35+ Examples of Corporate Social Media in Action
We’ve discussed some tactics to get your company better engaged with social media. Lest you think there’s a limit to how you can connect with business and customer facing audiences, we’ve assembled this list of more than 35 companies who are experimenting with social media in a host of different ways.
This list is by no means exhaustive, and it represents a wide variety of businesses, industries and social media tools. As you can see, engagement takes many forms. Some are likely to generate more discussions with the company while others might result better connections between customers. Some will fade away over the next 6-12 months while others will continue to grow and evolve.
There are no rules to what form your engagement has to take. Look at your company, identify its strengths, what types of conversations energize employees and determine how you can best grow/shape/build/join your own community.
If you have other examples of corporate social media engagement, please share them in the comments.
Blendtec is famous for its bevy of inexpensive “Will It Blend” videos posted on YouTube and shared by millions.
Adobe maintains a list of interesting company related websites and conversations on the social bookmarking site Delicious.
Best Western sponsors a blog,“On the Go with Amy,” where the author travels the country writing about her experiences.
Cadence recently relaunched its website that now prominently promotes the company’s community.
Cisco hosts 12 blogs addressing a variety of audiences for their global business.
Coca-Cola Conversations is a blog written by company historian Phil Mooney that focuses on Coke collectibles.
Dell leverages a variety of social media platforms for customer engagement, including an island in the virtual world of Second Life.
Ford publishes news releases with lots of multimedia content and employs a social media news release format to display them in their newsroom.
Fujifilm recently launched a social network to build a community of photo enthusiasts around its newest camera.
GM uses blogs to communicate directly with its customers around topics ranging from design to green tech.
H&R Block created a Facebook fan site to aggregate its social media activities, engage customers and offer tax advice/resources.
HP used Twitter to power a scavenger hunt at a recent conference.
HSBC built the HSBC Business Network to connect entrepreneurs using blogs, videos and forums.
IBM was the first large enterprise to embrace employee blogging and now boasts thousands of blogs related to every facet of its business.
Intel has also developed many social media touch points with its software communities, which includes blogs, Twitter and virtual worlds.
Intuit sponsors the Tax Almanac wiki, where anyone can find and contribute to this resource for tax information.
Jeep connects with customers via a community page with links to photos on Flickr, the company’s MySpace and Facebook pages and a list enthusiast groups.
JetBlue employs social media as part of its training for JetBlue University, as this video explains.
Johnson & Johnson uses this blog to show another side of the company, with frequent video posts and interviews.
Lenovo launched “Voices of the Olympics Games” to aggregate posts from the athletes competing in Beijing.
Marriott CEO Bill Marriott posts regular updates and stories from his travels to Marriott properties around the world to fuel the content for this entertaining blog.
McDonalds maintains a blog to highlight the company’s corporate social responsibility efforts.
National Geographic uses Google’s new virtual world, Lively, to bring people together around its new show, LA Hard Hats.
New York Times is beta testing a Firefox add-on that allows users to share and comment on stories through a decentralized social network.
Nike started a social community on Loopd to connect athletes interested in surfing, BMX bike racing and similar activities with the brand.
SAP sponsored a global survey of social media professionals to learn more about social media worldwide.
Sears partnered with MTV to create a social network around Back to School shopping.
Southwest Airlines employees share their stories and communicate directly with customers through the “Nuts About Southwest” blog.
Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s blog is the example most often cited for what the CEO blog can be.
Starbucks started MyStarbucksIdea so that customers can submit ideas for the company which are then voted on by other users, the best of which will be implemented by the company.
Toyota started its own virtual world to promote its products in Japan (site is in Japanese).
Visa launched The Visa Business Network application on Facebook to connect small business users and to help them promote their businesses to a larger community.
Wells-Fargo blogs target two audiences; one examines the company’s history and the other is for students interested in getting their finances in order.
WWE has a Facebook application, among other social networking tools and widgets, to bring fans closer to the action.
Xerox blogs address several of the company’s core B2B constituencies.
Zappos uses Twitter for employees to communicate with Zappos customers about their shared love of footwear.
[Disclosure: Aaron Uhrmacher works with several Fortune 1000 companies, some of which are included in this list.]
Aaron Uhrmacher is a social media consultant at Text 100 Public Relations. In addition to his posts for Mashable, he blogs at: www.disruptology.com.
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Google Knol Launches; More Like Squidoo than Wikipedia
Google has just launched Knol to the public, dubbed by many as the search giant’s Wikipedia killer. My first reaction: not so fast. While Knol offers a way for anyone to create content about any subject, there are a few big differences.
First and foremost, each “Knol” is created by a single author, who can then choose to either accept or reject edits made by others in what Google is calling “moderated collaboration.” Beyond that, Knol authors can insert AdSense on their Knols and earn revenue based on clicks. In reality, this sound less a lot less like the community collaborating on authoritative articles (Wikipedia) and a lot more like a potential land grab to create content for lucrative keywords.
However, Google does offer some options that should keep would-be opportunists at bay. Each Knol offers the ability for anyone to review or comment on it, which in turn raises or lowers the authority of the article. Google says that they “expect that there will be multiple knolls on the same subject, and we think that is good.”
In giving a single author control over each Knol and its edits, it’s hard to imagine the service will be as authoritative as Wikipedia (which, many would argue has its own biases). It seems more like Squidoo, where knowledgeable people can create good content and be rewarded for it, with the community at-large determining how valuable it is and recognizing that there may be some bias in the article.
Meanwhile, Knol could still be a huge traffic generator for Google and steal visitors from Wikipedia if it’s integrated in search results – something Google has not been shy about doing with other properties like YouTube.
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hi5 Gains 25MM Extra Visitors in 6 Months
San Francisco-based social network Hi5 is touting some data from comScore today pertaining to its Q1 and Q2 2008 performance. It claims to have grown 79% since the start of the year. Which, on its face, seems like an impressive figure. It charts an increase of unique monthly visitors from 31.4 million, circa December 2008, to 56.4m this past June. 25m more visitors in the space of 6 months looks quite good, yes?
Indeed, it looks especially sunshiny if sized up against the growth charts of Facebook (roughly 35%), MySpace (10%), Bebo (12%), et al. (Again, this data comes from a singular source.) While some of the hi5 membership are based within the US, the vast majority are located elsewhere, taking advantage of the network’s renowned support for literally dozens of languages. Such fast-paced international growth doesn’t only mean good news for hi5 itself, but the broader market in general. The global race is coming on strong.
That being said, however, it’s necessary to put hi5’s ascent into perspective. It may be showing commendable grow in the sheer volume of unique visitors recorded. But perhaps the most standard metric for the market is the simple statistic pertaining to registered members. In that case, hi5 is still quite far from a commanding leadership role. For instance, Facebook is now said to have a membership surpassing 120 million. MySpace has been showing slowing growth for some time (hence its seeming paltriness of its 10% rise over the last half year), but it still maintains a very close position to Facebook. (For all intents and purposes, both giants are more or less neck-and-neck at this point. Now the game for gold and silver is very much about sustaining current trends, since it is unlikely that a second major boom will endure for them specifically.)
So, on one hand we see hi5 making considerable strides. On the other, those strides don’t make so vast a splash as they may seem to. Of course, one could take a quick look at the numbers espoused by comScore for spring and summer ’08 and see that hi5 has itself a nice, solid following and think that its placement among the top 10 international networks is largely irrelevant. And in some sense, this is true. Hi5 has quite a few strong points, particularly in the Latin American market. But the fact is that now that we see the world-is-flat ideal making its way more and more into the mainstream consumer realm, competition is competition.
How a network exercises its position and how well it is able to climb the proverbial ladder after transforming from sapling to a literal tour de force is key to long-term strength and long-term validity. That’s why points for sheer numerical popularity are part of the game. And in that sense, Hi5 is not dominant varietally and nor is it seen posting MySpace-like levels of revenue.
If you’re curious about hi5’s future, though, it’s safe to say that the network will remain a strong contender. It has shown to be very quickly willing to bridge itself with projects like OpenSocial and has even allowed its language translation efforts to be tapped through that very system. It also acquired PixVerse recently to pursue cross-network chat. And internal development is proceeding apace. Suffice it to say that we’ll still be hearing regularly from hi5, if not more so.
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As Facebook Developers Get the Beat Down, Playfish Says “Bring ‘Em On”
Earlier this week, Facebook further updated its developer policies in an effort to prevent application spam. As today’s F8 conference kicks off, the social network is now expected to announce “preferred” application makers. Bottom line: it’s a tough time to be a Facebook developer, at least if you’re looking for the quick bait and switch.
Recently I had an opportunity to speak with Kristian Segerstråle, CEO of Playfish, the popular social gaming company we profiled last month, about the upcoming changes to the Facebook Platform and what they mean to his company. 
First up, I asked Segerstråle about the new Facebook design and its implications for developers. He said “We’re very supportive of all efforts to improve the experience. When Facebook initially tightened up we were the first to say that’s great because ultimately we believe if social networks can create great places for consumers to hang out and spend time it will be the best possible enabler for the social gaming industry.”
So far, gamers have been doing a lot of hanging out on Playfish’s games like “Who has the biggest brain?” In June, the company saw a total of 900 million minutes of usage across its network, which now also includes Bowling Buddies and Word Challenge. That was up from 300 million in May, and represents about 30 minutes of playing time per active daily user. According to Segerstråle the reason for such a high level of engagement is that “people end up treating the game as something they interact around and have a fierce competition between friends that drives engagement to a whole different level that you can’t get in the [console] video game industry.”
The company is actually heavily rooted in the mobile gaming industry, with the founders representing the same founding team behind Glu Mobile. With games on Facebook and other social networks, Playfish is looking at alternative business models than the typical one-time purchases seen in the console and mobile gaming markets. For example, last week, the company launched a Pro version of Who Has The Biggest Brain?
Currently, Playfish is using PayPal for payment processing, but expects Facebook to introduce its own payment system for developers in the near future, and also eyes premium SMS billing as an option for billing consumers for things like virtual items and game unlocks. Additionally, the company has also signed deals with AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft to power in-game advertising.
Ultimately, Segerstråle expects transactions to represent the lion’s share of Playfish’s business. He says “We’re increasingly talking about transactions, we believe social gaming is primarily a transactional business.” If that’s the case, it could also represent a major piece of Facebook’s business model, as gaming is by far the most successful aspect of its platform, and an in-house payment system would give Facebook a piece of every transaction. We’ll find out if Facebook is ready to move in that direction later today, as F8 kicks off at 430et/130pt.
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Locify Streamlines Your Geo-Aware Lifestyle (The Startup Review)
Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
STARTUP DETAILS:
Company Name: Locify
20-word Description: Location-enabled mobile browsing, and a free and open way to create location-based services for mobile phones.
CEO’s Pitch: Locify is location-aware platform for mobile phones. Users can start exploring what is “here” or “there” and any developer can add geo-services or geo-resources for Locify users.
Developing location based services is now as easy as writing XHTML pages. Locify now offers fully-functional services such as Wikipedia Near, Geocaching, Show Me on the Map, Twittering Your Location, FireEagle location update, etc. And all these services are well documented to inspire other developers to enhance them or create new services.
Location matters. Locify yourself. Take the ride!
Mashable’s Take: We’re seeing mobile Web services that are aware of your location more and more frequently. If they happen to carry the right balance of technical utility, a critical mass of users, and ample privacy controls, they can become downright killer applications. We already have a growing array of applications having to do with everything from social networking services to historic landmark referencing to fuel pump scouting and so forth. So it seems only fitting that some startups seek to bundle various services together to make things a little easier and a little less scattered.
Manchester, UK-based Locify appears to be traversing that route. It works with both GPS-enabled and non-GPS devices, and can be accessed by going to www.locify.com/m. There are also software download options that you can install through a connection to your PC if that’s your preference. A BlackBerry-specific version of Locify is available, though it is said to be in an “experimental” stage.
I explained that Locify is sort of a bundle of services, all formatted to a relatively uniform menu system. Which I think is an altogether fair assessment of its general utility. But at its most basic level, it is a platform, eminently expandable so far as XHTML can take a developer today. For the time being, Locify sports a decent variety of items to choose from. Geocaching for trailblazers and treasure hunters. Twitter support. Wikipedia search. And of course some basic mapping, too. But it will naturally need to expand its sights. Given the simplicity of Locify’s code base, more additions will likely be made in the not too distant future. (See the Locify feature page, with videos, for a deeper look at what it has to offer.)
To its users, Locify is a free investment. One need only have a compatible mobile device. Registration is optional. Keep in mind, though, a Locify account will get you access to more features than you would otherwise have at hand.
Sponsored by Sun Startup Essentials
Apartment Hunting: 50+ Tools for Renters & Landlords
The Internet is filled with websites and services that can help you find a new place, but sorting through them can be more frustrating than the apartment hunting process itself. Whether you’re planning a move across town, relocating for a job, or just need to find an apartment with cheaper rent, we’ve put together over 50 tools to help make the process easier.
If, on the other hand, you’re a landlord looking to rent a property, we’ve included a few tools specifically for you. Also note that almost all of the listing sites we’ve provided for renters invite landlords to add vacancies, quite a few of them for free.
Apartment Listings
ApartmentHunterz.com - Focuses on smaller rental properties in Southern California.
Apartments.com - Apartments.com tries to provide as many pictures as possible for each property, customizable searches, a moving center that lets you arrange movers and much more.
BidRent.com - Allows you to bid on how much you wish to pay in rent for listed properties in the USA and Canada.
CityCribs.com - While CityCribs has listings for most major US cities, their heaviest focus is on listings for New York City.
Craigslist.org - The place where most people start their search for locating a rental property.
EliteRenting.com - A Google Maps mashup showing you rental properties and their neighborhoods as well as offering you side-by-side comparisons of various properties to help with your selection.
FlyRig.com - FlyRig is a Google Maps mashup focusing on just the 5 boroughs of New York City.
ForRent.com - Features all kinds of rentals for singles, families, college students and military.
GreenRenter.com - Limited to properties in the Portland, OR area, GreenRenter aids in telling potential renters how green a building is.
HotPads.com - Highly customizable search for each city letting you select rooms, rent range, and more. Also has heat maps to show you where the most activity is.
HousingMaps.com - Google Maps mashup that lets you easily visualize where a location is.
HubBuzz.com - HubBuzz attempts to take your likes and dislikes into account while trying to help you find an apartment that best suits you.
MyApartmentMap.com -A Cragslist/Google Maps mashup that lets you view the neighborhood and other data while also giving you a roommate finder, college apartments and more.
MyNewPlace.com - An apartment search site that provides detailed photos and floor plan drawings, they also offer $100 or more cash back when you sign your lease.
PeopleWithPets.com - Site specializing in pet friendly rental units.
Rent.com - An eBay company providing rental searches and will give you a $100 gift card for a successful rental through them.
RentalAds.com - Provides regular listings as well as specialized listings for pet owners, rent to own properties and more. Landlords can list their properties for free.
Rentals.com - Find all sorts of rentals across the United States including apartments and houses.
Rentals.NationalRelocation.com - A site focusing on people making long distance moves, will also help you locate all types of movers, including piano movers.
RentalSource.com - A rental listing site with all of the normal search functions as well as roommate finders and tools to help you move.
RentBits.com - Lets you search the entire country or region of your choice for rental properties.
RentMineOnline.com - A social network enhanced rental system which focuses on friends referring friends to rental properties. Also has a Facebook app to ease referrals.
TheRentMap.com - A mashup of Apartments.com’s listings with a Google Map.
Zilpy.com - Zilpy will give you an amazing amount of information about an area by breaking a city down by region and then telling you the average rental price for various styles of apartments and information about the neighborhoods.
Listings Outside the US
FindMyCrib.com - A Google Maps mashup for finding rental properties located around the UK.
FusedWorld.com - Apartment listings from countries all over the world.
HouseFinderUK.com - Despite the site’s name, HouseFinderUK also features a large selection of properties to rent in the UK.
Properazzi.com - Search all over Europe for properties in your own language and currency.
RentRight.co.uk - A rental listings site based in the United Kingdom with everything from lofts to houses listed.
Spyk.com - Search for rental properties throughout Australia.
Surf4AProperty.com - A UK-only site for locating rental properties around the country.
Rental Management
GetPropertize.com - Geared to helping an individual with property to rent, Propertize helps you track income & expenses as well as helping you generate your tax reports.
OnsitePropertyManager.com - Multi-featured property management software that also includes nightly back-ups of your data.
Property-Management.Buildium.com - A full-featured system that prints checks, makes work orders from online maintenance requests, allow residents to pay securely online and more.
Rentomatic.com - Offers both free and paid plans, can assist you in advertising, automating rent collection, track maintenance and more.
RentYield.com - Lets you manage your vendors as well as your tenants, track the performance of your properties and more.
TenantMarket.com - Helps landlords to locate tenants for their vacant properties.
Reviews
ApartmentRatings.com -Nearly 700,000 reviews of rental properties and their landlords, helping to save you some of the hassle of not knowing what you’ll get after you sign the lease.
IntroIn.com - Find people living in the complexes you are interested in and connect with people living there so you can get the inside track on what it’s like.
LandlordReview.com - Lets you review landlords and management companies in a dozen major cities in the USA such as Washington D.C. and San Francisco.
NeuLandlord.com - Rate and read reviews of landlords in all 50 states in the US, see who are the best and worst on their leader boards.
PickALandlord.com - A community based around reviewing landlords before you sign a lease.
RateMyStudentRental.com - A site devoted to renting your student housing, and if warranted, the site will send your landlord a note about problems with the property.
RottenNeighbor.com - When you rent a property, not only do you have a landlord to worry about, but also possibly annoying neighbors. Check out the neighborhood you’re moving into as well as look for sex offenders and more.
Roommates
EasyRoommate.com - Has over 190,000 listings in the United States for rooms to rent and people looking for rooms.
Gradspot.com - Use the website or their Facebook app to help you find roommates for your post-grad life.
MetroRoommates.com - Roommate referral service that focuses on major metropolitan areas in the USA.
RoommateClick.com - Focused on college and university students, RoommateClick will help you find a room or let others know you have a room to rent.
RoommateConnection.com - A roommate referral service for the northeast United States with a heavy focus on Boston, MA.
RoommateLocator.com - Assists you with you finding roommates across the USA as well as some oversea locations.
Roommates.com - Almost like a dating site for roommates, you set up a profile and start searching for your perfect roommate match.
Roommates4You.com - This one lets you set if you are looking for a room or have a room, in addition to price ranges you are looking for from the initial search.
Roomster.net - Helps match you with a roommate with a compatible personality, works for cities in the USA, Canada and the UK.
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Searchles Connects Washington Post Readers Based on Similar Comments
Searchles has landed a big new publisher to implement its social discovery technology: The Washington Post and its MyPost social network. Now, when browsing the profiles of other MyPost members, you will see Searchles’ “Related Users” widget, which shows you other people who have taken an interest in similar stories on washingtonpost.com, based primarily on comments.
The basic idea is that connecting people based on similar reading habits is a good way to build a social network – especially one on a big media site. Clicking on users in the Related Users widget brings you to that user’s profile, where you can then see the comments that person has left on Washington Post articles. You can then navigate to the rest of the user’s profile, which includes basic features like a bio, interests, and photos. The Washington Post’s commenting and social networking features are powered by Pluck, which was recently acquired by Demand Media.
Similar to publisher offerings from companies like Loomia and Outbrain, which are focused on related content rather than users, the end-game is increased page views. From this perspective, I would think users are more likely to click on people than additional headlines, but Searchles UI appears to be lacking user photos in the widget, a big missed opportunity.
Searchles signed a similar deal last year with Total Telecom, a niche publisher for the communications industry. The company secured additional angel funding earlier this month and has raised a total of around $2 million to-date.
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If Google Buys Digg, What Happens Next?
My prediction: nothing. Not a damn thing. If Google acquires Digg, which many sites are reporting as a done deal, it’ll be a little something I call a vanity buy. Which would mean that Google doesn’t really need Digg; it wants it. And if Google is smart, it’ll just leave Digg as it is.
The thing is, Digg and other social media sites are very much dependant on having an active, vibrant community. I might be proven wrong, but history has shown that these types of sites never get enormous; and their users are not too keen on clicking ads. In short, they’re not the goldmine everyone thought they would be (hence the thousands of Digg clones out there).
So - if the rumors are true - why is Google buying it? Because it’s cool. It has formidable traffic, yes, but the main reason why anyone would want to own Digg is influence. Let’s face it, it’s a very influential site: some are trying to game it, some are trying to win it (it can be a game, you know), some are trying to understand it and profit from it. But the fact that it’s such an enigma, with its users constantly redefining what works and what doesn’t, is one of the reasons it’s so popular.
The other reason why Google would want to buy Digg is the simplest of all: because they can. Digg is the first and best site in an entirely new niche, and if the price is not outrageous, Google can afford it, so why not own it? If nothing else, it’ll give them a great opportunity to find out about the inner workings of this specific and complex social media ecosystem.
Therefore, I think that it would be dumb for Google to try to do anything to Digg, especially immediately after the acquisition. It could cause a backlash from the community. If they acquire it, they can move some ads around and try to leverage the influence in some ways, but the best thing they can do is enjoy it and go with the flow.
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USPTO Says No More Software Patents
Patent law is confusing. I’ve filed for and received a couple patents filed under the names of companies I’ve worked for in the past, and I’m still not sure exactly how that worked. I know I wrote up a pretty complex description of the process (which was a combination of hardware and software - it had to do with the automation of fax receipt and transmission on a bulk level), and I drew out a number of charts, graphs and illustrations. I signed on the dotted line, handed it to the company attorney, and presumably the company I worked for received a patent on my work.
Additionally, I’ve written about patent abuse here at Mashable before. It’s easy to spot abuse, particularly when companies like Amazon patent things like “one click” or Z4 Technologies patents the usage of two passwords as a security method. I suppose I could learn more about it fairly easily, if I wanted. Marshall, Texas is the town where a large portion of patent lawsuits end up being tried due to a reputation for being kind to patent trolls (Marshall is about 45 minutes down the road from where I live).
The problem is that I, like most of you probably do, find patent law very confusing, tedious and boring. That’s why I’m not sure if the analysis being pitched over at Patently is spot on or not, but judging by the comments from regular readers, it doesn’t appear to be far off the mark.
The analysis? Patents on software may be a thing of the past, and furthermore all existing patents on software might be useless or invalidated.
Warning: Legalese below. Possibly boring.
From Patently:
In a series of cases including In re Nuijten, In re Comiskey and In re Bilski, the Patent and Trademark Office has argued in favor of imposing new restrictions on the scope of patentable subject matter set forth by Congress in § 101 of the Patent Act. In the most recent of these three-the currently pending en banc Bilski appeal-the Office takes the position that process inventions generally are unpatentable unless they “result in a physical transformation of an article” or are “tied to a particular machine.”
The logic of the PTO’s positions in Nuijten, Comiskey and Bilski has always threatened to destabilize whole fields of patenting, most especially in the field of software patents. If the PTO’s test is followed, the crucial question for the vitality of patents on computer implemented inventions is whether a general purpose computer qualifies as a “particular” machine within the meaning of the agency’s test. In two recent decisions announced after the oral arguments in the Bilski case, Ex parte Langemyr (May 28, 2008) and Ex parte Wasynczuk (June 2, 2008),[3] the PTO Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences has now supplied an answer to that question: A general purpose computer is not a particular machine, and thus innovative software processes are unpatentable if they are tied only to a general purpose computer.
In essence, it seems to be saying (if I’ve got my legalese option on Babelfish working properly) that in these particular cases (where Google’s patents are at stake), it is the opinion of the US patent office that unless a software patent is particular to a unique machine that physically transforms it or if the software in question only works on some proprietary platform, it isn’t unique enough to patent.
The object of this rule shift obviously is to keep folks from patenting silly things that are mundane and commonly found in a wide variety of software (see one-click checkout).
To further translate it from legalese to geekish, it sounds like just about any piece of software or algorithm you write won’t be patentable. If you do a hardware or hardware/software hack, so long as it isn’t written on a commonly used computing platform (i.e. PC or Apple architecture), it just might be patentable.
What I Think Of It. Probably Less Boring.
I’m initially inclined to speak out in favor of this opinion. On the whole, software gets written regardless of what patents may or may not be in existence. I know that when I have a hankerin’ to write a piece of code to fill a need for myself, my company, or my community, the first thing I don’t do is check the patent office for something that may cover my idea. I just write it.
That’s the process for most folks. It’s only when that software gets particularly popular and profitable do the folks who had the idea (but not the gumption to do the work) come out of the woodwork and start suing.
It’s unfortunate, but from where I sit, it looks like that patent system functions currently in the opposite manner it was meant to. It was meant to protect and reward innovation, yet it seems that the only times I hear of a patent in the news is when a deep pocket is being sued by a corporate entity that does little else than collect patents. The exception to this rule, of course, is when deep pockets use their overly broad patents to force threatening upstarts out of business.
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Episodic Launches iPhone App Compatibility and Beta Applications
As you’ve probably noticed, we’ve been using a pretty rare platform for our video podcast series Mashable Conversations. The platform is called Episodic, and it’s amongst the best I’ve tried (and I’ve tried quite a few). I don’t often fawn over a company, so I hope you’ll indulge me for a moment. They’ve got one of the most responsive customer service teams I’ve ever worked with, with the aim to really make the usage of the system as transparent as possible for the producers.
Given that I preach very often about the features and services that video platforms should be providing for their customers, when I’m auditioning services for my own use (or in this case, the company’s usage), I send the unfortunate company representative through a long list of hoops they must jump through. Noam Lovinsky was the unfortunate soul assigned to explaining the platform’s capabilities to me.
They Have What I Need
My requirements were that the platform must: generate an iTunes compatible podcast RSS feed, must have an embedded player that has viral elements (remote embedding, and such), have detailed analytics, have dynamic advertisement insertion capabilities, and must be able to generate an iPod compatible MP4 file.
There are a few platforms out there that we’ve tried that get about 90% of this done, but Episodic’s was the first that got 100%, and then some. Their transcoding options support a variety of standardized formats, and allow you to upload your program in multiple segments so you can change out elements of the show without going back and re-rendering the entire back-catalog (for instance, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve changed out the intro to something a bit more aesthetically pleasing this week).
The ability to dynamically assemble an episode also allows for a whole new level of analytics to get accustomed to. I can run side by side comparisons, for instance, on the two versions of the introduction to the show (interestingly, the one with the higher quality seems to perform about 1% poorer in terms of drop-offs).
The advertising options in the system are particularly advanced, as well. The system supports pre-rolls, mid-rolls, post-rolls, and overlays across all of your content.
As an added bonus, the system also integrates with another favorite video service of mine: TubeMogul. After your files have been transcoded on the service, you’re able to with a click upload them directly to your TubeMogul account (which then of course blasts them out to YouTube, Metacafe, Yahoo Video, and the wide assortment of other embedded video hosting websites out there).
Act Now, and You Also Get…
With all that, what else could they pile onto the deal to sweeten the pot? Well, pulling the service out of invitation only mode would be great (I can’t tell you how many requests I’ve had recently from fellow producers interested in giving Episodic a spin). They’re doing a little bit of that today - it’s not exactly open registration, but they’re launching a new service that uses some of the transcoding technology they’ve developed.
Do you have an existing video feed? Would you like it to have an iPhone compatible website generated around that content so that iPhone users can check it out?
Simply fill out the form and set up your transcoding account. And while you’re there, you can also apply to be a part of the limited beta on the platform we use here at Mashable.
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Is US Internet Access Being Marginalized?
Every day we hear about how the Web is going to change the movie industry, the music industry and even software usage along with its related data storage. We hear how the Web is becoming that ubiquitous utility service that we will all be using at some point whether it be from a desktop, a laptop or our mobile phones. Of course though what isn’t being said is that in order to have this ubiquitous access it has to be an access that we can afford as well as access that is capable of handling the heavy load of all this data transfer without any interruptions.
In the majority of the world this is something that is happening with some speed. Whether you are in Europe or any number of forward thinking countries of the Far East broadband speed is growing by leaps and bounds with costs of accessing those pipes well within reach of the average person on the street. In the United States however almost the exact opposite is happening. Whether it is Comcast getting caught traffic shaping or the fact that Time Warner will be putting caps on the broadband usage or in the most recent news that AT&T is looking at instituting tiered based pricing on usage the fact is that Americans are losing out on the same technological advantages the rest of the world is enjoying.
The fact that this is all happening during a time when there is a real push to deliver video over the Web, offer music downloading as a retail alternative, and a push to use cloud computing services should be of no real surprise I guess. After all, the players in this Internet service provider game are companies that are well known for their preference of making as much money as possible while giving as little service as possible to the customer. The problem is though is that with every little increase regardless of whether it is being hidden behind caps and spin terms like “fair access for all” it is getting more and more expensive for people who want; or even in many cases need, the access to true broadband speeds.
Even though the companies involved like to spin it as being the fairest way to make sure that everyone has equal access to the Internet while at the same time they threaten that unfettered access is going to lead to service bottlenecks they have done nothing to improve the systems. Already the US is being overshadowed by foreign countries who have invested heavily in all forms of broadband and whose populations enjoy services we only seem to be able to dream about. In the process the US is sliding further down the list of countries with broadband access, but these provider companies like Time Warner, Comcast or AT&T continue to roll in the billions of dollars.
It doesn’t matter about all the talk of how fast broadband is in the US; or any country for that matter. If the people can’t afford what really is nothing but the most basic of access, you can have all the video for download that you want or have as many programs running in the cloud as you want - it won’t get used. The fact is that real access will be out of the reach of the average user and broadband as it is meant to be will be just another luxury we can’t afford.
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Want Free Gas? Watch This. (video)
There’s no way, particularly with today’s gas prices, you can turn down at least a look at an idea for getting free gas. One of the interesting startups we discovered at the SummerMash Seattle stop is a local startup that sells the advertising space … on your car .. in return for free gas. They are aptly named GasForFree.
Introducing the clip today is my son AJ. I was a bit busy in the studio rendering the mountain of videoed interviews from the SummerMash tour, so he graciously at in with Sean today to introduce today’s Mashable Conversation.
Download the MP4 here, subscribe to the feed, or watch the embed below.
Never Miss an Episode!
Get the Mashable Conversations podcast here (video feed).
Get the Mashable Conversations podcast here (audio feed).
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Introducing the Unofficial Facebook Fail Whale
On Friday, with Facebook experiencing some downtime, we asked you “When Facebook Goes Down, What Should its Fail Whale Look Like?,” a reference to the iconic Twitter fail whale you see when the microblogging service is having technical difficulities.
We received a lot of great submissions in the comments, but had to narrow it down to two winners for the $25 iTunes gift certificates. Without further ado, here they are, with a bunch of honorable mentions after the jump:
Submitted by mghwom
Submitted by balebond
Submitted by lowkey
Submitted by Amanda
Submitted by konko
Submitted by Joshua Kalle
Comments:
Seanford: A burglar’s eye mask you can print, cut out and ware to conceal your identity as you are going to have to stalk you ex-girlfriend from her bushes now instead of on-line.
Marni: They should sell advertising on this page at a super high CPM! Maybe they’ll be the first ads on FB to see major success?
Elliot: it should be a phishing page for myspace, and if anyone logs in, or registers, they should delete their facebook account.
Nicki: I believe that we should stay in the world of the big animals, so Facebooks fail whail should be a sleeping dinosaur that is about to get hit by an asteroid. why? Well because just like the dinosaurs is Facebook to big and clumsy to do anything about the fail / asteroid that is about to hit them when the users finds out that Facebook don’t have a 99% uptime.
If you’re one of the top two, please get in touch so we can send you your prize! 
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Google App Engine: A Glimpse of Things to Come
This is a guest post written by Waleed Abdulla, a software engineer and the founder and CEO of Ninua, Inc. You can follow his projects on his blog at selfdebugging.com.
At a technical meetup in Santa Clara a few days ago, I met Dave Westwood, a talented developer and 3D engineer who told me a fascinating story about the phenomenal growth of his recent application, BuddyPoke, which witnessed an explosive surge in traffic when Google released their Orkut platform to their Brazilian users on July 10. It was the kind of sudden growth that crashes servers and kills Web sites. Unless, of course, they’re hosted on a vastly scalable infrastructure that automatically adapts to handle what you throw at it; such as the Google App Engine. I’ll let Dave tell the story:
BuddyPoke is live on myspace.com, hi5.com and orkut.com. It has had the most success on Orkut, and is currently the number 2 application in Brazil. Orkut took 25% of their Brazilian users live on July 10th and went live to the remaining 75% of Brazilian users on July 15th. In the last eight days the rate of new installs per hour for BuddyPoke has grown by a factor of eight on Orkut, with sharp jumps on those two days. 500,000 avatars were personalized today (although some of them may be by the same user). The ability to grow rapidly and handle sudden jumps in traffic is all thanks to App Engine’s ability to scale so fluidly. And while all of this growth happened we were working on our next update, not frantically phoning up a hosting company to add servers.
The Google App Engine (GAE), which is still in preview release, offers a free hosting quota that’s enough to serve approximately 5 million pages a month. Dave had to call a Google product manager at 3:00AM to ask for a much needed quota increase. Google obliged and opened the flood gates for him.
Free Hosting for Blogs and Small Websites
The allure of automatic scaling is not the only thing that GAE offers. Imagine that you’re starting a new blog and you want to have the full flexibility to install any plugin you like. The available free options, such as WordPress.com and Blogger, won’t do it for you because they restrict what you can install on the server. So you end up having to host it yourself and pay hosting fees.
But new open-source initiatives, like Bill Katz’s Bloog, which is an open source blogging platform written specifically for the App Engine, will let you host your blog for free on Google’s infrastructure. You pay only if you exceed 5M monthly page views. Sure, Bloog is still at an early stage and doesn’t have the wealth of plugins that established platforms have, but it’s a sign of where things are headed. Not only blogs, but soon we might see open-source products that allow us to create simple personal or business Web sites and host them for free without giving up the freedom to customize them beyond the options offered out of the box. This might be a threat to companies that offer limited versions of their blogging or personal site design products for free in the hope of getting customers to pay for advanced features later.
Globally Distributed Infrastructure at Your Fingertips
There is more to hosting than having servers that scale well. Distance matters. The closer your server is to your customers, the faster your pages load. On the App Engine, if your customers happen to be in Brazil, your application will automatically be moved to a server closer to where the demand is. Or it might be replicated on many servers in different parts of the world. All automatically. Before the App Engine, such infrastructure was only available to big companies with deep pockets. But now, individual developers, like Zaid Abdulla, can build services like BitPixels, a service to generate Website thumbnails, and offer Google-fast downloads from any part of the world, in one day. (disclaimer: Zaid is the author’s brother).
Where do we Go from Here?
The above examples are not unique. Already, startups are starting to utilize the new platform. Some do it because it’s a new cutting-edge technology, and others to use the free hosting and automatic scaling. Other interesting examples include TweetWheel which tells you which of your Twitter friends know each other, Jumbra which merges multiple RSS feeds into one, and Mobaganda which helps you create events online. And there are many more.
Obviously, if GAE takes off it puts Google in control of a big and critical part of the Web infrastructure. Not only will it bring revenues from hosting fees, but it’ll also make it easier for Google to buy startups and integrate their code rather than having to rewrite most of it like they do today.
So here is the big question: will companies trust Google enough to host their applications? My guess: a few will jump at it right away, and others will hesitate for a while, but eventually sign up. Startups and open source projects will probably lead the way because they love to be on the cutting edge, they don’t have much to lose, and they need any leverage they can get. After a few successes start making headlines, more and more companies will consider GAE seriously, at least for their less sensitive applications that could use easy and reliable scaling. GAE is definitely a great option to have and it’ll be very interesting to watch how the landscape unfolds.
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Ori Brafman, Co-Author of ‘Sway’ Live Q&A (Y! Live)
Ori Brafman, co-author of the New York Times Bestseller Sway is now chatting live on live.yahoo.com/mashable, answering questions and comments. This is the third installment of our Sway three part series. If you missed the first two be sure to check out Brafman’s personal introduction and post on VC Irrationality.
If you haven’t read Sway, you can check out the first chapter for free or purchase it online here. Feel free to join in the chat either way.
*The video embed below is a live broadcast, but you must log into Mashable’s Y! Live Channel to chat with Ori and Rom Brafman.
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We’re Hiring: Become a Mashable Contributor!
Over the past few weeks, you may have noticed several new names and a lot of cool new feature articles at Mashable. That’s because we’re actively looking for new and interesting voices in the social media space to contribute to our growing site! Here are a few recent example posts from our contributors:
Twitter Client Head-to-Head: Twhirl vs Tweetdeck – Chris Miller compares leading Twitter desktop client Twhirl with the recently launched Tweetdeck.
How to Develop a Social Media Plan for your Business in 5 Steps – Social media stratetigist Aaron Urmacher outlines the key steps for jump starting your company’s strategy.
Wish List: 8 Ways to Improve Google Maps – Doug Hamlin offers up some great ideas about how to make Google Maps more useful and social.
As opposed to news and reviews, feature articles take a more in-depth look at a given subject and can take a variety of formats, including a head-to-head comparison of competitive products, a how-to/tutorial, and lists of similar services (see Sean P. Aune’s author page for hundreds of examples). Our contributors work virtually, will be expected to produce between 1-4 posts per week, and are primarily paid on a per-post basis.
If you’re interested in becoming a contributor, please send several examples of your online work to me at adamo [at] mashable [dot] com. I’ll follow up with additional questions and details.
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DashGo Connects Musicians and Labels to Social Media (The Startup Review)
Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
STARTUP DETAILS:
Company Name: DashGo
20-word Description: DashGo provides digital distribution and social networking analytics for bands and content owners.
CEO’s Pitch: DashGo.com enables bands to easily manage new releases and publish them to digital music services like iTunes.
For each of our clients we track performance across the top 9 social media networks. We standardize the data into the categories of “Profile Views,” “Streams,” “Friends” and “Comments” for timeline analysis. We are rapidly rolling out new features - next up is to lay benchmarking and sales data on top of this to help artists identify which sites and spikes in activity generate sales. In the future we plan to offer distribution directly to the social media networks as well, in addition to the digital music stores and ad-partners we currently serve including Last.FM, Meebo and YouTube.
Mashable’s Take: If you’re a solo act or a band of music makers (or studio), chances are you want to get your music out to as many listeners as possible through various channels on the Web. Santa Monica-based DashGo serves to help accomplish this.
Presented as a music label of next-generation making, DashGo connects with virtually all the top sales outlets - plus some lesser-known joints. The list includes iTunes (worldwide), Rhapsody, eMusic, Amazon MP3, Napster, MediaNet, Snocap-Imeem, YouTube, Juno, Turntable Lab, Blast My Music, Amie Street, Songslide, Beatport, Audio Lunchbox, etc. DashGo tracks activity on social sites as well: MySpace, YouTube, iLike, Bebo, Facebook, Purevolume, Virb, Imeem and Last.FM.
Such coverage gives DashGo both a thorough sales spread as well as a comprehensive look at what occurs where on the Web, allowing the company to direct energy where necessary based on a good amount of information. Which can ideally lessen waste and boost marketing potency.
As an intermediary exclusively fixated to the digital space, DashGo’s pursuit is naturally the independent crowd. Artists in the sector are in a continuous race to rise above the fold, and are clearly seeking to raise their profile through online campaigns. DashGo’s purpose is essentially to buoy that desired objective with substantive logistical experience. How successful has it been thus far?
It’s list of partners is a literal potpourri of names. Content producers include: Delicious Vinyl, Krofft Pictures, Downtown Records, CBS Records, and GMG Entertainment (DashGo’s founder, Ben Patterson was an executive). And one of the more high-profile arrangements with a music group Patterson touts is Weezer. Patterson reportedly had a hand in digital marketing effort for the viral hit “Pork & Beans” video.
Sponsored by Sun Startup Essentials
Shapeways Aims to Make 3D Fabrication Cheap and Easy (Invites)
Custom fabrication can be fun. Especially when it gets three-dimensional. Enter, Shapeways, a new startup molded by Philips Incubator Project and currently tagged as a private beta service. (We have lots of invites to share. Click the link at the bottom.)
For inspired originalists, there’s really nothing one can buy that satisfies that ever-present craving for uniqueness. 
This drives many to paddle the river of DIY (do-it-yourself) fabrication, where everything from knitting to t-shirt screening is accomplished for that one-of-a-kind look (with the hard work done by you or a much more resourceful processor).
Shapeways is made to perform much the same role as those outfits, albeit with 3D designs. The promise of Shapeways is to enable consumers to make stuff, virtually anything of reasonable size and detail, and have it in hand in 10 days or less for an average cost of $50-150.
Mind you, Shapeways requires its users to submit a little more effort in the design of products than, say, t-shirt graphics. Compressed JPEG photos won’t do. Users are asked to import files from 3D modeling software in STL, Collada, or X3D formats. At that point, one is able to specify material and size. Shapeways describes current options as “White Strong & Flexible (SLS), Cream Robust (FDM), White Detail and Transparent Detail (Object). Additional choices will come soon.
If you’re to consider only the intriguing and largely inexpensive inventiveness that might be realized through Shapeways, it seems quite worthwhile. But perhaps its designation as a “consumer co-creation community” is a bit far-fetched. Consumers, for one, have little interest or even reasonable aptitude when it comes to 3D modeling software. It’s simply too complex for the casual user to effectively grapple with. Also, some designer utilities tend to carry with them considerable cost. The very good ones, anyhow. So I don’t imagine Shapeways becoming something akin to Minted, Threadless, or Spreadshirt.
Besides, the tasks commissioned of Shapeways by its users would typically have too many design variables in play to enable a kind of streamlined efficiency as far as a production schedule is concerned.
This leads me to think that the primary role for Shapeways will be one of serving experimentalists, artists, and various organizational or corporate doodad manufacturing. Which is fine enough, really. It need not be hugely popular. Regular output for a portion of its membership will likely suffice.
Invites: If you’d like to get yourself early entry into Shapeways, you only have to do two simple things. Click here, and where required, enter the code: MashThis. We have 500 invites to give away. Take ‘em while they’re available!
Will SummerMash Be Bigger in Texas? We Hope So!
Mashable is ready for some southern hospitality for our fourth stop on the U.S. Summer Tour in Austin, TX. The West Coast part of the tour has been great, but I have a feeling that Texas will be ready to kick things up a notch and really show our CEO, Pete Cashmore, Texas resident and Mashable editor Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins, and I what a SummerMash event should look like. Food, drinks and fun are on the menu, but we’re most looking forward to meeting the local Austin community and hearing about what’s happening in the great state of Texas. Hope to see you in Austin.
Check out the other cities on the U.S. Summer Tour:
Seattle | San Francisco | Los Angeles | Miami | Boston | New York City
When: July 30th, Wednesday, 7:00 - 10:00 PM
Where: Buffalo Billiards 201 6th Street, Austin, TX 78701
What Else?: Drink Tickets, “Bar Food,” Billiards/RockBand/Wii/ShuffleBoard and more…
RSVP?: Tickets will be released through Eventbrite, 21+ Only
Socialize: Facebook, MySpace, Meetup and Upcoming
Press Passes: Please inquire through events [at] mashable |dot| com for Press Passes
Local Sponsor:
‘speakTECH provides User Experience and technical consulting for some of the top social networking companies in the world.’
‘Pluck: Empowering leading media companies, brands, and retailers with open content, community, and social networking to drive audience engagement.’
‘Small World Labs empowers organizations to harness the power of social media via our online community and social networking solutions.’
‘Mashery is the leading provider of on-demand API management solutions, enabling you to attract new partners, manage API access, monitor the distribution of your content, and measure success.’
*There are special Sponsorship opportunities available. For more info please contact: Brett and Karen at events [at] mashable |dot| com
Prize Sponsor:
‘Conjunctured is the first Austin coworking space and where the community comes to work, play, collaborate, and innovate.’
‘The SXSW Interactive Festival features five days of exciting panel content and amazing parties. Attracting digital creatives as well as visionary technology entrepreneurs, the event celebrates the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology.’
Local Media Partner:
“Austin Tech Happy Hour has become the premier networking event for Austin technology professionals to share ideas, insights, and knowledge in a casual and fun environment.”
“Bernardo’s List is an email newsletter about upcoming events for entrepreneurs, investors and tech execs in New York and other cities nationwide. Signup is free at http://www.bernardoslist.com!”
‘Social Radius is an award-winning social media marketing firm, specializing in SEO/SMO, thought leadership platforms/social media creation, viral/syndication, outreach and strategy.’
‘Business Wire’s advanced XHTML feeds deliver more user-friendly news (like photos, linked keywords, advanced earnings tables and stylized text) to search engines, news systems and other audiences. Our SEO tools dial up visibility with social networkers and bloggers. Better be Business Wired.’
Tour Sponsors
The Sun(TM) Startup Essentials program is designed to help startup businesses off the ground by providing access to industry-leading systems at deep discounts, free world-class software and web-based training, discounts on partner hosting services, and more.
Yoono’s mission is to make the social web accessible, easy and fun for everyone. Its newly expanded service socializes your browser, helps you manage your digital life and brings the best of the web into one single browser-based application. Today, 1.3 million users are leveraging Yoono.
Yoono is hosting Social Media Camp at each tour stop which brings together the top local names in Blogging, Podcasting, Live Streaming, and New Media to participate in an open workshop about the power of social media.
MySites is a single place for all your online needs. You can create and customize a website, save and share any media, decide who can view it, embed anywhere, and use any device.
Touring Video Partner
Launched in February 2006, Stickam emerged as the first and largest Web site dedicated to live interactive video streaming. Stickam’s cutting edge technology delivers millions of streams each day, reaching over two million registered users. They are continuing on the path of social interactive TV by adding features that nurture its growing community and tech-savvy broadcasters. Whether you are famous for 15 or 150,000, Stickam.com is where you will find your friends and fans. See and be seen at Stickam.com, The Live Community.
Exclusive Ticketing Partner
“Eventbrite is the world’s largest self-service online ticketing site. Eventbrite makes it easy for anyone to sell-out an event.”
Online Community Partner
‘EventVue helps conference attendees meet the people that matter to them before they even arrive at an event.’
Tour Media Partner
“