By Rick Broida
PC World (US)
August 19, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - You found something cool on the Web–say, a photo or incredibly helpful Hassle-Free PC tip. Now you want to share it with friends, and maybe add a few comments to what you’re sharing.

Check out Bounce. This slick little Web app takes a screenshot of any page, lets you add comments to one or more parts of that page, then share it via Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail.

To get started, copy the URL of the page you want to share. Then head to the Bounce site, paste in the URL, and click Grab Screenshot. In a few moments, you’ll see the page you captured, but with a simple Bounce toolbar across the top. Now click and drag a box around any area you want to spotlight, then add some comments in the area below it. Repeat this process as needed.

Finally, click the red Save button up in the Bounce toolbar. That’ll generate a custom URL you can copy and paste into an e-mail. Alternately, you can click the Facebook or Twitter icons to share this “feedback” (that’s what Bounce calls your comments) on either service.

Bounce is totally free, and it doesn’t require any kind of registration. Nice!

COPY KINDLE NOTES AND BOOKMARKS TO YOUR PC

If you’re a Kindle owner, you’ve probably discovered the device’s enviable ability to bookmark pages, highlight passages, and add notes (aka annotations).

What you may not know is how to do anything useful with that data. For example, students might want to include annotations in a school paper. And if you’re part of a book group, your might want to share those bookmarks and notes in, say, a Word document.

Either way, it’s possible–it’s just a small matter of copying that stuff to your PC. Here’s how.

Connect your Kindle to your PC. Open My Computer (or just Computer if you’re on Vista or Windows 7), then look for Kindle in your list of devices. Double-click the Kindle icon, then open the Documents folder. Look for a file called My Clippings.txt. Copy it to your desktop (or folder of choice), then open it in your favorite word processor.

You’ll see that the notes are sorted by book and by date–very handy.

MANAGE, SHARE, AND DISCOVER BOOKS WITH SHELFARI

I’m an avid reader. And the older I get, the harder it becomes for me to remember every book I’ve read. At the same time, I want to get recommendations from sources other than Amazon: friends, people who share my tastes, and so on.

Shelfari is a free service that lets you build a virtual bookshelf of stuff you’ve read, see what your friends are reading, discover popular titles in specific genres, and join discussion groups.

After signing up for Shelfari, you can browse or search its library to find books to add to your virtual shelf. For any book you choose, you have the option of rating, tagging, and/or reviewing it. You can also mark it as something you’ve read, are reading, or are planning to read. All this requires just a few easy clicks.

Shelfari is also heavy on community features, stuff like which books got the highest ratings and most comments for the day, members who added the same books as you, and group categories ranging from Authors & Writing to World Literature & Culture.

Of course, Shelfari is by no means the only bibliophile site of its kind. Another popular destination is Goodreads, though I find that site’s interface much less intuitive and attractive.

I do wish Shelfari offered some kind of integration with Facebook and/or Twitter. Even so, it’s a great destination for anyone who loves books. If you want to “friend” me on the service, look for user justrick.

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By Mikael Ricknäs
IDG News Service (Stockholm Bureau)
August 18, 2010

STOCKHOLM - Nokia has announced the X3 Touch and Type, which combines a 2.4-inch touchscreen with a traditional 12-button keypad, the company said on Tuesday.

Fast one-handed, one-thumb users want to maintain their speed when typing a text or instant message, but also enjoy the benefits of touch, according to Nokia. Besides the 12-button phone keypad, the Series 40-based phone comes with dedicated music and messaging keys, Nokia said.

The X3 comes with a 5-megapixel camera, an FM radio and a 3.5 millimeter audio jack and connects to the Internet using HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access) or 802.11n, which still is mostly available only on high-end smartphones. It measures 106.2 x 48.4 x 9.6 millimeters, has an aluminium cover and weighs 78 grams.

On the software side, the X3 features integration with Facebook and Twitter, as well as e-mail and instant messaging using, for example, Gmail and Windows Live Messenger.

The phone is expected to start shipping in the third quarter and will retail for approximately €125 (US$160) excluding taxes and possible subsidies.

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By Fred O’Connor
IDG News Service (Boston Bureau)
August 17, 2010

BOSTON - The reign of Hewlett-Packard’s former CEO Mark Hurd was bookended by scandal — only where the first one, in which the HP board was caught spying on journalists and others, allowed Hurd to consolidate power and nab the chairman’s job, the second has sent him packing. Meanwhile, Oracle has sued Google, claiming that the Android mobile OS infringes on patents it acquired from Sun Microsystems.

1. Actress in HP scandal sorry Hurd lost his job: The actress who brought sexual harassment charges against former Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd said she was surprised that the allegations cost him his job. Jodie Fisher, an actress and reality television contestant, released a statement on Sunday in which she came out as the person who brought the claims against Hurd. Fisher worked for HP as a contractor and attended executive summits and major client meetings. Late last Friday HP announced that Hurd had resigned from the company, saying that he did not violate HP’s sexual harassment policy but did violate its standards of business conduct. Hurd filed inaccurate expense reports to conceal his personal, nonsexual relationship with Fisher and paid her for work she did not perform, according to statements from HP.

2. Google, Verizon make net neutrality proposal: Last week’s rumors of network neutrality talks between Google and Verizon turned out to be true. But contrary to media reports, neither company wants to create a business arrangement. Instead, Google and Verizon on Monday released a proposal that would allow the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to enforce some network neutrality rules. The proposal would bar ISPs (Internet service providers) from blocking or slowing Internet traffic and allow the FCC to fine offenders up to US$2 million. Network neutrality fans knocked the proposal, saying the measure does nothing to keep the Web open and is ineffective since it does not cover wireless broadband.

3. Oracle sues Google over Java use in Android: Google’s Android mobile-phone OS infringes on Oracle’s Java software patents, according to a lawsuit that Oracle filed against the search company. Oracle’s lawsuit claims that Google knowingly infringed its Java technology, which Oracle acquired when it bought Sun. An analyst said that Google developed Android without using Sun technology and that the success of Android phones served as a catalyst for the lawsuit.

4. Microsoft’s 30-day forecast: Stormy exploits expected: IT administrators may want to rethink summer holiday plans after Microsoft issued its monthly security update on Tuesday. Of the 32 flaws that Microsoft rated on how likely they are to be exploited, 18 of them were labeled as very likely to be exploited. Popular Microsoft products like Office 2007, Internet Explorer, Silverlight and Windows all received patches.

5. Skype files IPO registration with SEC: Internet telephony company Skype looks to raise $100 million through an initial public offering, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company, formerly part of online retailer eBay after an acquisition, will use the funds for “general business purposes” and to grow its user base.

6. New Android malware texts premium-rate numbers: Kaspersky Lab researchers discovered the first malware program that targets the Android mobile OS. The application presents itself as a media player but sends text messages to the number of the hacker who created the software. However, Android phone owners outside of Russia don’t need to fret over their phones’ security just yet. The application isn’t available in the Android Market, and so far the program has only appeared on phones sold in Russia and on mobile networks in that country.

7. Dell’s Streak tablet to go on sale Aug. 12: Dell’s Streak, a device that the company describes as a tablet PC but has smartphone features, will be available to U.S. consumers on Friday. The device is already available in the U.K. Dell says the device’s 5-inch screen will offer better multimedia experiences than smartphones with smaller screens.

8. Twitter launches the Tweet Button: Twitter launched the Tweet Button, which aims to ease the process of posting Web links to the social media site. By installing the button on their sites, Web publishers will allow users to share URLs without leaving the page or switching browser tabs. Clicking the Tweet Button launches a pop-up window that allows users to access their Twitter accounts, presents a shortened URL and permits people to post the information to their accounts.

9. AT&T, Verizon cashing in outside of phones: Data services are contributing more to the bottom line of U.S. mobile carriers thanks to the rash of e-readers, tablet PCs and other consumer electronics devices on the market. In the second quarter U.S. mobile penetration exceeded 100 percent, according to an industry consultant. The increase of iPads, Kindles and other non-phone devices connecting to data networks helped U.S. mobile operators earn 31 percent of their second-quarter revenue from mobile data services.

10. Oracle provides Sparc road map, but questions remain: Oracle this week also discussed plans for another piece of technology it acquired from Sun. Oracle described the five-year plan for updating the processors in its Sparc-based server line. Oracle offered details on the servers to counter customer concerns that it was abandoning their development. Oracle also has plans for Sun’s Solaris OS and will ship Solaris 11, the software’s next major update, in 2011. However, questions remain over the fate of both lines of Sparc processors since only plans for the overall chip family were discussed.

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By Mitch Betts
Computerworld (US)
August 10, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Originally, .co was just the Internet country code for Colombia. But now it’s becoming a popular top-level domain for major global brands such as BMW, Canon, Honda, Nike, Nokia, Pfizer, Sony and Visa.

More than 39,000 organizations applied for .co domains during a “prelaunch” phase for signing up big-name companies, according to the official .co domain registry, .CO Internet SAS , which has headquarters in Miami and Bogota, Colombia. Last month, it started offering the domain to the general public through registrars and resellers.

The company is capitalizing on the difficulty of registering a meaningful name with the ubiquitous .com top-level domain, because virtually all common words and brand names have been taken.

Furthermore, the “co” in .co already has broad global recognition as shorthand for words like company, corporation and commerce, the registry said in a statement .

Overstock.com Inc. announced that it paid $350,000 to acquire “O.co” in an effort to target new audiences and make it easier for shoppers to find its Web site. Meanwhile, the political news site Politico is using Politi.co as its official URL shortener for Twitter.

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By Michael Alan Hamlin
August 2, 2010

Internet use is increasingly a lifestyle fixture throughout the Philippines according to the latest Internet usage survey conducted annually by Yahoo! and AC Nielsen. Three other findings are especially noteworthy: 1) Search, entertainment, and social networking are becoming tightly engrained in the lifestyles of Internet users; 2) While the digital divide is a concern, users across the age demographic rely on the Internet, but for different reasons: and, 3) Mobile access is going mainstream, likely due in part to low rates of home access.

Conducted in February, the survey had 1,500 respondents aged 10 and above in all regions of the Philippines. Overall, it found that 30 percent of Filipinos— more than 28 million individuals—use the Internet regularly. That’s close to the entire population of Malaysia, about five times the population of Singapore, and roughly four times the population of Hong Kong. Although the Philippines’ per capital gross domestic product is dwarfed by each of these nations, that hasn’t stopped Filipinos from going digital in significant numbers.

While Metro Manila has the highest percentage of Internet users at 40% of the population or about six million users— about equal to the population of Singapore—other urban areas showed increased Internet uage. For example, 37% of individuals living in Tuguegarao in Luzon regularly access the Internet, as does 33% of the population in the Visayas university town of Dumaguete and 29% of sprawling Davao in Mindanao.

As a friend of mine is fond of saying, “Dr Google” is users’ principal resource online, although Yahoo! and AC Nielsen didn’t exactly put it that way. Any way it’s described, search is big, with 76% of respondents indicating they use the Internet to find information online, up from 58% in last year’s survey. Internet portals (73%), instant messaging (68%), chat rooms (67%), and e-Mail (65%) are mainstream activities. Social networking wasn’t measured last year, but this year 53% of respondents said they use the Internet to visit these services.

When it comes to search, students aged 15-19 have the highest incidence of use at 84%. However, other demographic groups also rely heavily on Internet search: 76% of 10-14 year olds, 75% of 20-29 year olds, and 77% of 30-39 year olds. In fact, 58% of 40-50+ year olds participating in the study also use the Internet regularly for search. Somewhat more men, 78%, than women (73%) search online.

While 44% of these users are searching for information and documents, most are entertaining themselves, especially younger users. Overall, 62% look for images and 52% for videos, hopefully respecting intellectual property rights in the process. Another 31% are on the look for music and audio clips. Interestingly, relatively few users searched for blogs (13%), jobs (11%), and news (11%) online.

Respondents (69%) overwhelmingly rely on Internet cafés for Internet access. Slightly more respondents than last year, however, access the Internet from home, 31% compared to 27%. Access from school decreased from 7% to 4% and at work from 7% to 5%. That may be in part because mobile access is increasing, from virtually nothing last year to 5%. That shift is prevalent among young adults who can afford smart phones and high access charges. Eight percent of 20-29 year olds and 9% of 30-39 respondents regular access the Internet via mobile devices.

Social networks are prospering, with 53% of respondents visiting social networks regularly, and 30% user generated content sites—such as video sites—regularly. Among social networks, Facebook has grown rapidly in the past year. Only 4% of respondents said they used Facebook in last year’s survey, compared to 83% this year. Friendster remains a popular social network with 84% of respondents visiting regularly, but that is down from 92%. Six percent of respondents use the micro-blogging service Twitter regularly.

These popular online networks are primarily useful say respondents for staying in touch (66%), but they also seem to be taking over other mainstream activities, such as e-Mail (64%) and chat (63%) which can be performed within these networks. About the same number use social networks to pass time (63%), but interestingly, 59% use them for personal brand visibility, or to learn more about the personal brands of their network.

The results suggest that the new government can level the online playing field by providing wider and less expensive access to the Internet. Only 20% of D and E users have access, compared to 93% of ABC and 61% of C2. That may mean reviving the idea of a government- subsidized nationwide Internet backbone. The private sector will fight that move, but the reality is that despite large numbers of Internet users in the Philippines, the country will only be a digital nation when access becomes more universal.

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By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)
July 27, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Executives at telecommunications giant Alcatel-Lucent knew that the company needed to find a better means of internal communication following its formation via the 2006 merger of Alcatel SA and Lucent Technologies Inc.

“There was a problem in that we had no way to communicate across boundaries,” said Greg Lowe , social media strategist and global infrastructure architect at Alcatel-Lucent. “Our CEO had a key message that we needed to be much more collaborative , yet we didn’t have the tools. We were stuck with process-focused tools like Sharepoint. It wasn’t a way to communicate across the company.”

Lowe said the company’s initial moves into the Web 2.0 world in 2008 were facilitated by the fact that many of the company’s 77,000 employees already had personal experience with popular social networking services like Facebook and Twitter .

Alcatel-Lucent began slowly, launching an internal blogging tool based on the free Yammer platform in September 2008. Employees may not have fully understood the corporate benefits of microblogging, but they were intrigued.

The move wasn’t endorsed or promoted by management , and no one was told to use the system. But the number of Yammer users inside the company slowly started to grow — from about 250 people at the end of 2008 to 9,300 today.

“It was a groundswell activity — and it didn’t cost us anything,” Lowe said.

In March 2009, Lowe launched an effort to improve collaboration among workers housed in offices around the world. For 13 months, he gathered requirements, analyzed available technologies, garnered the support of IT executives and secured funding. “It was an exciting, entrepreneurial way of getting things done,” Lowe said.

The result of that effort: In April, Alcatel-Lucent started rolling out a Web 2.0 service from Jive Software Inc. that provides Facebook-like social networking tools, such as updates, people searches and communication channels, to the corporate world. The service also lets employees communicate with customers, partners and suppliers.

Lowe moved slowly again in implementing Jive, first inviting just 125 people to join. Usage spread quickly, though; the company now has about 20,000 Jive users, Lowe said.

His decision to deploy Web 2.0 technologies slowly may have been key to the initiative’s early success.

“If you roll out your platform and send out an e-mail saying, ‘As of Monday, I’ll expect everyone to start posting,’ the chances of that succeeding are minimal,” said Brad Shimmin, an analyst at Current Analysis. “If you put the tool in the room and let them pick it up and figure [it] out themselves, it’ll be put to good use.”

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By John Mark V. Tuazon
Computerworld Philippines
July 26, 2010

In keeping with its strategy to provide a seamless communication and entertainment experience, Sony Ericsson on Friday released what could possibly be the smallest Android smartphone units yet, the Xperia X10 Mini and Xperia X10 Mini Pro.

Scaled-down versions of Sony Ericsson’s flagship Xperia X10 line, the Mini and Mini Pro units sport 2.55-inch TFT touchscreen displays and five-megapixel cameras. The Pro version, typically marketed for business users, comes with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard below the touchscreen display.

Both new releases will sport the Timescape and Mediascape UI popularized by the firm with its Xperia X10 line. Timescape pools all messages from various communication portals under one application, while Mediascape houses all multimedia files from both offline and online sources.

Dennis Manzano, general manager of Sony Ericsson Philippines, said during the Sony Ericsson Expo 2010 that the Android phones will also put social networking in center stage. “Communication has evolved into entertainment, and entertainment has taken a different step. [The popularity of] Facebook and Twitter is evidence of how social media affects our daily lives,” he emphasized.

Manzano said these two social networks, among others, are already embedded applications within the handsets, “so [users can] enjoy it on the go.”

During the three-day expo held at the Megatrade Hall 1 of SM Megamall in Mandaluyong City, Sony Ericsson also unveiled their HD phone line, the Vivaz and Vivaz Pro; and the new addition to the Walkman series, the Spiro and Zylo Walkman phones.

The company is also set to release their entry-level Xperia offering, the Xperia X8, and the first full-touch Walkman phone, the Yendo, both of which are due out by the end of the third quarter this year.

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By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)
July 19, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - A majority of consumers want to interact with companies over social networks like Facebook and Twitter , but only 30% of businesses are prepared for it, according to a survey.

With 70% of consumers in a survey looking for information and communications on social networks, companies failing to get onboard with them are putting themselves at risk , according to Yankee Group, an industry analyst firm that worked on the survey with Siemens Enterprise Communications, a business software company.

The report, which surveyed 750 Americans in March and April this year, also noted that consumer satisfaction with their business interactions on social networks came in at 65%.

“Social media is changing the way businesses, customers and employees interact, and this creates significant opportunities for contact centers and the enterprise as a whole to leverage the integration of these tools into business processes,” said Zeus Kerravala, a senior vice president at Yankee Group, in a statement. “As integration of social media improves within the contact center and with unified communications and collaboration, businesses can improve customer interactions and positively impact employee productivity and collaboration.”

The study notes that businesses may not be using social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, or adopting enterprise 2.0 tools fast enough to satisfy many of their customers.

Yankee and Siemens Enterprise reported that nearly 60% of those surveyed said company outreach through social media would make them more loyal to that company. Most of those surveyed said they want companies to monitor social networks for customer comments and complaints.

The study also noted that 50% of those surveyed use social media once a day at a minimum.

Earlier this year, Andrew McAfee, a principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business in the MIT Sloan School of Management, told Computerworld that many companies have slowly started to use enterprise 2.0 tools , and that it’s only the beginning of changes that will come in the way people work and the way companies do business.

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By Juan Carlos Perez
IDG News Service (Miami Bureau)
July 6, 2010

MIAMI - The Independence Day fireworks started early on Sunday morning with a non-stop crackle of reports from individuals on social media sites that YouTube has been hacked to apparently target videos of singer and teen sensation Justin Bieber.

Thousands of people on sites like Twitter and Facebook have reported that Justin Bieber videos and pages on YouTube have been tampered with.

Speculation on how YouTube users might get harmed, if at all, ranges from being redirected to external sites of an adult nature to getting their PCs infected with malware.

On a separate stream of postings on social media sites, people are warning that Apple’s iTunes App Store may have been compromised by a rogue developer and that purchases may have been made without victims’ permission using their credit cards on file.

A common recommendation from people posting about these two topics is that visitors to YouTube exercise caution, especially if viewing content related to Bieber, and that App Store account holders check for any unusual activity.

Neither Apple nor Google immediately responded to requests for comment from IDG News Service.

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By Michael Alan Hamlin
July 1, 2010

Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu), a highly visible and outspoken journalism professor at New York University, recently spoke to World Bank communications officers. They had gathered from around the world to listen to Mr. Rosen speak about impression management—trying to control what others think of your brand—transparency, and “secrecy via complexity.” I think that means purposeful obfuscation (Mr. Rosen would argue with that assumption.).

At the time I wrote this column, Mr. Rosen had not yet met with the World Bank communication officers. So I was looking forward to watching YouTube videos of the session, which Mr. Rosen told me and his 35,103 other followers on Twitter had been promised. I thought it would be interesting to see how professional bureaucrats in a global bureaucracy who are presumably experts in obfuscation would react to Mr. Rosen’s remarks, particularly as they pertained to transparency.

I would have said so in a Retweet—a response to Mr. Rosen’s Tweet—but he rarely (never) has time to respond to me given the demands of his teaching schedule, speaking obligations, and mindcasting— shaping opinions—through his prolific Tweets. By ignoring me, I suppose Mr. Rosen is mindcasting the idea that my perspective doesn’t matter much to him and other influential journalists. That hurts a little, but I enjoy Mr. Rosen’s rants nevertheless.

Besides, I follow—and get ignored by—far more popular Twitter celebrities than Mr. Rosen. Take Mari Smith (@ MariSmith), for instance. Ms. Smith has 68,000 followers. She is known for her love of turquoise jewelry and as an authority on social media. The coauthor of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day (@FacebookMktg), Ms. Smith Tweets advice about social marketing to promote her book and speaking engagements. She’s so popular over 900 people recently sent Ms. Smith Foursqure friend requests so they will know where she is 24/7. That’s true celebrity.

On a more serious note, I just learned that “Freakonomics: The Movie” is coming soon courtesy of Dr. Mark Drapeau (@cheeky_geeky). The director of Innovative Social Engagement at Microsoft U.S. Public Sector (Quite a title, that.), Dr. Drapeau recently shared with his almost 16,000 followers that he is again single and trying to figure out dating. In the meantime, he’s thrown himself into all kinds of special causes. For example, he recently supported a Federal ban on corporal punishment in U.S. public schools. Good stuff.

A colleague in the communications industry, Edward Boches (@edwardboches), chief creative officer and concurrently chief social media officer at Boston-based creative agency Mullen, recently announced to his approximately 12,000 followers that the NPR (national public radio) app for the iPad is the best media app for that device. It’s “just a little sweeter than BBC” and doesn’t ask for donations very often, which is “definitely a reason to make a donation.”

Like the other people I follow on Twitter, I value Mr. Boches advice more than he values mine. But that’s okay. I don’t have an iPad—which isn’t yet sold in the Philippines—so he obviously has little of real value to learn from me, whereas Mr. Boches is dialed into important developments in the industry on a number of levels. For example, he Tweeted earlier that “plummeting marijuana prices make it tough to earn a living growing or selling pot in California.” Imagine.

I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, though. I do have some friends who Retweet me—and a serious bunch they are. Take Carol Phillips (@ carol_phillips), for instance. Like Mr. Boches, Ms. Phillips has multiple jobs, but in different organizations. She’s a professor at Notre Dame where she is a popular authority on Millennials—tough-to-understand youngsters also known as Generation Y and the Net generation—and president of Brand Amplitude.

From Ms. Phillips I’ve learned that Millennials are resigned to having no real privacy in their lives and “lead the way with lifestyle brands” even though they’ve taken a serious financial hit: “median income for Millennials fell to $22,000 a year in 2010 from $30,000 in 2009.” Still, those in their 20s managed to pay down credit card debt to $4,500 from $5,000 during the Recession. Go Millennials!

This little overview of my Twitter network wouldn’t be complete without mentioning my friend Roy Atkinson (@royatkinson) who lives in Maine and has a big back yard. Roy is an IT pro, Saab owner, and problem solver. He also makes me laugh. Every day Mr. Atkinson thoughtfully posts a “groaner.” Today’s is, “One who receives the gift of a house can always live in the present.” Mr. Atkinson just knocks me out.

I learn from and enjoy these Twitter friends, and the day just isn’t complete without hearing from them.

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By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)
June 16, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - While oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico and BP Plc. faces PR nightmare, the last thing the company needed to do was make matters worse.

But that, according to industry watchers, is just what BP did by failing to take advantage of social networking to open a clear line of communication with people living on the Gulf coast and around the world.

BP, the third-largest energy company in the world, is at the center of the worst oil spill in U.S. history. In the two months since an explosion aboard an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico triggered the spill, scientists estimate that upwards of 2.5 million barrels of oil have flowed into the water off the U.S. coast.

Not surprisingly, BP taken a public thrashing for not just the environmental and economic disaster but for also not being more forthcoming with the public about the problem. And while it could have used social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to report on the problem and what it was doing to stem the flow and ease the damage, it has largely missed that opportunity.

“BP is in one of the biggest PR crises that we’ve seen,” said Patrick Kerley, a senior digital strategist for Levick Strategic Communications, a PR and crisis communication firm. “I think that the problem they’re having is that it’s an ongoing process that doesn’t have an easy solution and it’s exacerbated by the idea that they’re not showing the sort of engagement with the public that PR in 2010 expects. They were playing by old rules…. Dealing with a crisis has totally changed because of social media. They didn’t get that.”

With the old rules — think of the Tylenol poisoning crisis in the 1980s — companies had time to sit back and devise a strategy. Tylenol, for instance, shut down distribution, came up with a new product and went back to market with a safer pill container.

Kerley said in today’s world of viral videos, bloggers, Facebook boycott campaigns and Twitter , companies can’t go quiet for even a few days to come up with a public response.

“People aren’t waiting for Walter Cronkite to tell them what to think,” added Kerley. “They’re talking with each other online. It’s too late for companies if they don’t’ use social media right away when a crisis strikes.”

BP does have a presence on Facebook and Twitter . It also gets some of its message out through the Deepwater Horizon Response , a group of organizations such as BP, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, responding to the oil spill. Deepwater Horizon Response has its own Web site, along with a Facebook page and a YouTube channel .

Google also confirmed with Computerworld that BP has bought key ad words on the search site. People searching for phrases such as “oil spill” will get a sponsored link to stories on BP’s own site that describe how the company is helping. Reports have also surfaced that BP bought key ad words on Yahoo , too.

The company has taken a lot of heat for spending money to buy key ad words when that money could have gone to containing, or cleaning up, the actual spill.

And BP’s messages largely are getting lost amid the public outcry that is overflowing on social networking sites. Search for BP on Facebook and you’re more likely to find ” Boycott BP ” pages, one of which has more than 600,000 followers, rather than BP’s official site. And on Twitter , a phony BP account that makes fun of the company has more than 162,000 followers, while the official BP Twitter account has less than 15,000.

Stuart Williams, an analyst with Technology Business Research, says BP may be acquiescing to corporate lawyers who most likely are advising the company to watch everything it says - whether it’s from a spokesman during a news conference or someone posting updates on Twitter.

“I think their legal department is telling them to be very careful of every word they’re posting on social media or it will boomerang back on them in a court of law or the court of public opinion,” said Williams. “They know they have to be extremely careful about the messages they put out.”

Kerley, though, said a good part of BP’s social media problem during this crisis is that the company didn’t have a significant presence on social networking sites before trouble hit.

“I think BP did not take full advantage of social media during peace time,” he explained. “It feels like BP is behind because before the spill they didn’t have people following them on Twitter or listening to them on Facebook…. Companies have to realize that they need to be proactive and generate a social media audience in peace time and let people affiliate with the brand. When crisis time comes around, then people would know where to go to get information. So now when people go to social media, they find joke sites and parody accounts. It’s because BP was nowhere to be found [before].”

So with Web 2.0 tools and social media sites bringing about a new world for corporate PR departments, are any companies actually using these new tools to their advantage?

According to Kerley, Six Flags Entertainment Corp., a company running 19 parks across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, used social media to help work its way through a recent Chapter 11 restructuring.

“It was one of those things where the public just saw bankruptcy…,” said Kerley. “Six Flags did a good job of seeing that the public was having a knee-jerk reaction and they went online and reached out to people. They used Twitter, primarily, and Facebook pages for all of their parks, and they set up conference calls with their CEO and bloggers. It led to a better understanding of the process and a message that the parks were open and come have fun this summer.”

Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group, said social networks can be a double-edged sword for companies trying to get through a public crisis. If used well, they can help get important messages out to the public. If not, they can come back to bite.

“I can’t think of another company that has faced as big a crisis as BP recently, or at least since the advent of social media,” added Olds. “This situation with BP could end up being very instructive for companies needing to handle problems like this in the future — either in a positive or negative way.”

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By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)
June 10, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Are you tweeting more these days? Seems somebody is.

Last month, Twitter users hit a new milestone. They sent nearly 2 billion tweets in the month of May, according to Pingdom, a Web site monitoring service.

The number, 1.99 billion tweets , is a significant jump for the Twitterverse. Pingdom reported that last December, users hit 1 billion tweets per month for the first time. That’s a doubling of tweets in just a few months.

“Maybe Twitter won’t quite be able to reach the almost 6 billion tweets per month we’ve predicted for the end of the year, but it’s clear that the Twitter platform is still growing at a healthy pace,” wrote Pingdom analysts in a blog post . “Close to doubling the volume of monthly tweets in the last six months is no small feat.”

Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, said such solid, steady growth is a great sign for a social networking site.

“That’s promising for Twitter,” he added. “Fads tend to accelerate upward and come crashing down. It looks like people are finding real uses for Twitter… I don’t have the data, but I think there’s been a shift in usage. Users have figured out a way to make it useful, which is to join conversations on current topics. I think users increasingly are following topics, either through following Twitterers who focus on the topic, or by tags.”

This kind of growth isn’t bad for a microblogging site that has had some issues in keeping users engaged.

In January, a study from RJMetrics Inc., which develops online metric analysis software, showed that the number of Twitter users had climbed to a lofty 75 million, but the growth rate of new users was slowing and many Twitterers were inactive .

The RJMetrics study showed that a lot of Twitter accounts weren’t active at all, and the number of accounts that sent even one tweet in a given month hit an all-time low in December.

According to RJMetrics findings, only 17% of all Twitter accounts tweeted last month. That’s down from more than 70% in early 2007 when Twitter was a fledgling company with far fewer users.

“Well, you can have a lot of people trying Twitter and lose most of them but still increase both the number of users and the level of use,” noted Gottheil. “It’s probably twofold. Some users are sticking, and some are increasing their use.”

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By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)
June 9, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - As businesses increasingly try to figure out how to use social networking tools in the enterprise , an IT governance group has released a ranking of the top five risks social media poses to companies.

The study, which lists the biggest risks businesses need to prepare for when they are using social media, was released on Monday by ISACA, a 43-year-old international organization previously known as the Information Systems Audit and Control Association that researches IT governance and control.

John Pironti, an ISACA Certification Committee member, noted that many business executives have considered some of the risks, but few have considered all of them.

“I think that the blinders have been on at a lot of enterprises,” Pironti told Computerworld . “They’re trying to figure out what to do about this. I think companies are as scared as they generally are with any new technology, like Wi-Fi and jump drives.

They’re taking a different attitude this time. They’re not just turning it off but they’re acknowledging that they just can’t stop the use of it. They understand that it’s going to be used so how do they do it safely?” he said.

The top risks, which are laid out in an ISACA research paper , are virusesand malware , brand hijacking and lack of control over corporate content. Rounding out the top five are unrealistic expectations of customer service at “Internet-speed” and non-compliance with record-management regulations.

Pironti said ISACA isn’t warning companies not to use Web 2.0 tools or to not fully embrace social networking. However, he said they need to go into it with their eyes wide open to the benefits as well as the risks.

And he added that most of the risks stem from users not understanding how their own behavior could possibly impact the company. Pironti noted that it comes down to a need for organizations to educate users about how posting something could breach company security, hurt the company’s image or even open the company up to being hit by malware.

“With social media, there are so many platforms and environments to learn,” said Pironti. “What are the implications of what could happen? People don’t think of the damage that could occur to an organization.”

“They see it as a way to explore relationship with work people. We take some of the social out of their lives by asking people to work longer hours. They’re looking for a balance — to still have a relationship with friends and peers,” Pironti said.

And since workers, either on their own or with a corporate blessing, will use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter , Pironti said they need to understand the line between social and business. They also need to have set corporate guidelines about what information can be shared what needs to stay inside corporate walls.

However, Pironti said company execs also need to be aware themselves that workers are using social networking sites and tools so they need to have a hand in it to better protect themselves. Executives can’t be aware of what is being said about a company unless someone is paying attention.

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By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)
May 27, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - One day after Facebook’s CEO admitted that the company had made mistakes with users’ privacy , the social networking site confirmed it will roll out new, simplified privacy controls on Wednesday.

Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said today that the new privacy tools are designed to make it easier for users to specify who can see their information, as well as whether Facebook can share the information with other Web sites.

Noyes wouldn’t give any specifics on the tools being unveiled.

In a column published Monday in the Washington Post , Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company has made mistakes in its continuing push to further enable social connections, and that Facebook hoped to soon introduce new, easier-to-use privacy settings to help users make sure their personal information isn’t shared with third-party Web sites.

“Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We just missed the mark. In the coming weeks, we will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use. We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services. We are working hard to make these changes available as soon as possible.”

In the past month, there has been growing user unrest and anger that Facebook is playing too fast and loose with information about its users. Users also have been frustrated over what they call complicated and confusing privacy controls that they need to navigate to protect their personal data.

In April, Facebook unveiled a bevy of tools aimed at extending its reach by letting user information be shared with other Web sites.

That move caused an uprising among users and prompted U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to write an open letter urging the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to set up privacy guidelines for all social networking sites , including Facebook and rivals Twitter and MySpace.

That led to a meeting between Facebook executives and members of Schumer’s staff.

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By Ian Paul
PC World (US)
May 27, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Dell on Tuesday announced launch plans for its Android-based Dell Streak handheld tablet , while also confirming that the device will get an upgrade to the Flash-capable Android 2.2 later this year. The Streak will launch in the U.K. in early June and the U.S. later this summer, but the company did not provide specific launch dates for either country’s launch. No pricing or U.S. carrier details were announced.

Dell first introduced the Streak in January during the Consumer Electronics Show; since then, specs for the device have been made public through a combination of company statements and periodic leaks to gadget blogs.

The Dell Streak Will Flash

As expected, the Dell Streak will have a 5-inch WVGA touchscreen, Qualcomm’s 1-GHz Snapdragon Processor, 2 GB internal storage, maximum 32GB of external SD storage, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, and a front-facing camera for video chat. The Streak will also have 3G, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity.

At launch, the Streak will be running Android 1.6 (Donut), but the device will receive an over-the-air upgrade to the new Flash-capable Android 2.2 (Froyo) later this year, a Dell spokesperson confirmed. The mini tablet will also come pre-loaded with Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube apps, and Google Maps featuring free turn-by-turn navigation.

What About the Looking Glass

Absent from Dell’s Streak announcement was any mention of the rumored Dell Looking Glass, a 7-inch tablet computer with no front-facing camera. Rumored specs for the Looking Glass include a 7-inch screen with 800 by 480 display resolution; 3G, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity; 4GB RAM; 1.3 megapixel camera; and an optional TV tuner.

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By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)
May 26, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - In the midst of a beating from users up-in-arms about its privacy policies , Facebook Inc. Monday said its engineers are working on making its privacy settings easier to use.

In a column published today in the Washington Post , Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the company has made mistakes in its continuing push to further enable social connections. And he added in the column that Facebook hopes to soon introduce new, easier-to-use privacy settings, and make it simpler for users to make sure their personal information isn’t shared with third-party Web sites.

“Facebook has been growing quickly,” wrote Zuckerberg. “It’s a challenge to keep that many people satisfied over time, so we move quickly to serve that community with new ways to connect with the social Web and each other. Sometimes we move too fast — and after listening to recent concerns, we’re responding.”

Zuckerberg said one of the main concerns heard from Facebook users in recent weeks was the lack of a simple way to control who can see and share information they have posted on the social network.

“Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted,” he added. “We just missed the mark. In the coming weeks, we will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use. We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services. We are working hard to make these changes available as soon as possible.”

Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, said making Facebook’s privacy settings easier should help quiet loud complaints from users about how complicated and confusing it can be to work through them. However, to keep users happy, Facebook must further stregthen privacy controls.

“Acknowledging the problem is essential.” he said. “It’s a necessary first step. There’s still an intrinsic tension between users’ need to retain privacy and Facebook’s wish to monetize user information. For instance, I’d like to see them commit to making clear unambiguous announcements about changes in information access policy. I’d like them to provide some guidance about the potential danger of making some information available.”

In the past month, there has been growing user unrest and anger that Facebook is playing too fast and loose with information about its users.

In April, Facebook unveiled a bevy of tools aimed at extending its reach across by letting user information be shared with other Web sites.

That move caused an uprising among users, and prompted U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer to write an open letter urging the Federal Trade Commission to set up privacy guidelines for all social networking sites, including Facebook and rivals Twitter and MySpace.

That led to a meeting between Facebook executives and members of U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer’s staff. Schumer had also resent tten an open letter urging

Gottheil said Facebook has some work to do to repair its image.

“Paying attention to the potential consequences of their actions has to become part of their culture,” he noted. “Long term, they want to be trusted. To be trusted, you must be trustworthy.”

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By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)
May 26, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Were you one of the many people happily playing free Pac-Man on Google’s doodle last Friday?

Well, if you were, you’re going to be happy to learn that Google has decided to make the Pac-Man games available without charge to users — permanently.

Last Friday and Saturday, Google had celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Pac-Man’s video game by making the first-ever playable Google doodle available to users on the Google landing page.

“We’ve been overwhelmed — but not surprised — by the success of our 30th anniversary PAC-MAN doodle,” wrote Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search products and user experience, in a blog post. “Due to popular demand, we’re making the game permanently available.”

Twitter users are joking about the blow that Google’s free Pac-Man game will bring to office productivity.

“Right on. Google gives the gift of Pac-Man forever,” wrote Seimyou.

And TheresaLM wrote, “google/pacman is awesome!”

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By Tom S. Noda
Computerworld Philippines
May 14, 2010

Because of Google’s large market share in the Internet search engine business, hackers developed a vested interest in ensuring that their attacks are effective in poisoning Google results, according to software company Symantec.

“Google’s breadth and speed of indexing also play a role,” added Symantec, a company involved in providing security, storage and systems management solutions.

Symantec reported that search engine results poisoned with links to fake antivirus software have been a constant problem for Internet users. However, it is an effective way for cyber attackers to infect users’ machines.

Based on Symantec’s report on “Rogue Security Software” – the culprits of these “toxic” search results are typically scam perpetrators who use a range of black hat search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to poison search engine results and increase the ranking of their scam websites on search engine indexes. A rogue security software program is a misleading application that pretends to be legitimate security software, but provides the user with little or no protection. In some cases, it actually facilitates the installation of malicious code that it claims to protect against.

Symantec has observed search results constantly and generated statistics on the top search trends every hour and determined how many were malicious (within the first 70 Google search results).

Among the key findings identified between March to April 2010, on Google search results include the following:

• On average at any given hour, 3 out of the top 10 search trends contained at least one malicious URL within the first 70 results;
• On average, 15 links out of the first 70 results were malicious for search terms that were found to be poisoned (had at least one malicious URL);
• On average on any given day, 7.3% of links are malicious in the top 70 results for top search terms (see Figure 1);
• The most poisoned search term resulted in 68% of links leading to malicious pages in the first 70 results;
• Almost all of the malicious URLs redirect to a fake antivirus page.

It is apparent that attackers continue to be effective at poisoning search results. They have an automated infrastructure that is able to automatically collect the latest, most popular search trends and poison the results, the company said.

Symantec advises netizens to be careful when clicking on search result links, especially when searching for hot search topics. The company also advised to follow its Twitter feed to find out the latest news on Internet threats.

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By Ian Paul
PC World (US)
May 14, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Are you using your smartphone to its fullest? Probably not–smartphone owners typically push their devices up to only about half their potential. Here are 14 smartphone apps to help your Android handset, BlackBerry, or iPhone become all that it can be.

For more ways to enhance your phone, see “13 Sites and Services to Supercharge Any Phone” and “13 Tips to Supercharge Your ‘Dumb’ Phone.”

Get Free Turn-by-Turn GPS on an iPhone

When Google brought free turn-by-turn GPS functionality to Android, many iPhone users were envious. In March, however, iPhone users gained their own free GPS app with turn-by-turn capabilities, courtesy of MapQuest.

Recently MapQuest added voice-guided directions to its free iPhone app, called MapQuest 4 Mobile. Reviews of MapQuest 4 Mobile for iPhone are mixed, however, with some critics pointing out that the app is not as full-featured as TomTom U.S.A. ($60). The big gripe concerns MapQuest’s rerouting feature, which is not automatic (as TomTom’s is) and requires you to restart your navigation manually if you stray from MapQuest’s planned route. Nevertheless, if you want to try a free voice-guided navigation app for the iPhone, MapQuest 4 Mobile is worth a look.

Turn Apps Into a Social Activity

App-obsessed Android users will love AppBrain. Want to show off all your apps to your friends? Interested in how other Android users rate the apps they have downloaded? AppBrain is the service for you.

AppBrain also creates a personal app catalog that you can share with other AppBrain users. You can peruse the apps of your AppBrain friends and other users, as well. Wondering what Lifehacker founding editor Gina Trapani has on her Android phone, for instance? You can check it out on AppBrain.

Never fear, Apple lovers: Similar services exist for the iPhone, too. Download AppsFire or Appfinder from the iTunes App Store to start sharing your favorite apps.

Communicate With Everyone via Fring

A unifying social networking platform for your mobile phone, Fring allows you to use one app to communicate across multiple social networking platforms, including AIM, GoogleTalk, ICQ, Skype, Twitter, and Yahoo Messenger. Fring eliminates the need to download specialized apps for each social network or communication tool–now you only have to worry about which friends you want to reach. Fring is available for iPhone, Android, and Nokia devices.

Make Your Android Phone Location-Aware

The smartphone app Locale for Android lets you set automatic preferences for your phone based on your location. If, say, you tend to forget to turn your ringer off when you reach the office, just customize your phone using Locale to switch your ringer to vibrate whenever you get to work. Or have it go to silent mode whenever you’re at the neighborhood movie theater. It’s simple, but clever.

Get Around Town

Hopstop is one of the best ways to plan bus and subway routes in cities with massive (and often confusing) transit systems. Hopstop is available in 16 U.S. cities, including Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.

The Hopstop service is available as a mobile Web application compatible with any smartphone that has a browser. For Apple handset users, the Hopstop iPhone app includes phone numbers for taxi services. An SMS version is available for directions, as well.

New Yorkers might want to check out the CabSense app (for Android and iPhone), which helps you find the best location to get a taxi based on the time of day, location, and day of the week.

Find Wi-Fi in Your Area

Apple may have cut Wi-Fi stumblers out of the App Store, but you can still turn to Wi-Fi directories such as JiWire’s Wi-Fi Finder to discover over 280,000 hotspots in 140 countries worldwide. JiWire also has an app for Android.

A similar service, WeFi, can also help you find a nearby Wi-Fi hotspot; in fact, Fring recently released a WeFi add-on.

Master Automated Menus

Dial Zero is a service that promises to deliver the best phone number or strategy for getting a human being on the phone when you’re calling a company’s toll-free number. Just as Fonolo.com allows you to skip automated menu services for big companies, so does Dial Zero. The major difference is that Fonolo.com automates the process, limiting the number of companies it works with. Dial Zero, in contrast, offers instructions and tricks on how you can reach a real person. You can also read user comments (sometimes vulgar) about specific frustrations, as well as tales of success in dealing with phone menus.
Dial Zero is a free application for Android, BlackBerry, and iPhone.

Next: Compare Prices With ShopSavvy

Compare Prices With ShopSavvy

You can find many applications out there that turn your smartphone into a bar-code reader, but the best one I’ve found is ShopSavvy. This app quickly scans any product bar code to do price-comparison shopping online and at local stores. You can also create wish lists or set up price alerts based on your scanned items. ShopSavvy is available for Android, iPhone, and Nokia devices.

Browse Android Apps Easily

If you’re thinking of switching to an Android device but you need more information about the Android Market catalog than you can find on Google’s official site, head to DoubleTwist’s Android app site. It will help you find virtually any Android application available in the Market.

Use Your iPhone as a Mouse

For iPhone users, Logitech offers a handy free app called TouchMouse that turns your iPhone into a wireless mouse by way of your Wi-Fi network. This could be great if you wanted to sit back on the couch and control a laptop hooked up to a TV, for instance. All you need is the iPhone app and the desktop software for Windows or Mac.

Tip: If you find TouchMouse difficult to control, adjust the ‘Scrolling Speed’ option under Settings on the iPhone app.

Slip Away With Fake-A-Call

Sometimes the only way out of an awkward in-person encounter is to get a well-timed phone call. Now you don’t have to pray for a phone call to come in–just make it happen with the help of Fake-A-Call. This free application for Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry devices lets you schedule an interruption or create a phony phone call on the fly. Grab this tool to save yourself from any sticky situation you end up in.

Control a Jailbroken iPhone With a PC or Mac

Veency allows you to view and control a jailbroken iPhone via a Mac or PC using a Wi-Fi connection. The tool is an interesting application to try out if you want to control your iPhone’s iTunes interface while it’s connected to a set of speakers across the room, for example. Or how about typing notes into your device through the Notes app from a full keyboard? Not bad at all.

iPhoneHacks.com has a nice tutorial on how to install the software and run it for both Macs and PCs. You can find a number of VNC clients, such as TightVNC and UltraVNC for PCs and Chicken of the VNC for Macs.
Get a Personal Trainer

The huge range of smartphone fitness apps has made it easier than ever to track your exercise habits. I use RunKeeper on my iPhone to track my weekly jogs, including my speed, distance, and routes; I can even share my workouts via Facebook or Twitter. I also use Lose It to track my daily calorie intake, and for fun I use the GymFu apps to guide my push-ups, crunches, and pull-ups. Check out your smartphone’s app catalog to see what’s available for your device.

Don’t Pay for Ringtones

Android users can use Ringdroid to create their own ringtones, but iPhone users can easily create their own ringtones simply by using iTunes. For more, check out PCWorld’s step-by-step instructions on how to turn any MP3 into an iPhone ringtone.

Tip: This method also works for non-DRM-protected iTunes downloads in AAC format.

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By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)
May 12, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Twitter Tuesday confirmed that it is working on new features designed to help companies use the microblogging site to grow their business.

A Twitter spokeswoman today told Computerworld today that a limited beta test of new business-oriented features is currently underway. Spokeswoman Carolyn Penner said in an e-mail message that a couple hundred companies are testing the feature in a closed beta process.

Twitter would not disclose details about the new features.

Last December, though, a company blog post disclosed plans for a feature called Contributors that would allow companies to better communicate with potential customers by allowing multiple bylined tweets.

Jason Goldman, the company’s vice president of products, said in an interview that last week Twitter had started working with companies to create desirable business services.

“[Businesses] are looking for ways to understand the effectiveness of what they’re doing on Twitter,” said Goldman. “So much of the activity happens outside of Twitter.com, so they need to know what happens through a longer lens at the whole ecosystem. How many people were engaged in the tweet I wrote on desktop clients compared to the tweet I did on a mobile phone?”

Companies like Dell, Zappos.com and JetBlue are now using Twitter to provide information on new products and to offer discounts to new and old users.

Twitter said that as companies increasingly use the microblogging site, they are looking for ways to make it more effective — to find out who is reading their tweets, and who is responding to them.

Though Twitter has acknowledged working on business oriented updates to the site, it remains unclear how the company will charge for such services.

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By Dan Moren
Macworld.com
May 6, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Wi-Fi may be plentiful these days, but it’s far from ubiquitous. A device like the iPad is just begging for always-on Internet access, whether it be for checking mail, surfing the Web, or even keeping up with your latest game of Words with Friends HD. Apple’s iPad Wi-Fi + 3G delivers on that promise, though the 3G experience may occasionally have you searching about for a Wi-Fi access point tout de suite.

Everything my colleague Jason Snell said in his original iPad review holds true with this device, as the differences between the two models are few. Outwardly, the 3G-enabled iPad is almost identical to the Wi-Fi model, and the two share almost all of the same features, with the exception of those related to 3G networking and GPS.

For the privilege of those few features, however, you will be paying a bit extra: the 3G models command a $130 premium over their Wi-Fi-only siblings, making the price tags $629 for the 16GB version, $729 for 32GB, and $829 for 64GB. And keep in mind that the higher price covers only the 3G hardware inside the iPad. In order to actually use the 3G service, you’ll need to pay for one of the two monthly that Apple and AT&T have teamed up to offer: a $15-per-month plan that allows you 250MB of data transfer or a $30-per-month plan that allows you unlimited data. And unlike the iPhone service agreement, which requires a two-year commitment with AT&T, you can cancel your 3G plan for the iPhone at any time.

The performance
If you’ve spent any time with an iPhone 3GS, then you’ll be pretty familiar with the iPad’s 3G performance, as under-the-hood investigations show that the two use the same hardware.

Given that the iPad also boasts the latest 802.11n Wi-Fi specification, there’s no contest between the two: Wi-Fi will beat 3G every single time. I ran a few speed tests using the Speed Test iPhone application and, though unscientific, Wi-Fi’s superiority was readily apparent–at my home, Wi-Fi was an astounding 70 times faster at downloads and 30 times faster at uploads.

Of course, such performance varies widely depending on the quality of the AT&T network in your location. And given that poor performance on AT&T’s 3G network has been one of the major complaints with the iPhone, don’t expect magically better performance on the iPad. The apartment to which I recently moved resides in a spotty coverage zone for AT&T’s network, and I’ve experienced frequent signal drops, poor coverage, and slow service on both my iPhone 3GS and my 3G-enabled iPad. I also have one of Apple’s recent 802.11n AirPort Extreme Base Stations, which helps me get the most out of my Wi-Fi network.

If you live, work, or otherwise spend a lot of time in a place with solid 3G coverage, you should find the iPad’s 3G performance to be perfectly serviceable for most common tasks, like reading e-mail, surfing the Web, checking RSS feeds, and keeping up with social-networking sites like Facebook or Twitter.

But when you start to get into more intensive tasks, the cracks in the 3G network begin to show. While I was able to stream video, audio, view maps, and so on over the 3G connection, the performance was sometimes subpar. Streaming via Netflix’s iPad app, for example, yielded video that was mostly watchable, though it did suffer from frequent pauses in playback as the video re-buffered.

The quality of the video delivered over the 3G network is also noticeably lower than what you get via Wi-Fi. Netflix, for example, down-samples the video, though it’s passable. I also tried the AirVideo video-streaming app, which allows you to pick and choose from a variety of data rates, but I still had trouble with pauses in playback.

I had even worse luck with the recent ABC Player update, which allows for streaming video over the 3G connection. Performance varied hugely depending on location, with streaming basically impossible to use at my home. However, I did find that other locations yielded better results, and in one particular incident, I actually had to flip the iPad’s cellular data connection off and then on again to yield better speeds.

Most perplexingly, I found that YouTube videos streamed over 3G were practically unwatchable, due to their low quality–you appear to get the same videos that the iPhone gets over the 3G connection, which look terribly pixelated on the iPad’s higher resolution screen.

In general, pretty much any bandwidth-intensive task from video streaming to rendering graphics-heavy Web pages takes longer to complete via the 3G connection, but when you’re out and about with nothing to compare it to, it’s not much of a bother.

The plan
As I noted in my first look at the 3G iPad, managing your AT&T account on the iPad is simple: you can sign up, monitor your usage, change your plan, and even cancel it all from the iPad’s Settings app. While no contract is required, do remember that the data plans are prepaid, so once you activate a plan, you’ve got it for 30 days. Changing or canceling a plan won’t take effect until the end of the billing cycle.

Of the two plans offered through AT&T, which should you get? Well, the ability to subscribe and cancel at any time is a hugely beneficial one: it means you only have to sign up for 3G service when you need it–say, when you’re traveling, for example.

But if you’re doing anything beyond e-mail and light Web surfing, you’ll probably want to shell out for the unlimited plan. Streaming video, in particular, is hugely intensive: using the Netflix application can easily rack up in excess of 100MB in an hour. One feature-length movie can put you within spitting distance of your bandwidth cap.

There are cases where you might opt for the 250MB plan. As one of my colleagues suggested, perhaps you might want to check your e-mail or get online while you’re staying at a hotel that charges–to put it diplomatically–premium fees for Wi-Fi access. It may very well be worthwhile, in such a case, to shell out the $15 just for the convenience. Plus, even the cheaper plan gives you the added bonus of free access to AT&T’s nationwide network of more than 20,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, including one at each of the half dozen Starbucks that are no doubt within walking distance from your location at this very moment.

If you want to keep an eye on how much bandwidth you’re chewing up, there are two options: one is to use the meters under Settings -> General -> Usage, which tell you how much data has been sent and received over the cellular data connection. This information is tracked by the iPad’s operating system itself, so it should always be up to date. You can also view your bandwidth usage under your AT&T account in Settings -> Cellular Data, but that can sometimes take time to update as it’s tracked by AT&T. In addition, if you’re using the unlimited plan, you won’t see your usage displayed there, just a note that you’re on unlimited bandwidth.

Given the disparity between the prices and amount of bandwidth offered, I think most users will opt for the unlimited plan. If you hit the 250MB cap, AT&T shuts the service off unless you add another $15 chunk of 250MB or switch to the unlimited plan–and if the choice is $30 for 500MB or $30 for unlimited data, that’s not decision that requires a lot of thought.

One downside to 3G connectivity through your iPad is that even if you already have an iPhone, with its attendant $30-per-month unlimited data plan, you’ll need to pay for the iPad’s data plan separately. All of a sudden, you’re racking up $60 every month for 3G data–and if you have more than one 3G-enabled iPad in your family, you’ll have to pay full price for each one since AT&T doesn’t offer any sort of family plan.

The power
The addition of cellular capability to the iPad raises another question: how does the device’s battery life hold up? While Macworld Lab is still conducting more definitive testing, my informal experience suggests that the 3G connection does impact the bottom line for power, though not as badly as you might fear. While relying on the cell phone connection, I saw the battery power dip much lower than it had on any day while using the Wi-Fi model, but not so much so that I was unable to get a full day’s use out of it.

But remember that the addition of 3G support means that the iPad carries three separate radio chips that can all be active simultaneously: the cellular connection, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Having all three of these on at once can definitely put a dent in your battery. In fact, a solid day’s worth of mixed usage–from about 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.–dropped me as low as 40 percent of battery life, which is lower than I reached in daily average usage of my Wi-Fi iPad in the previous weeks.

You have the ability to deactivate the cell connection under Settings-> Cellular Data and rely only on Wi-Fi. And that’s a welcome option, especially if you spend a lot of time in a location where the iPad struggles to get a solid signal. I’ve taken to leaving the cellular data connection off unless I’m specifically out of Wi-Fi range, at which point the battery life ought to more or less be equivalent to a Wi-Fi-only iPad.

Macworld’s buying advice

The 3G iPad is every bit as good a device as the Wi-Fi-only model, and it’s only more capable than its fellow model. There are no significant tradeoffs with the 3G version, as long as you’re willing to pay more in exchange for more capability. My colleague Mr. Snell made the case for a 3G version of the iPad well before it shipped, and having one in my hands, I find myself inclined to concur with his conclusions–that 3G connectivity gives this version of the iPad a measure of flexibility missing from the Wi-Fi-only version.
Assuming you’re already sold on the idea of an iPad and merely want to figure out whether to buy the 3G version or the Wi-Fi-only model, the real question you need to ask yourself is: is it worth it to spend an additional $130 to have the option to use 3G service? Look at it as an investment that at some point down the road you’ll be trapped somewhere without Wi-Fi, and you’ll be glad you can still play that triple word score.

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By Jon Brodkin
Network World (US)
April 29, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Cloud computing is making it easier for start-ups to develop new technology, but once companies grow beyond a certain size they may find current cloud technologies do not meet their requirements, tech investors said during Interop in Las Vegas this week.

The ability to spin up multiple virtual machines on a hosted cloud computing service like Amazon EC2 makes testing new software products much simpler than in the days when companies were forced to provision their own servers, venture capitalists said during a panel discussion on cloud computing.

FAQ: Cloud computing, demystified

“You can iterate a lot and get feedback faster,” said Ping Li, an investor at Accel Partners. “You’re able to experiment in the wild, as opposed to experimenting in the labs or in your head.”

But the cloud is designed for the lowest common denominator, Li said. Eventually, a company’s technology becomes so complex that it must be customized to fit the needs of specific applications, and those levels of complexity are not yet available in the cloud. And at certain economies of scale, it may not be cheaper to rent storage or server space from Amazon than it is to host it internally, investors said.

“The higher levels of complexity in the cloud stack isn’t there yet to do the things a highly tuned application like Facebook and Twitter needs to do,” Li said. “That’s not to say the cloud won’t get there, but the cloud gap exists.”

That’s one of the reasons enterprises are interested in building so-called private cloud networks, which are managed internally but use a similar architecture as public cloud services.

“The gap between what IT does behind the firewall and what is done in the cloud is pretty wide,” said Guy Horowitz, a principal investor at Gemini Israel Funds. Horowitz also notes that cloud providers are typically not offering service-level agreements worthy of the enterprise, a problem that panelists said is unlikely to be solved anytime soon.

“There’s a reason these SLAs have no teeth,” Horowitz says. “If they were able to guarantee uptime and performance they would be selling it. … It’s not in the best interests [of cloud vendors] to provide specific SLAs that can be enforced.”

Although cloud computing is one of the hottest parts of the technology market, investors said there is risk in choosing the wrong cloud companies to invest in. Many start-ups are building technology that enhances the capabilities of Amazon EC2 and other cloud services, but they run the risk of Amazon developing the same functionality and eliminating the need for the third-party vendor.

“We all ask, is this a feature or is this a company? If it’s a feature, Amazon will innovate on it,” said Allan Leinwand of Panorama Capital.

That’s not always the case, though, Li said. Amazon’s core expertise is not enterprise software, even though it is the most prominent vendor offering cloud-based virtual server and storage capacity.

“Amazon’s not a software company,” Li said. “We’ve seen them not do as well building layers on top of the stack as you would think.”

Venture capitalists have one goal when they invest in start-ups: to make money through either an acquisition or IPO. There are many companies that seem poised to buy cloud start-ups, but the investors disagreed on which companies will do the buying.
Rackspace and GoGrid are likely to buy new technology to better compete against Amazon, Horowitz said.

Mark Fernandes, managing director of Sierra Ventures, said IBM, CA, HP, Dell and Microsoft will also be aggressive in the cloud acquisition market.

Fernandes also contended that AT&T and Comcast will make cloud buys, a notion Leinwand disagreed with. Service providers are unlikely to get in the enterprise software game, Leinwand said, and may look at AT&T’s Synaptic cloud service as a warning signal.

“AT&T announced Synaptic. Name a customer,” Leinwand said.

Oracle is a company to watch out for in the cloud M&A market, he said.

“Oracle has been relatively quiet in this space and that’s going to change,” he said.

Follow Jon Brodkin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jbrodkin

Read more about data center in Network World’s Data Center section.

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By Michael Alan Hamlin

Corporations like to be in control of their communications. When marketing collateral is developed, news releases written, or web copy crafted, it typically will go through several layers of review to ensure that it is “on message.” The arrival of Web 2.0 has made controlling the distribution of the message easier and more difficult at the same time. But it has also fundamentally altered the dynamic of communications.

Before Web 2.0, corporate communications were mostly one way. Suits talked and customers listened. Today, the communications are two way, and the customers talk back. Word-of-mouth has been around as long as people have traded products and services, but distribution of customers’ view of corporations’ products and services was mostly limited to networks of friends, fan clubs, and consumer groups. No more.

“We have entered an age of more open, honest and authentic corporate communications,” corporate blogging consultant and author Debbie Weil writes in an updated version of her best-selling book, The Corporate Blogging Book. “Packaged, filtered, controlled conversations are out,” she advises. “Open, two-way less than-perfect communications with your customers and employees are in.”

To illustrate the dramatic difference in the way corporations should be communicating with stakeholders today and how they did before Web 2.0, Weil suggests it’s as if big business “has finally caught up with the baby boomer’s approach to relationships and to parenting. Listen, learn, debate, be willing to change, admit mistakes, be equals with your children, be fair to others with whom you have an adversarial relationship,” she explains. Because, “Acting like a dictator will get you nowhere.”

Top firms are figuring this out. Weil points to examples such as Boeing, GM, HP, Intel, and Sun Microsystems. These and many other companies are relying on a basket of Web 2.0 tools to communicate. They include social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, which have grown dramatically in very short periods. But while social networks provide the opportunity to interact with customers, employees, and other stakeholders, Weil cautions executives that they are “just playing” with these sites because they don’t control them. That means that corporations on these social networks must play by the rules that their owners and executives devise (although the rules are frequently challenged by social network users).

Weren’t we just arguing that corporations must give up control of meaningful, interactive communications? Yes, but not more control than us baby boomers gave up when we decided to be more thoughtful parents than our parents. We still made decisions for our kids. And for the most part, we did set the rules while they grew up and adjusted them as our children matured and developed.

Corporations still ultimately control the products and services they develop, and how they support them. Of course, they adjust like parents do to feedback from customers, reviewers, and sometimes regulatory authorities. And they can still exert some control, according to Weir, over their communications. Even better, corporations can respond faster and more directly to fast-breaking news and sudden unexpected events thanks to Web 2.0 tools.

A measure of control, however, is provided by corporate blogs, which Weil describes as an “e-newsletter, a viral marketing campaign, an open channel through which your customers can talk to you and your own news station all rolled up into one. Now wrap that into a lowcost, easy-to-use, always fresh Website. That’s what effective corporate blogging is.” She adds that blogs can be available to anyone on the Web, or used internally for project management and information sharing. Open blogging provides a means to establish credible, interactive relationships with customers; inward blogging provides a channel for always on interactive communications with employees, partners, and suppliers.

To many, blogs seem dated given the popularity of social network sites. But the reality according to Weil is that they are more relevant than ever. In his forward to Weil’s book,
General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz agrees: “I can’t tell you how many times I felt handcuffed when a story broke that was blatantly untrue. (At least in my opinion.) Not any more. When the idea of blogging was first presented to me, I jumped at the opportunity,” he writes.

Why? Because blogs enable “telling a story as I see it, without a filter, and in turn, receiving unvarnished feedback.” And that’s the new control, according to Weil.

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By Jack Madrid
April 26, 2010

Is it just me or have the first two months of this year of the Tiger zipped by at the speed of Usain Bolt? I also just read that PAGASA has officially declared the start of summer. Personally, I just crossed a mini-milestone myself: I have now been a Yahoo! for six months. And amazingly, I am writing this on a “Purple Friday” as Yahoo! celebrates its 15th birthday! As the first site on the web that I ever visited and the first place I searched for something on the internet, it is incredible to look back on how the web has changed our lives, with much more to look forward to.

Yet another milestone in our country is fast approaching. The upcoming election is the most important activity for Filipinos in 2010, with a critical decision for us: who to elect as our new President. What makes this particular election even more interesting is that this is the first one where we are seeing the role that social media is playing in terms of shaping news and public opinion. As we know, sociability and social networks are ingrained into the Pinoy culture, so it is natural for social media to be weaved into the tapestry of Filipinos’ daily lives. Given the ease of information transfer and the internet as a communications platform, it is especially critical that we leverage on social media with awareness and responsibility.

An increasing number of Filipinos are using social media to listen, connect, publish and distribute content: the press, the youth, office workers and political candidates. So as more and more people “share” content with our “friends, fans and followers,” on our social networks, we need to be mindful of the implications, given that a lot of this is new, with no clear guidelines on social media norms or privacy issues.

At a recent Social Media forum organized by Yahoo! Philippines, a panel of experts from the leading national news networks and publications shared their views on how social media is reshaping what goes on inside the newsroom.

Around the world, we have seen how social media has shaped public opinion and influenced the fate of countries & governments. In Iran, we saw how Twitter helped change the course of the revolution. But the most visible case study is how Barack Obama’s use of social media in his campaign helped him win the presidency of the United States. By building social networks, targeted email, SMS text campaigns and online video, Obama was able to convert everyday people in the grassroots of America into engaged and empowered volunteers, advocates and donors.

We can learn from Obama’s well-planned and orchestrated campaign that by creating a groundswell, built on social media platforms, there is a new way to manage communication efforts. The applications and impact of this will go beyond politics and change how companies engage with customers, partners and employees as well. This is in sharp contrast to traditional one-way, top-down style of communications. Social media will showcase the power of public engagement and how it can influence conversations at all levels of society.

Personally, what I really think is cool about the internet is its ability to be inclusive and not exclusive. If used responsibly, social media can level the playing field but we need to be cognizant of our roles & responsibilities as Filipino “Netizens.” On the education front, the Commission on Elections is using social media to educate voters about the automation process for the elections. On the campaign front, politicians and lawmakers are attempting social media tactics to reach out to constituents, some more successfully than others, trying to engage them in important dialogue to gain visibility among the youth and win their votes. There is even a race for who will have the most number of fans on Facebook.

It is early days yet and there are bound to be challenges on how to balance the means with the ends. There are risks of abuse as well as ethical or privacy concerns. Not all the rules have been written, but we need to go through the process of learning by doing.

Because of the paramount importance of this topic, Yahoo! Philippines has developed the “The Purple Thumb,” a Philippines elections site dedicated to being a trusted source of information, as well as an important starting point on our social media journey. It is a place where we try to provide relevant, authentic and objective stories, and where we allow our audience to share their thoughts and views.

I believe that social media should inspire, give Filipinos a voice, and allow them to connect with fellow citizens and engage in meaningful conversations.

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By Zack Stern
PC World (US)
April 21, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Think you know all of the tricks at your favorite Internet sites? Think again.

Even if you’re on Google, Facebook, and YouTube every day, you might not be tapping those sites’ full potential. Read on to speed up your Internet abilities, unlock new features, and find a new favorite tip or two.

Google Gimmicks

Search within a site: Narrow down your search results to a single site. Type (search query) site:(domain); an example would be entering: video card tips site:pcworld.com to find pages only at that location. You can even limit results to within sections of a site, as in this example: twitter site:pcworld.com/businesscenter.

Search for file types: Maybe you want to track down a certain document that’s a PDF. Enter your usual search string plus filetype:pdf to find only those pages. This method also works with PostScript (ps), Office docs (doc, ppt, xls), Rich Text (rtf), Plain Text (txt), and more. You can find a list of searchable file types here.
Exclude results: Include a minus sign to exclude certain results. Suppose you want to find news about Apple unrelated to the iPad. Type Apple -iPad. You can also combine the previous tips, such as Apple -iPad -site:apple.com and Apple -iPad -PDF.

Get local details: Forget manual time conversion; just enter time [city] (as in Time Tokyo) to get the current local time. Or try weather [city] for a forecast. For more local details, try [city] map, movies [city or ZIP code], and [restaurant name or cuisine] [city or ZIP code]. This works for a few other regular search strings, like Weather [city], stock quotes, and more–check out Google’s full list.
Make conversions: Swap units of measure, such as measurements of volume or distance; this works for converting different currencies, too. Try [number and unit] in [new unit] such as 7 inches in cm or 30 Euros in USD.

Bing Bonanza

Find links to files: Find pages that host or lead to certain file types, such as music. Enter [search term] contains:[file type] such as Wilco contains:MP3 to find MP3s from the band Wilco. Try this kind of search with many other file types, such as WMA, PDF, AAC, DOC, and nearly anything else.

Remove the background image: Bing sure is cute, but its big photos can be distracting. Visit http://www.bing.com/?rb=0 for a plain, gray version of the site.
Save searches as RSS feeds: If you want to stay on top of hits to a search query, turn it into an RSS feed. After loading your results, append &format=rss to the end of the new URL, and view it in your favorite RSS reader.

Fix Your Facebook

Hide application notices: Are you sick of Farmville, Mafia Wars, and other Facebook apps cluttering your feed? Mouse over the entry, and click Hide. You’ll block those alerts from your wall.

Invite a list of friends to an event: You don’t have to manually click a bunch of friends to send event invitations. Instead, create a list first. Click Friends in the left column, and use Create a List on top to pick certain friends. When making an event invitation, click the Filter Friends tab to show only the list. Click Select All.

Hide content from certain contacts: Keep your mom and work acquaintances from seeing messages intended for your inner circle. Click the lock privacy icon, and choose Customize.

From there, you can hide the post from specific people, or show it only to your entourage. For more on Facebook’s privacy settings, read “Protect Your Privacy With the New Facebook Settings.”
Cut to the core: The Lite version of Facebook strips away most of the clutter in the main design. It’s great if you’re on a slow Internet connection, browsing on a netbook, or just want to avoid the usual mess.
Browse to lite.facebook.com to give it a try, and click the link at the top of the page to toggle back to the full site.

Twitter Tweaks

Schedule tweets: You can set up a schedule for your Twitter account, so posts can go up while you are asleep, or–heaven forbid–are away from your gadgets.

This way, you’ll be able to tweet across time zones (so your international followers won’t have to scroll all the way down to hear from you, perhaps), and keep your Twitter account active when you need to focus on a project.

Many sites offer this feature, including HootSuite, SocialOomph, and Twuffer. I like Twuffer for its simplicity, although the others have additional features, such as Facebook support.

Get deals by following companies: Some of your favorite companies might post deals to Twitter. You’ll have to sort away businesses that spam followers too often, but I like following @amazonmp3, @amazongames, and @woot.

If you really want to step up your hustle, make a new Twitter account specifically for landing freebies so the spam won’t get to your real one. Keep it all straight with a twitter client that manages multiple accounts, such as Tweetdeck. Also, check out “How to Win Prizes on Twitter” for more tips.

Learn about current events: Look for your local Happen.in feed, which charts Twitter chatter based on your location.

If a bunch of people in the same area post “bridge out,” Happen.in will repost the details so that you keep on track of regional events and trends. The Twitter Website includes similar functionality in the right-hand column. Adjust those Trending settings to set it for your area.

Expand URLs: Shortened links could send you to a funny YouTube clip, a popular article in the New York Times, or a site designed to riddle your PC with malware. Use a Greasemonkey script (a Firefox add-on) and just hover your mouse over the cryptic URL to see the full version at the bottom of the window.
If you’re in a different browser, try pbtweet or read How to Use Greasemonkey Scripts in IE, Chrome, and Safari for more details.

Texting Tips and Smartphone Secrets

Toggle mobile formatting: Many Websites detect your mobile browser and offer up a mobile version of themselves with bigger fonts and simpler formatting. If a site doesn’t do this automatically, try putting m. or mobile. at the front of the Web address (URL), as in http://mobile.pcworld.com.

If you want to swap a mobile site into its full, PC design, look for a link at the top or bottom of the page.

Get e-mail as texts: You can have email messages sent to your phone as texts, which can be convenient. Maybe your RSS reader can forward content as e-mail, and you want to be alerted to updates in a rarely used feed.

Enter your 10-digit mobile phone number prefix and carrier suffix, such as 2223334444@txt.att.net. Here’s a list of other carriers. Also, read “10 Killer Texting Tricks” for more SMS goodness.
Send text messages from AIM: Your PC can send texts to a mobile phone for free. Within an AIM client, send a text to the number with + and the country code prefix. For example, a San Francisco message might be directed to +14151112222.

eBay and Craigslist

Mind your eBay reserve: Tiptoe through starting prices when auctioning off an item to save money. If you’re pricing something near eBay’s thresholds of $1, $10, $25, $50, and $200, cut back by just a cent to save yourself a little cash, which can add up for high-volume sales.

If you list something at $199.99 for example, eBay charges $1. For a $200 starting price, eBay charges $2. For more information, check out the eBay Fees page.
Spell poorly: If you’re buying hard-to-spell product, try searching for misspelling or common typos (”playstaion”), or enter * as a text wildcard such as “playst*”. (eBay will find hits for one or more additional characters.)

You might stumble over auctions that others haven’t found–which means less bidding competition. If selling, enter a few of those errors into your listing to snare misspelled searches (though probably not in the title–you don’t want to disappear from the correctly-spelled search results).

Search Craigslist with RSS: Keeping an eye out for a free leather couch on Craigslist? Save yourself from searching every 10 minutes by setting up an RSS feed for the search results by entering your search within Craigslist and clicking the RSS button in the lower-right to add it to your RSS reader of choice.

Entertainment Extras: YouTube, Hulu, Flickr, iTunes, and Xbox Live

Download YouTube and Hulu: Watch online videos away from the Internet by downloading them to your PC. The simplest methods usually work best for noncommercial video, such as random YouTube home movies. But at press time, I got StreamTransport to save videos even from Hulu. Play clips back with VLC.
Watch high-quality YouTube: Bump up the resolution in supported clips. Just click the number and arrow in the play bar; it’s likely 360p by default. Pick a higher number for the best quality.

Link straight to part of a YouTube clip: Instead of sending people to the beginning of a clip, you can create a link that plays from a spot in the middle that you choose. Just add #t=[number]m[number]s to the end of the URL, such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf6IQgFxpIA#t=00m11s to begin 11 seconds in.

Initiate console game downloads: Microsoft’s Xbox Live site might seem superfluous on a PC. However, you can queue up downloads and activate purchases through your computer, and when you log in back on the console, they’ll transfer automatically.
Upload to Flickr through e-mail: Instead of manually uploading photos, you can send them through e-mail. This can work well from an old mobile phone to quickly send pictures from a PC. In the Emails & Notifications tab of the Account options, click Create an upload-to-flickr email address to configure the feature.

Search and link to iTunes content in a browser: The iTunes store lives in its own application, but you can access specific apps, songs, searches, or anything else with a URL. To search, try http://itunes.com/[search term] such as http://itunes.com/evernote. If your search comes up with a single result (as in this example), you’ll jump to that page within iTunes. To copy a direct URL to an iTunes store page, right-click an item within iTunes, and choose Copy Link.

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By Jon Brodkin
Network World (US)
April 15, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Hypothetically, have you ever tried to remember: what were people saying on Twitter the night Barack Obama was elected president? Or when the world learned Tiger Woods isn’t the saint we thought he was?

Google has created a search for just those types of questions, allowing searches of what people were saying on Twitter at any given moment in history — assuming you define “history” as March 21, 2006, the day Twitter was born, and all points in time hereafter.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn will win out in enterprise, investor says

“Starting today, you can zoom to any point in time and ‘replay’ what people were saying publicly about a topic on Twitter,” Google announced in its blog Wednesday. “By replaying tweets, you can explore any topic that people have discussed on Twitter. Want to know how the news broke about health care legislation in Congress, what people were saying about Justice Paul Stevens’ retirement or what people were tweeting during your own marathon run? These are the kinds of things you can explore with the new updates mode.”

The idea of preserving the history of tweets seems to be getting more attention this week. Also Wednesday, the Library of Congress announced — via its official Twitter feed — that it will acquire the entire archive of Twitter messages dating back to the first tweet.

Separately, Google’s new replay feature will show you an interactive timeline of tweets on any searched topic. Clicking on a different point in the timeline will refresh the page with results from the moment selected. The timeline looks something like a stock graph, showing spikes signifying moments of high Twitter activity on a particular topic.

The new feature is being rolled out within the next couple days, so you may not see it at first, though Google’s blog post contains a special link so you can test it out.

Initially, the service will let Google searchers explore tweets going back to Feb. 11, 2010, “and soon you’ll be able to go back as far as the very first tweet on March 21, 2006,” Google says.

That first tweet, by the way, was Twitter creator Jack Dorsey’s not-so-memorable line “just setting up my twttr.” Dorsey has made more than 7,000 tweets since then.

Last December, Google announced real-time search, which made it easier to search for live updates from sites like Twitter, MySpace and Facebook. The new Twitter archive searches extend that functionality to search for “live updates” from any moment in the past.

To access the feature, search for a topic, then on the results page click “updates.” This shows you live updates from Twitter, Facebook and similar sites. Once the archive service goes online, you should also see the timeline view at the top of the page, above the regular search results.

Follow Jon Brodkin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jbrodin

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By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)

FRAMINGHAM (04/13/2010) - Twitter is finally taking off the training wheels and moving into the world where real businesses tread with the launch today of its first advertising model .

The microblogging phenomenon has long avoided coming up with a business plan or even talking about one. Just last October, Twitter CEO Evan Williams told an audience at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco that the company wanted to focus on developing the site , instead of on a business model.

But the time has come for Twitter to figure out how to make money over the long haul.

It’s a decision that makes the company look less like a grand hobby and more like an actual business , said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group.

“Twitter is growing up,” Enderle said. “It helps take them from a dot-com-like questionable start-up to a real business. Granted, they still will have to demonstrate an ability to make a profit … This is actually very important. It is part of the necessary process that must occur before they can effectively either sell the company or sell stock.”

There had been quite a buzz around the Internet over past few weeks that Twitter was planning to take the wraps off a business model for the first time at the company’s developer conference, dubbed Chirp , this week in San Francisco. Then today, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone posted a blog unveiling the new Promoted Tweets ad platform.

Users will start seeing paid messages, which will be labeled “promoted,” at the top of some Twitter.com search results pages, Stone said. Initially, as many as 10% of users will see the promoted messages. Twitter will work with Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks and Virgin America, to roll out the first ads, he said.

Twitter is plans to roll out the Promoted Tweets in several phases, with today’s announcement marking the first. Before the company develops the service further, it wants to analyze advertiser value and see what users have to say about it, Stone said.

“The Promoted Tweets program is a smart move on Twitter’s part,” said Augie Ray, an analyst at Forrester Research. “They needed to send a message that Twitter is not reliant on just one source of revenue, like search engine deals. Now they have a second source of revenue, advertising, and it’s expected we’ll soon learn more about a third source, paid business services.”

Ray also is confident that Twitter users will gladly accept the new advertisements, even though they will look much like regular tweets.

“There is every reason to believe Promoted Tweets will be welcome — or at least not rejected — by Twitter users. Because the program will have built-in resonance features that reward advertisers who launch Promoted Tweets that others find interesting, we can expect to see these tweets tend toward more value rather than less,” Ray said.

Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group, isn’t so sure that Twitter users will welcome the change.

“There will be a vocal minority of users who will hate any advertising at all,” Olds said. “But many users understand that it’s necessary and will accept it as long as it doesn’t interfere with their usage. But if the ads look like regular tweets, that could cause some serious outrage from users who feel that Twitter is attempting to deceive them.”

But walking that fine line between giving users what they want and developing a lasting money-making model is part of becoming a serious business, according to Stuart Williams, an analyst at Technology Business Research.

“Every business has different cultures, and their processes may lack maturity and experience,” Williams said. “However, being in business means you want to make a profit, and every serious business wrestles with this problem every day. Announcing and delivering a well-considered business plan is one step toward being a serious company. Executing on the plan earns you respect.”

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By John Mark V. Tuazon

The 2010 presidential elections in May is going to be an election of firsts, among many others. It’s the first time in almost a decade that a new personality may be occupying the seat at Malacanang; it’s also the first time that the entire country will cast their votes through automated means; and, due largely to the sudden boom of social networking sites in the country, it may also be the first time that the battleground for courting precious votes is shifting to the cyberspace.

While it is apparent that previous elections have seen candidates utilizing the power of the Internet to further their campaigns, it can be observed that most of those who put up Web portals only did on the purpose of information dissemination, and not to actively engage the electorate in conversation.

However, the phenomenal victory of the first African-American US President Barack Obama changed all of that. Launching a campaign that tapped on the grassroots level through social networking, Obama harnessed the inherently collaborative nature of the Web to organize and mobilize his volunteers and supporters, sending him straight to the White House.

The rest, as they say, is history. And with the 2010 Presidential Elections approaching faster than the speed of thought, presidential candidates are scrambling to replicate Obama’s stunning victory, in hopes of landing themselves a seat at Malacañang. And with a majority of voters coming from an age range of 19 to 40 years old—also forming the bulk of Internet users in the Philippines—winning the online vote becomes a critical mission for candidates.

Computerworld Philippines invited the New Media Managers of two presidential candidates to exclusive
one-on-one interviews to discover how presidential bets are harnessing the power of the Web in furthering their candidacies. Other hopefuls were also invited but couldn’t make it within the allotted timeframe.

Channels
After much thought whether he should run for the presidency following his mother’s untimely death, Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III finally broke the news in September, answering the clamor from various sectors of society.

This opened the floodgates for Aquino’s campaign, when an immediate mandate to “dominate the Internet” was given, according to Enteng Romano, head of the New Media Bureau of Aquino’s presidential campaign.

“The first assembly of volunteers happened on Sept. 13, 2009, after Noynoy declared he would run for the presidency,” Romano explains, adding that the plan was to be as “pervasive” and “inclusive” in their online efforts as possible.

This meant establishing presence in every available Web portal there is—from Facebook, to Twitter, and to
Multiply, among others. “We also post blogs posted on the official website (noynoy.ph), and our weekly newsletter is ongoing,” he adds.

Meanwhile, a fervent hope to reach out to the youth and an ongoing thrust for OFW welfare are just some of the reasons why Senator Manuel “Manny” Villar and his team took to the Web. “The online medium is primarily talking to the youth, as well as some opinion leaders,” explains Brian Edang, head of Villar’s New Media Team. “There are close to 30 million Filipinos online. If you want to talk to prospective voters, it’s a no-brainer to go the online way.”

Villar’s new media approach comes at a two-fold strategy: an official website that serves as a repository of relevant information about the Senator, and an active social media presence where voter engagement takes place. “Social networks are much more dynamic, so the interaction becomes personal,” relates Michael Palacios, one of the volunteers for new media campaign. “The website is primarily for straightforward content.”

Palacios said they don’t have a deliberate blogging presence, because blogs are considered “earned media.” “But we have done several blogging events in the past,” adds Natz Jose, another online volunteer. “Villar actually has the most number of engagements with bloggers thus far.”

As of writing, Aquino’s page on Facebook is composed of 621,719 fans, while Villar has 598,081 members. One of Aquino’s two Twitter sites has 30,618 followers, while the other has 1,210 following the account. Villar, however, has 998 followers on his Twitter page.

Investment
Most candidates would admit they leverage the vast potentials of the Internet mainly because it offers minimal burdening costs to its users. In rolling out their campaigns, both Aquino and Villar admit to spending little to no costs on online efforts, emphasizing that time is their only investment.

“We latch on to the spirit of volunteerism from our supporters,” says Aquino’s Romano. “That is why the cost is almost negligible. We just pay for a marginal price for the website’s hosting.”

Villar, on the other hand, is criticized mostly for his generous spending on advertisements on television, radio, and print. New media is not an exception to this, if advertisements on Facebook and Google’s ad program Adsense are to be observed.

Edang, however, dispelled speculations that these advertisements directly came from Villar’s camp. “It may have been started by volunteers, but as far as we are concerned, those ad campaigns have not been run by us.”

Conversation
The Internet being a democratic space where users can freely express their opinion, a variety of messages are easily formed and disseminated, especially matters of national concern. Aquino and Villar’s new media teams say they are satisfied with the way their messages are being received, saying the success of their efforts are evidenced heavily by the mounting number of their fans, followers, and volunteers.

“Most of the people responding to our posts are supporters, but there are also naysayers—also called online trolls—who have opposing views,” Romano says. Dealing with these confrontational users becomes sketchy, Romano explains, because issues of censorship comes to play. “The general rule is to let their messages stay on the site. If they hit below the belt, that’s when we take them out,” he elaborates.

Villar’s campaign, meanwhile, is built on positive vibes, so people are dissuaded from mudslinging. “As much as possible, we focus only on things relating to Villar, and avoid posting messages that attack other candidates,” Palacios clarifies.

But message is rendered inconsequential if not translated to action. Aquino’s Romano admits that even if the Internet presents a higher level of engagement with the voters, the team’s online efforts are concentrated to disseminating quick information to supporters. “We are not that sophisticated yet in our online channels that are used to organize volunteers, just as what Obama had done,” he quips, adding that online efforts of politicians in the Philippines may never come close to what Obama has done in the United States, where his online campaign efforts drew massive donations.

For the part of Villar, Palacios says the efforts have been a healthy mix of information dissemination and calls to action. “Our efforts online get translated to real-life action, judging by the increasing number of our volunteers,” he points out. “We are opening the doors for them to act.”

While they don’t have a stable volunteer management system right now, Palacios says something of the sort may be in the offing. “We are looking into it, so that our volunteers can organize themselves,” he says.

“But right now we are focused on making sure that the message we are sending out stays the same.”

Online Marketing
For all intents and purposes, the presidential candidates’ online campaigns are very much comparable to a burgeoning Internet practice of online marketing, where social media and search engine optimization are heavily utilized.

“Considering that social media is still a relatively new thing for many politicians, those who have an online presence have done a generally good job in using social media to get their messages across,” notes Joey Alarilla, social media editor of Yahoo! Southeast Asia.

Despite stellar initial performance, Alarilla says candidates and their teams still have a lot to learn about the dynamics of the Web. “They have to adjust to the culture and dynamics of online communities, and realize that online users are not just passive consumers, but also news producers in their own right,” he emphasizes, adding that user-generated content propagated by new media users are a more relevant gauge of campaign impact than the simple number of Facebook fans or Twitter followers.

In matters of messages delivered, Alarilla suggests a more passive approach for new media campaign managers. “They should listen more, instead of trying to do all the talking. So instead of bombarding follow ers with their campaign messages, focus more on replying to their questions and following their suggestions,” he says.

Alarilla says campaign efforts should also go “beyond just posting the same long, boring speech online,” since it is mostly the youth who have firmly embraced social media. “They should understand that new media isn’t just the online version of what worked for traditional media,” he adds.

Needless to say, Alarilla believes that the inherent swiftness of new media can’t be easily translated to the speed of services rendered by politicians eventually bagging the positions they campaigned for. “Voters, especially those who are used to real-time results in an online world characterized by instant messages and status updates, should remember that problems can’t be magically solved overnight in the real world. Just as politicians should remember that online popularity does not automatically translate to victory in the elections,” he quips.

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By Joan Goodchild, CSO (US)

You may be a champ at Mafia Wars and Farmville, but what do you know about the security risks of social media sites?

The collaboration and sharing made possible by Web 2.0 technologies also bring along a specific set of risks.

“Social networking sites are meant to get as many users in one place as possible on one platform, and for attackers there’s a lot of return-on-investment in going after them,” says Shawn Moyer, a security researcher.

In 2009, Facebook officials announced they had surpassed 300 million users. Twitter claims to have 6 million unique monthly visitors and 55 million monthly visitors. With that kind of reach, it’s not surprising that criminals view these sites as a great venue for finding victims. As a result, security stories about Twitter and Facebook have dominated the headlines in the past 12 months. In one high-profile story from 2009, hackers managed to hijack the Twitter accounts of more than 30 celebrities and organizations, including President Barack Obama and Britney Spears. Hacked accounts had been used to send malicious messages, many of them offensive. According to Twitter, the accounts were hijacked using the company’s own internal support tools.

Twitter has also had problems with worms as well as spammers who open accounts and then post links on popular topics that actually link to porn or other malicious sites. Facebook, too, is regularly chasing down new scams and threats.

Both sites have been criticized for their lack of security, but have made improvements in recent months. Facebook, for example, now has an automated process for detecting issues in Facebook users’ accounts that might indicate malware or hacker attempts. The site also recently announced a partnership with security software vendor McAfee aimed at improving security for Facebook users.

What are the most basics risks posed by social media and social networking?

Password sloth is a simple and prevalent mistake by users of social networking sites. Password sloth refers to using the same password on all sites–if that password is discovered via a hack or accidental leak on one site, it provides hackers a way into all the other sites. In a worst case scenario, it might mean a Twitter password hack gives someone the key to your online banking account.

Plain old TMI — too much information. It’s a great idea to let your neighbors know you’re headed out on vacation so they can keep an eye on your house or apartment. It’s NOT a great idea to post those vacation plans on public Internet sites. It’s also not a great idea to freely reveal lots of personal details and your birthday, your town of birth, your family tree—as that information can be used for identity theft.

Your personal brand is another thing to consider in your online interactions.

Don’t engage in “Tweet rage”. Scott Hayes, president and CEO of Database-Brothers Inc., notes that “Posting any content when angry is about as dangerous as sending flaming emails, if not more so. Think twice about clicking ‘submit’ because the world may be looking at your angry, immature rant for years.”

That include present and potential future employers, your parents, your kids, your coworkers. Think before you post.

Another risk to consider is your company’s brand and reputation. Can you be sure your employees aren’t leaking data, either intentionally or unintentionally, on social network sites? Can you be sure they are not disparaging your brand?

Then there is a big set of risks that we can put under the general heading of scams. These are active attempts by bad guys to get you to do one of two things:

•Share information you shouldn’t (passwords, sensitive data, company secrets) or
• Click on a link you shouldn’t (because it leads to a website infected with malware).

Here are some examples of the types of come-on scammers use:

Secret details about Michael Jackson’s death!
People love gossip and celebrity news is always a hit. These scams often claim to have secret information on a celebrity and include links that actually lead to malicious sites or that install malware onto a computer.

I’m trapped in Paris! Please send money.
Known as a 419 scam, fraudsters break into Facebook accounts and then message the victims “friends” asking for money.

OMG! Did you see this picture of you?
Both Facebook and Twitter have been plagued by several phishing scams that involve a question that piques the user’s interest and then directs them to a fake login screen.

Test your IQ
Facebook members often add quirky applications that allow them to take quizzes and fill out polls. One recently caused members to unwittingly subscribe to a text messaging service that cost approximately $30 a month.

Join State University’s Class of 2013 Facebook group
A college guide book publisher called College Prowler was recently criticized for creating Facebook communities for students in the class of 2013 that appeared to be organized by their college or university, but were not.

Tweet for cash!
This scam takes many forms. “Make money on Twitter!” and “Tweet for profit” are two common come-ons security analysts say they’ve seen lately.

Ur Cute. Msg me on MSN
The sexual solicitation is a tactic spammers have been trying for many years via email, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant with UK-based security firm Sophos. In the updated version of this ruse, Twitter “tweets” that feature scantily-clad women and include a message embedded into the image, rather than in the 140-character tweet itself.

Protect your family from swine flu
Bad guys will always take advantage of what is in the headlines, such as the world’s concern over swine flu, to snare unsuspecting users. These days it is even easier for a user to end up clicking on a bad link looking for news because of the prevalent use of the shortened.

Mike Smith commented on your post!
Reading friends’ comments is one of the major features of Facebook. But some malicious applications have names such as “Your Photos” and “Post” and begin with a notification that someone has “commented on your post.” However, once the user clicks on that notification, they are lead to a harvesting site called “fucabook.com” which looks like a Facebook log-in page and asks users to enter their log-in information in order to “enjoy the full functionality” of the application. It then steals that log-in information and then spams friends.

Amber alert issued!!
This one is not so much as scam as it is a hoax. Amber alerts are pasted into status updates that turn out to be untrue.

If my company allows access to social media sites, should we have a social media security policy in place?

IANS, a Boston-based research company that focuses on information security, regulatory compliance and IT risk management, surveyed companies in 2008 and found most did not have a security policy in place with regard to social media. But the same survey conducted just a year later in 2009 turned up a dramatic increase. Policies might touch upon appropriate usage of social media and networking sites at work as well as the kind of conduct and language an employee is allowed to use on the sites.

“We saw about a third of the audience now has something in place and another large percentage is considering these kinds of policies,” said Jack Phillips, IANS co-founder and CEO.

Specifically, just under 10% of respondent enterprises said their social media policy was fully implemented and communicated in 2008. That jumped to 34% in 2009, with another third responding that they had either created or implemented a policy for social media use. The take away, according to Phillips, is that social media is front and center now in organizations and the discussion is taking place not only among the security team, but within marketing, sales, human resources and even executives.

Phillips believes this is an opportunity for security folks to raise their profile and take part in an important issue from its inception.

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By Juan Carlos Perez
IDG News Service (Miami Bureau)
March 31, 2010

MIAMI - Twitter has given its home page a makeover with the intention of giving first-time visitors a better idea of what the microblogging and social-networking site is and of the value it can provide, beyond being just a repository of status updates.

In addition to a layout redesign, Twitter.com now features a column of recent “tweets,” selected by importance and quality through algorithms and refreshed after a few seconds.

Also new is a showcase of celebrities and other public figures with Twitter accounts, as well as a list of hot trends that scrolls across the home page.

The redesign’s goal is to convey the message that Twitter is “a network where information is exchanged and consumed at a rapid clip every second of the day,” wrote Doug Bowman, the company’s creative director, in an official blog announcement on Tuesday.

“With so much being shared, we know that there’s something of value for everyone. People who internalize the value of Twitter understand the power of this simple medium. But it hasn’t been easy to make that value transparent or obvious for curious folks coming to Twitter for the first time,” Bowman wrote.

Although Twitter’s popularity has skyrocketed in the past couple of years, many people still don’t grasp how the service works or how it can be useful for them.

In a recent study, BarracudaLabs found that only 21 percent of Twitter account holders have at least 10 followers, follow at least 10 people and have posted at least 10 “tweets,” which are the parameters BarracudaLabs chose to separate active from inactive users.

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