Mashable: Latest 23 News Updates – including “5 Tips for Dealing with Complaints on Twitter”
August 13, 2010 Leave a comment
From the genius minds at…..
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- 5 Tips for Dealing with Complaints on Twitter
- HOW TO: Use Tweet Buttons as a Blogger or Site Owner
- 15 of the Funniest Facebook Questions [PICS]
- Romeo for iPad: MySpace Has Made a Pandora for Music Videos
- Oracle Sues Google Over Android
- Internet Explorer 9 Beta Launches on September 15
- “Paypal for Groups” Startup WePay Raises $7.5M Series B
- Hilarious “Twitter Movie Trailer” Parody Hits YouTube
- Find Out What’s Trending on Facebook
- What You Need To Know About Data Portability
- Track Social Media Campaigns from Inside Microsoft Excel
- Facebook Adds the Open Graph to iOS Developer Toolkit
- 12 Beginner Tutorials for Getting Started With Photoshop
- Behind the Scenes of MTV’s Twitter Jockey Competition [VIDEO]
- Zagat Jumps on Group Buying Trend with Site for Restaurant Deals
- Google Launches “Chrome to Phone”
- How Mobile is Affecting the Way We E-mail
- Google Launches Voice Actions for Android [LIVE]
- Delta Starts Selling Flights on Facebook
- Twitter’s Official Tweet Button Has Arrived
- “Bridezillas” Explores What’s Possible with TV Show Checkins
- Morning Brief: “Wizard of Oz” Google Doodle, Dell Thunder, Galaxy S Epic 4G
- On SCVNGR the Checkin Game Is What You Make It
- Monitor Your House or Business From an iPhone
| 5 Tips for Dealing with Complaints on Twitter
Posted: 13 Aug 2010 04:00 AM PDT      Megan Berry is Marketing Manager for Klout, the standard for online influence. She also blogs at The Huffington Post and Brazen Careerist. You can follow her on Twitter at @meganberry. Every business, blogger, and the rest of us on social media have experienced it: someone just called you out on Twitter or in a blog. It’s all too easy to get frustrated and respond with something that will just make the situation worse (“I’ll give you a refund right away… oh wait, you didn’t actually pay for this!”) or to take it personally and get upset. While there is no magic formula for dealing with complaints in social media, I do have a few tips that have helped me. 1. A Quick Response Goes a Long WayI can’t tell you how many complaints I’ve seen turned around with a quick reply. If someone has an issue with your product or misunderstood your point of view, reach out and explain it to them. Most of the time when they realize that you’re actually paying attention and care, that makes all the difference (for the rest of the time, see number five). Of course, this assumes you are actually paying attention. So if you’re not, you might want to look into ways to monitor your brand on social media. 2. You May Have To Respond As You, Not Your CompanyWhen someone has a legitimate complaint, I’ve found one of the most effective things to do is reach out from your personal account. In my experience, when they realize they’re dealing with a real person who’s trying to help, people are more open and willing to listen. This shouldn’t be done for every complaint, as some people will never be turned around, but I’ve found when there’s a real, resolvable issue this method often works much better. 3. Give Yourself More Than 140 Characters To RespondAt times, it’s just impossible to help someone in 140 characters. Or it’s possible, but you would have to be really terse — which is definitely not going to make you seem understanding. Instead, ask them how to connect off Twitter (shocking, I know). Shoot the complainant an e-mail or even give them a call and you’ll be surprised how far a little outreach goes. 4. Let Someone Else Respond For YouIf there’s no way you can respond in a helpful way — e.g., if it would make you seem self-serving or maybe you’ve already tried and failed — it can be helpful to have someone else speak up for you. If you have haters, you probably also have fans, and they’re probably very willing to spring to your defense. Maybe they’ve even already done, in which case, their response might be much more effective than yours and you can just leave well enough along. If they haven’t already responded, consider bringing the issue to the attention of a few of your fans. Do so carefully and cautiously. Only do it with people you have actual relationships with and only in a lightweight, non-pushy way. I find the best way is actually just to privately ask for feedback on a complaint — maybe it has merit and you don’t realize it or maybe they can help you understand what’s going on. 5. Know When To Let It GoThe truth is, you simply won’t be able to turn everyone around. The trick (I’m still working on it) is to not let it get to you. No business or person is going to make it without having a few haters — so if you have some, you might just be doing something right. Just don’t take that line of thinking too far! Bottom line, the complainers won’t go away, but you can choose how you deal with them. Some of them will be legitimate complaints from reasonable people that will be touched when you reach out quickly and earnestly to help them. Others… well you know what they say: “Haters gonna hate.” More Twitter Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, swilmor Reviews: Twitter, iStockphotoMore About: business, cusomter complaints, haters, respond, twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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| HOW TO: Use Tweet Buttons as a Blogger or Site Owner
Posted: 13 Aug 2010 01:32 AM PDT   The official Tweet Button has arrived; and while it’s as simple as a single click to use for the vast majority of end users, it brings scores of questions for casual and professional bloggers and other publishers. How can I put a tweet button on my WordPress.com blog posts? How can I check the stats for my tweet button links? How do these buttons work with Blogger? Here are a few quick pointers for how to use the official Tweet Buttons for fun and profit. If you have questions about how to integrate the buttons with a specific platform, be sure to let us know in the comments; the Mashable staff and community would love to help you out! The Basic CodeFirst of all, Tweet Buttons work with a little bit of HTML and a little bit of JavaScript. If you go to Twitter’s page on the buttons, you’ll get an auto-generated snippet of code to pop into your site’s HTML wherever you’d like the button to appear. Alternatively, you can use an iFrame, remembering to use query string parameters to customize the button’s behavior. You can choose one of three design styles, as well. If you’re relatively code-savvy and you feel like getting fancy, you can also build your own dang Tweet Button using this link (that’stwitter.com/share) and customizing the styling and behavior of the button itself any way you choose. Alternatively, if you’re not terribly code savvy or you’re using a platform that won’t let you edit too much of the code yourself, you can always use the same URL to create a text link that mimics the behavior of a Tweet Button:
Integrating With Your CMSThe cut-and-paste JavaScript method should work just fine for many mini-blog platforms. On Tumblr, just navigate to the customization interface, select the Theme tag, and edit the HTML, inserting Twitter’s code in any block where you want the Tweet Button to appear. If you use Posterous, head to the Look and Feel section of your dashboard, click the Edit Theme button, then click the Advanced tab. From there, you should be able to click the link that reads “Enable advanced theming.” This will open up a different interface that will allow you to edit the code for your blog; again, just past the Tweet Button code anywhere you’d like the button to appear. However, if you run a blog on WordPress.com, you probably already know that JavaScript doesn’t play very nicely with your content management system, and you might not be interested in building your own button from scratch. We’re happy to report that there’s a simple, built-in way to add Tweet Buttons to all your posts automatically. Simply open your Appearances menu, click Extras, and select the option that reads “Show a Twitter Tweet Button on my posts.” Many thanks to The Next Web for passing on this handy tip! If your blog is on the Blogger platform, there’s a different little trick for you to try. Once you login to your Blogger Dashboard, you’ll need to navigate to the Design section, then select the option Edit HTML. Then, check the box reading “Expand Widget Templates.” Once you’re there, you’ll be able to paste in a code snippet, which will put a Tweet Button on all your blog posts. To grab the code and get details on how to edit some of the button’s parameters, head over to Blogger Plugins. Extras: Browser Plugin and StatsAnd if you’d like to have a Tweet Button with you at all times as you browse the web for great content from your fellow bloggers, here’s a handy Chrome extension that just might become a favorite. It functions just like Twitter’s official Tweet Button, being built on the same code, and it shows you the tweet count for each page as you navigate around the Internet. Sadly, for the time being, there’s no real way to check the stats on tweets for your posts — not yet, anyhow. At Chirp, Twitter’s developer conference earlier this year, execs hinted that some interesting analytics packages were in the works. We’re speculating that taking control of retweets is a first step toward competing with companies like Bit.ly in offering stats and metrics on Twitter sharing of posts and pages. Perhaps there will be a free or inexpensive stats package for casual bloggers, small businesses and others who want more than just a tweet count, too. Any Other Tips?What have your experiences with the Tweet Button been so far as a content publisher? Have you run into — or better yet, have you worked around — any bugs with various CMSes? Let us know any tips or tricks you have in the comments, and if you have any lingering questions, be sure to post them here, as well. Reviews: Chirp Blu, Internet, Mashable, Posterous, Twitter, WordPress, bloggerMore About: blog, blogger, bloggers, posterous, publishers, tumblr, tweet button, twitter, WordPress For more Social Media coverage:
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| 15 of the Funniest Facebook Questions [PICS]
Posted: 13 Aug 2010 01:02 AM PDT   Since the launch of Facebook’s new “Questions” feature which lets you crowdsource answers from your social circle, we’ve been dying to see just what is being asked. As we suspected, Facebook Questions turns out to be a pretty good source of humor, and during our browsing we came across some funny questions, or questions which could receive funny answers. Of course, we thought we’d share our favorites with you. Have a look through our light-hearted Q&A gallery and let us know any humorous Facebook Questions you’ve spotted in the comments box below. 1.
There are these four elephants, yeah? And they are standing on the back of a giant turtle… wait, where are you going? Next! 2.
E-mailing, mostly. Next! 3.
You’d have to be not concentrating pretty darn hard to be force-fed a bogey. Make him wear gloves and see how the nose-mining goes then. Next! 4.
You’ll never need to do any real math beyond what you learned in grade school in the real world, and if you do, that’s what accountants are for, duh. Oh, and you’ll NEVER have any use for a parabola. Trust us. Next! 5.
The ASPCA comes. Next! 6.
Oh noes! You’ve worked out Zuckerberg’s Top Secret plan! Watch your back… Next! 7.
Yeah, sure buddy! We’ve a ton of ‘em just lying around. Let us know your mailing address and we’ll get a couple over to you. Next! 8.
Unfortunately you can’t. You’ll have to either find a time machine and propel yourself a day into the future (without the phone, of course) or wait until there’s two leap years in a row, which will mean you’ll finally be in the same time zone as your phone. Next! 9.
It means you’re the guinea-pig for a company with no budget or time to launch a fully-fledged product. In the case of Google it means pretty much nothing. 10.
We’re sorry, the Fashion Police have issued Facebook with a removal notice for this question. Next! 11.
Yeah, kids can be really hard work until you break their spirit… Next! 12.
The sky. Next! 13.
Why, Chuck Norris, obviously. Next! 14.
Not especially. But we know a kid who does. Next! 15.
We think the more pressing question here is why? More Facebook resources from Mashable
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pearleye Reviews: iStockphotoMore About: crowdsourcing, facebook, Facebook Questions, gallery, List, Lists, social networking For more Social Media coverage:
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| Romeo for iPad: MySpace Has Made a Pandora for Music Videos
Posted: 12 Aug 2010 09:40 PM PDT   MySpace has launched Music Romeo, an iPad app that makes it simple to play, discover and save music videos in a way that’s strikingly similar to Pandora Radio. The free application uses a very simple discovery mechanism to deliver MySpace’s vast catalog of music videos to the iPad. First, you choose the type of music you want to hear (e.g. Jazz, Rock, Pop, Blues), then you pick your mood (e.g. Happy, Sad, Naughty, Partying). After that, all you have to do is sit back and let MySpace choose music videos for you. Once a video is done, Romeo chooses a new song it think you’ll enjoy. The app has built-in controls to pause, skip, share and “Love” different videos. If there’s anything that defines this app though, it’s the love theme, hence the name Romeo? The “Love” button lets you bookmark your favorite videos. While you can’t watch the videos you love directly, there is an option to play more music videos like the ones you “Love.” Romeo takes those “Loves” into account as it delivers new music videos to your doorstep. MySpace Music Video screams Pandora. The parallels are definitely not by accident; this app is designed to be a customizable station for music videos, and on that criterion, it delivers beautifully. It’s simple, it’s elegant and it has more than enough music videos to keep you occupied for hours at a time. The app is also dynamic. Utilizing algorithmic technology from We Are Hunted, Romeo scans social networks and blogs to see what music is currently trending in order to deliver the most hip and up-to-date music experience possible. The result is an app that takes into account what you like and what’s hot on the web. Romeo for iPad generates revenue through iTunes sales and the occasional commercial. We have say: we’re more than willing to deal with the occasional Skittles commercial for this app. We’re pleasantly surprised. If you try out the app, post your impressions in the comments.
Reviews: MySpace, Pandora, loveMore About: ipad, myspace, myspace music, MySpace Music Romeo, pandora, Romeo
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| Oracle Sues Google Over Android
Posted: 12 Aug 2010 07:14 PM PDT   Claiming egregious IP infringement, Oracle has filed suit against Google over its ever-more-popular mobile operating system, Android. In a statement released today, an Oracle rep stated, “In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property. This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement.” Last year, Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems and, along with it, Java. In its formal complaint, Oracle calls the Java platform “one of the most important technologies Oracle acquired with Sun.” And no one can argue that the platform isn’t ubiquitous and very important in the technology industries. Claiming that Android competes with Java as “an operating system software platform for cellular telephones and other mobile devices” and that the Android stack employs Java apps running on a Java-based framework, Oracle says that Android and the Android SDK infringe on its patents, and it wants to see some cash for its unwitting involvement in the mobile OS’s success. Oracle also says Google has known about these patents since the middle of the decade when the latter company hired several Sun Java engineers. In addition to patent violations, Oracle is also claiming copyright infringement; Java’s code is copyrighted, and Oracle believes Google has used it without any kind of license. And remember that Android is open-source software and that a lot of manufacturers and developers are involved in making the Android platform what it is. The kicker in this lawsuit is Oracle’s assertion that Google has “induced, caused and materially contributed to the infringing acts of others by encouraging… others to use, copy and distribute” what could be called derivative works. In addition to requesting monetary compensation, Oracle is also asking that all copies of Java-related work be “impounded and destroyed or otherwise reasonably disposed of.” Does this mean Oracle wants to bring a complete end to Android as it stands if, in fact, the OS uses Java code? Only time (and a bunch of lawyers, a jury and a judge) will tell what becomes of this lawsuit. Interested parties can check out the documents Oracle filed, which have been posted on VentureBeat. What’s your opinion: Guilty or not guilty? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. Reviews: Android, GoogleMore About: android, Google, lawsuit, oracle, trending For more Tech coverage:
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| Internet Explorer 9 Beta Launches on September 15
Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:18 PM PDT   Microsoft will be launching the completely revamped Internet Explorer 9 at an event in San Francisco on September 15, but will it be enough to turn the tide in the war for web browser supremacy? The September event will mark the first time the world will have the chance to play with the beta for the entirely overhauled browser. The first details surrounding IE9 were revealed back in November. Since then, Microsoft has launched four platform previews detailing IE9’s adherence to web standards. More importantly though, the platform previews tout the browser’s hardware acceleration capability, which we have to say is nothing short of impressive — check out the video below to see what we mean. Microsoft is serious about its position in the web browser market. While Internet Explorer remains the world’s most popular browser, it has experienced a steady decline since 2004. Recently though, Microsoft’s browser has been staging a comeback, slowly regaining market one percentage point at a time. We’ll see if Microsoft can really deliver on its promise to “beautify the web” next month. More About: Firefox, google chrome, IE9, Internet Explorer 9, microsoft For more Tech coverage:
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| “Paypal for Groups” Startup WePay Raises $7.5M Series B
Posted: 12 Aug 2010 05:31 PM PDT   WePay can most quickly be described as a sort of Paypal for groups. It allows users to collect, manage and send money as a group online. Hypothetically, it works well for clubs, small organizations, roommates and other groups and could become a household name — at any rate, the VCs at Highland Capital certainly think so. They’ve led a $7.5 million Series B for the startup, which was joined by August Capital. The latter firm also led the startup’s Series A eight months ago. Dave McClure and Ron Conway were also early investors. WePay began as a Y Combinator startup and has recently added Rasmus Lerdorf, the creator of PHP, as a lead developer on the company’s APIs. If you’re a brilliant hacker and you think you’d might like to work with Lerdorf and the rest of the WePay team, you’re in luck; the latest round of funding will partly be used to beef up the company’s engineering staff. Co-founder and CEO Bill Clerico said in a release today, “After several months of both steady growth and exceptional user engagement, this latest round of financing will allow us to substantially expand our operations and engineering team, dramatically increase marketing efforts and continue to build our user base.” This type of deal is consistent with the ever-popular trend of funding startups that have built-in revenue mechanisms. Although signup, group creation, joining a group and making payments are all free on WePay, the site charges a flat fee or percentage for all incoming transactions. The company’s also listed a healthy roster of charges for its prepaid Visa cards. With that kind of revenue stream baked into the service, what is a 50-cents-here, 3.5%-there trickle at the outset can turn into a billion-dollar tsunami at scale, a fact which no investor could overlook. What do you think: Does WePay’s service have you seeing dollar signs? [img credit: donbuciak] Reviews: PHPMore About: funding, series b, vc, venture capital, wepay, y combinator For more Business coverage:
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| Hilarious “Twitter Movie Trailer” Parody Hits YouTube
Posted: 12 Aug 2010 04:07 PM PDT   We’ve seen a lovely little flock of The Social Network-inspired mock-trailers lately. The trailer for the upcoming Facebook movie has caused quite a stir on the tubes, so we should have expected this string of parodies. So far, we’ve seen some funny entries based on YouTube and MySpace; the “Twitter movie trailer,” however, is definitely laugh-out-loud material. Based not at all on the true story of Twitter cofounders Jack Dorsey, Ev Williams and Biz Stone, the trailer is mostly a tongue-in-cheek send-up of the original The Social Network trailer. The mock-trailer for the fake movie, dubbed The Twit Network, pokes fun at the inanity of some tweets’ content, our collective self-absorption, our obsession with celebrities and the painful convention of affixing “tw-” to beginning of any word related to social media. As silly as it is, the spoof highlights how much we’ve dramatized something as technical and complex as creating a web startup. Do you think the Hollywood treatment looks good on Silicon Valley? Do you plan to see the Facebook movie when it’s released? [hat tip: @matzner] Reviews: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTubeMore About: movie, the social network, trailer, twitter, video For more Web Video coverage:
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| Find Out What’s Trending on Facebook
Posted: 12 Aug 2010 02:46 PM PDT   This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Quick Pitch: Booshaka shows you what’s trending on Facebook — right now. Booshaka aims to show the freshest, most relevant posts across the social web. Genius Idea: With 500 million members, Facebook is the largest social network in the world and one of the primary places on the web where memes get started and hot topics are shared and discussed. Booshaka is a trend engine that works to surface publicly shared Facebook content and identify network-wide trends in real time. Just as is the case with real-time Twitter search engines, users can use Booshaka to search what people on Facebook are saying about any given keyword. Those interested in a more general, hot topic search can select from pre-determined categories — think News, Deals, Brands and Gossip — to dive into Facebook chatter and view what’s trending. Whether users define their own searches or opt for the category route, they can filter results for Trending Now, Most Popular, Most Buzz and Most Recent. Booshaka returns Facebook status updates as results and details total Likes, comments and buzz percentile. Users can then share individual results on Twitter or Facebook. As a Facebook search engine, Booshaka is one of the first services to offer instant access to the public status updates resonating with Facebook users. For marketers, it could prove to be a useful utility in identifying the pulse of the people on Facebook, and for members it could serve as tool to catch up on the hot topics, news and gossip of the day.
Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, newsMore About: booshaka, facebook, trends For more Social Media coverage:
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| What You Need To Know About Data Portability
Posted: 12 Aug 2010 01:55 PM PDT   Elias Bizannes is the chairperson and executive director of the DataPortability Project. He is also the founder of the StartupBus, the Silicon Beach community, and works at search engine startup Vast.com, Inc. Data Portability can be loosely described as the free flow of people’s personal information across the Internet, within their control. It has now become a standard term in the Internet industry in the context of cloud computing, open standards and privacy. Examples of data portability include:
Why Does it Matter for People?Your data is exactly that: It’s yours. It should be your right to be able to control what you and others do with it. If you upload your photos toFacebook, why can’t you access them in the community-sharing website Flickr, or edit those same photos without re-uploading them with the online version of Photoshop? No company online should own you. No company offline owns humans, so why can’t you do what you want with your data online? We are at a point in the Internet’s evolution where there are thousands of services that can reuse the same data. The storage of data is now a separate value function from the processing or output of it. We can now build a world where we have privacy-respecting interoperability and unlock value, in the same way trade agreements between countries have brought a higher standard of living to populations that suffer a comparative disadvantage. To use another analogy, consider how money is a standard value exchange in all economies. Sophisticated financial systems have been developed that allow money stored in one bank to be transferred to another bank or organization (for instance, when you pay a restaurant with a debit card). This free flow of money in a regulated system has given us more freedom, security, and utility with regard to personal finance. In turn, this has enabled greater economic opportunities in many parts of the world. So why can’t our personal information work the same way? Why can’t anything connected to the Internet adhere to interoperability standards so that –- with your full control -– data can flow to another system with no extra effort? The answer is that it can, but companies have not yet realized the full benefits of opening their platforms up. Furthermore, it’s clear that consumers want data portability, but they have no way to channel their demand, and as such, companies have not made it a priority. Why Does it Matter for Companies?Data, such as people’s personal information, can lose value over time. For example, a social network that keeps historical data of your occupation, relationships, or city of residence may be inaccurate today if they’ve focused on hoarding your data rather than building a relationship with you that makes you want to keep it up-to-date. Companies that wish to monetize your data or create value (like using your social graph to personalize an experience), will benefit not from owning your data — as so-called “walled gardens” of the past have tried to — but rather by cultivating a relationship with you — one in which they have persistant access to you. The consequences of this way of thinking are profound. Instead of the hostility that comes when users are locked in, it encourages innovation and superior service to ensure that the flow of data doesn’t close off. Companies can also get a bigger piece of the data pie when embracing portability. If web services could assemble as a “federation” based on trus |
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