life. You want to have lunch. You want to go take a tango lesson." According to Anuj Nayar, PayPal's senior director of global communications, the goal of the campaign is to re-educate consumers about what PayPal does. "There's a lot of consumer awareness of the PayPal brand, but the understanding of all the different ways you can pay with PayPal is something we wanted to focus on," Nayar told Mashable. Nayar explained the need for a re-education campaign far more bluntly in a blog post on PayPal's website last week: "PayPal is expanding our core product to solve problems for consumers, merchants, developers and advertisers -- not just trying to re-create a wallet that we already invented 14 years ago." In addition to the videos, PayPal has created a dedicated webpage to the campaign, which provides information how users can make the most of PayPal, along with all four of the Goldblum videos. The company is also planning in-store marketing efforts at several of the national brands that have partnered with PayPal, including Abercrombie & Fitch, Home Depot and Foot Locker. Nayar says the ad campaign will run through the end of the year. |
| Fashion Veterans Build DIY Gamification Platform for Brands | | Monday, October 15, 2012 8:27 AM | Lauren Indvik |
| | Name: PlayAPI Quick Pitch: An evolving self-service platform that enables brands to easily build custom, interactive apps -- mainly games -- across multiple channels. Genius Idea: Helping brands keep their fans and followers engaged. In simpler times, brands could broadcast a single message to many through a TV spot, a smattering of print ads or a billboard. These days, the advertising landscape is much more fragmented. Brands aren't developing just for TV, print and out-of-home; they're also creating custom campaigns and content for a variety of online and mobile platforms, including their websites and blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Foursquare and more. Each of these platforms requires custom work -- a practice, Julie Fredrickson and Philip Leif Bjerknes believe, is neither efficient nor sustainable. Fredrickson is the co-founder of fashion blog network Coutorture (sold to Sugar Inc. in 2007) and former head of digital marketing at Ann Taylor. Bjerknes, the other co-founder of Coutorture, worked in the e-commerce divisions of Gucci and Prada before becoming the digital director of NYC boutique agency Alldayeveryday. Within the agency, the two have incubated a startup called PlayAPI, which is designed to become a self-service platform for brands to manage feeds of content, product and social data; build apps (with an emphasis on games and gaming mechanics, like badges and leaderboards); and analyze data collected through those apps. At its core, PlayAPI is designed to help brands engage with the audiences they've built on social media. What Buddy Media does for brands and marketing on Facebook, PlayAPI is hoping to do for brands and storytelling across multiple platforms. Right now, PlayAPI functions more like an agency, building custom applications for brands like Nike and NEXT Models. But the company is also building a library of template games -- think classic games like Bingo and Memory, as well as quizzes -- marketers can make their own and deploy simultaneously across their websites, Facebook, iOS, Android and more. Eyewear maker Warby Parker and The Standard Hotels used one of those templates for a joint campaign this summer. Players were asked to submit photos on Instagram using the hashtag #WarbyxStandard and vote for their favorites on Facebook, standardculture.com or through a mobile app. The person with the most popular submission was awarded a prize package. Eventually, the library of templates will evolve beyond games into a "reusable library of engagement mechanics," Fredrickson says. PlayAPI is also building out an analytics platform that will help marketers avoid what Fredrickson calls the "sinwave of campaigns." Imagine, for instance, that a retailer builds a "this or that" game, asking their Facebook fans (and perhaps, also, users of its iPhone app) to choose between a series of products. The retailer sees that shoes get the most engagement, and then decides to build another campaign highlighting its shoe catalogue. The second game reveals that red shoes are the most popular, which the retailer could use to inform its next campaign -- and so on. Entry into PlayAPI's platform starts at $10,000 and goes up depending on usage, creative packages and additional deployments, Fredrickson says. Front-page thumbnail courtesy of Flickr, ccarlstead |
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