Mick Darling's posterousAll my blogging in one spot. (mostly)How to Sell Your Excess Crap for Cash in Just a Few Hours with Amazon's Fulfillment Program [Selling Online]
Got crap? Want money instead? Amazon has a neat program that essentially lets you dump old books, movies, gadgets, and more in a box, send it to them, and then wait for the money to roll in. Here's how you can start using it and sell your stuff in no time. More »
Mingly Maintains Your Personal and Professional Connections [Video]
If you find you have trouble keeping in touch with coworkers that you used to work with or an old manager you'd love to use as a reference, Mingly is a new webapp that makes it easy for you to stay in touch and up to date with your personal and professional network as major events take place in their lives. It doesn't replace your social networks, but it does help you use them more efficiently. More »
Google Heads-Up Display Glasses Are Coming by the End of 2012 [REPORT]Google plans to launch glasses with a heads-up display by the end of 2012, the New York Times reports citing sources familiar with the matter. The glasses, who were previously rumored to have a front-facing camera with flash and a voice input interface, will be Android based, sources say. They will include a display, mere inches from the wearer’s eye, streaming real-time info about your surroundings, similar to the various augmented reality applications we’ve seen on smartphones. The data will be fetched through a 3G/4G data connection, and the glasses will retrieve information about their surroundings through GPS and several sensors. The glasses will cost “around the price of current smartphones,” sources say. While definitely not very precise – current smartphones cost anywhere from $150 to $600 – this price range shows that Google intends the glasses as a product for the mass market. Will these glasses be something you need as opposed to want? We doubt it – we haven’t seen a must-have augmented reality application yet, although we have seen some very cool ones in the past. AR heads-up display glasses, however, are the stuff sci-fi dreams are made of, and it’s a product we’d definitely like to see in the real world – even if they make us look like total geeks. Image courtesy of Flickr, Jason McDermott. [via New York Times] More About: Google, Google glasses, heads-up glasses, trending For more Tech coverage:
Attain Hotel Elite Status Without Spending Half Your Life Away from Home [Travel]
You probably have a friend who travels more days than he or she spends at home and, as a result, has more incredible perks with airlines and hotels than you could ever dream up. While you're not going to earn the highest level of elite status at a hotel chain without a serious commitment, you a very small one can do the trick. As New York Times writer Michelle Higgins points out, you may only need to stay with the same hotel chain for as few as four nights. Alternatively, certain credit cards can reduce your minimums and help you earn your privileges and rewards a bit faster: More »
Brain Gain: Winning the War for Talent in Boston
Cities around the world are racing to attract entrepreneurs and innovative companies. Some rely solely on tax incentives only to see lower than expected returns. Some bank on “winning” sectors only to lose the bet when an industry falters. Others roll out marketing campaigns that generate buzz but little for the bottom line. Ultimately, the cities that outcompete their peers don’t do so with short-sighted gambles or PR gimmicks. Instead, winning cities concentrate on winning talent. We launched Boston’s Innovation District in January 2010 to help companies win the war for talent. Two years, 100+ new companies, and 3,200 jobs later, we have accumulated some valuable lessons. Here are ten things we’ve done (or plan to do in 2012) to keep the talent pipeline flowing. 1. Ask CEO’s what they need to recruit talent. Then deliver results. Matt Lauzon, CEO of online jeweler Gemvara, told us his employees wanted to be in the Innovation District, even though their new address wasn’t exactly. To welcome the company to Boston, I brought soil from the Innovation District, planted a tree at their new office, and officially declared their part of the 8th floor of One Financial Center part of the ID. The small gesture sent a big signal that we care about the little things. 2. Don’t play sector favorites. If the recession and sluggish recovery taught us anything, it’s that government isn’t great at picking winners. In Boston, we resisted the temptation to attract a specific sector, and it’s paying off. Designers, software programmers, marketers, lawyers, bio engineers, and more have all found a supportive place to grow in the Innovation District. 3. Don’t treat after work needs as an afterthought. Last year we launched Boston IDEA (Innovation District Entrepreneurs After work) to help companies connect with their neighbors outside of business hours. After a summer block party and a Rock Band competition, we now have a bona fide social group that companies can plug into once they arrive. 4. Provide food for thought, literally. The restaurants at Liberty Wharf, Atlantic Wharf and in the Seaport/Fort Point area have been essential to the Innovation District’s success. They’re some of the hottest destinations in Boston, giving employees on the waterfront places to relax and visitors added incentive to explore the area. 5. Welcome companies and recognize talent. This sounds obvious, but it’s easy to overlook. Businesses want to know that the city cares about their success, so highlighting their achievements and contributions is a must. I visit companies regularly, invite CEOs to join me at events, and talk about their successes in public. When Brightcove took its employees on a first tour of their new waterfront headquarters, I took the tour right along with them. 6. Create a (warranted) buzz. People want to work in cool places, but building buzz means more than talking a good game. Babson’s new classrooms, along with events like the Boston Local Food Festival, Extreme Sailing, and cliff diving off the ICA have helped give the Innovation District its identity. 7. Finally, attracting entrepreneurs means acting like one. Be responsive. Always look out for opportunities to recruit new companies. And don’t let bureaucracy get in the way of progress. So, what’s in store for 2012? 8. Build a public innovation center. One of the country’s first, this will be a place for entrepreneurs to come together, showcase their latest ideas, and create new ones. 9. Foster collaboration at home. With smaller floor plans to increase affordability and shared living spaces to promote collaboration, developers will pilot several innovation housing units to better serve the live/work needs of entrepreneurs. 10. More, more, more. What’s perhaps most exciting for us are the new companies and restaurants that are sure to open and the new VC’s and university centers we hope to attract. We like to say that from Boston’s waterfront you see Boston’s future. It’s a bright one because more talent is on the way. from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2012/02/20/brain-gain-winning-the-war-for-talent-in-boston/Startup Summer Offers 100 Internships to Students Looking to Gain Entrepreneurial Experience
Founded by Northeastern student Cory Bolotsky, Startup Summer will be one of Startup Massachusetts’ largest projects. After being named the first director of Startup Massachusetts in December, Bolotsky decided to give back to the community that’s provided him with so many great opportunities as a student. “It’s exciting to be able to provide an easy way for students to access the startup ecosystem we have here,” Bolotsky says. “I think internships and work experience are really the right way to do it.” Bolotsky previously served as the startup concierge at MassChallenge, the world’s largest startup competition and accelerator, working closely with early-stage entrepreneurs. That experience lends itself perfectly to Startup Summer, where he’ll now be working with undergraduate and graduate students who are focused on areas of development, design and business. Startup Summer will run from May 28th to August 19th, and will host two to four events per week, ranging from workshops with investors to talks with experienced entrepreneurs. Although housing is not provided through the program, housing will be offered to students at an affordable rate, and all those who attend a school in Massachusetts, or are a state resident, are welcome to apply. One application will make students eligible for all 100 jobs. If selected for the program, they’ll be able to choose from open positions, made available through sponsorship from the New England Venture Capital Association. To apply, students can click here until March 19th, and attach their résumé after answering a series of video interview questions. To Bolotsky, these internships won’t just be any old summer job. By working with a startup, Bolotsky says students will be able to make an impact and help “change the face of a company.” Michael Gaiss, senior vice president of Highland Capital Partners, will serve as an advisor for the program, alongside 13 others; including Walter Somol, the director of tech community outreach at Microsoft, Eric Paley, managing partner at Founder Collective, and Tim Rowe, the founder and CEO of the Cambridge Innovation Center. To Gaiss, startups “offer the opportunity to work closely with exceptional people on fascinating initiatives in a high-energy environment.” He also says that for those looking for more entrepreneurial experience, startups “offer the ability to contribute in ways that can have more direct impact on the success of an emerging company.” Although a good opportunity for students, Startup Massachusetts will also be a great opportunity for the state and will help retain in-state talent, as well as serve as a platform for attracting talent outside of the state, claims Gaiss. “If we can deliver an exceptional experience for participants and further position Boston as a strong entrepreneurial hub, it increases the likelihood that they may decide to stay in the area — or move to it — upon graduation,” Gaiss says. As the city continues to grow as a leader in innovation, this program is exactly what the state needs. from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2012/02/20/startup-summer-offers-100-internships-to-stude...Leaky Cellphone Nets Can Give Attackers Your Location
alphadogg writes "GSM cellular networks leak enough location data to give third-parties secret access to cellphone users' whereabouts, according to new University of Minnesota research. 'We have shown that there is enough information leaking from the lower layers of the GSM communication stack to enable an attacker to perform location tests on a victim's device. We have shown that those tests can be performed silently without a user being aware by aborting PSTN calls before they complete,' write the authors, from the College of Science and Engineering, in a paper titled 'Location Leaks on the GSM Air Interface' (Pdf). The researchers are working with carriers and equipment makers, including AT&T and Nokia, to address the security issues."
Read more of this story at Slashdot. How an African Chief Uses Twitter to Keep the PeaceAn African administrative chief uses Twitter to help solve problems and maintain order in his Kenyan village, showing another example of how social media has evolved beyond wired metropolises to reach even the most previously unconnected corners of the globe. Chief Francis Kariuki — or, @Chiefkariuki, as he’s known online — tweets to defeat thugs and thieves, locate missing children and farm animals, and organize village logistical matters, according to the Associated Press. In one example reported by the AP, criminals were raiding a school teacher’s home at 4 a.m. until Kariuki intervened via Twitter. After receiving a phone tip, Kariuki sent a tweet that mobilized village residents to gather outside the teacher’s house and scare the robbers away. In another example, Kariuki used Twitter to organize a rescue operation after a man fell into a latrine pit. “There is a brown and white sheep which has gone missing with a nylon rope around its neck and it belongs to Mwangi’s father,” Kariuki tweeted recently in Swahili to help locate a wayward sheep, in another instance the AP cites. Chief Kariuki lives in Lanet Umoja, about 160 miles west of Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi. Kariuki tells the AP that, although he has just over 400 followers, his messages are able to reach thousands of the area’s 28,000 residents. Many of those citizens are subsistence farmers who access his tweets via forwarded text messages or a third-party mobile application that works without a smartphone, Kariuki says. “Twitter has helped save time and money. I no longer have to write letters or print posters which take time to distribute and are expensive,” Mr. Kariuki tells the AP. He says his Twitter activity has helped decrease the crime rate to virtually nil in recent weeks, compared to prior reports of break-ins nearly every day. Here are a couple of examples of Kariuki’s tweets:
Kariuki also uses Twitter to spread upbeat, inspirational messages such as this one:
With Kariuki’s smart and effective use of Twitter, it appears to be a new day indeed in Lanet Umoja. What are the most interesting or unexpected examples of social media use that you’ve heard of? Let us know in the comments. BONUS GALLERY: Twitter’s Most Remarkable Tweet Stories of 2011@Ghonim![]() Online activist and Google executive Wael Ghonim became a hero for Egypt’s anti-government movement after he sent a tweet that would forever change his life: "I said one year ago that the Internet will change the political scene in Egypt and some friends made fun of me." Ghonim was later blindfolded and detained for 12 days for organizing protests against the Mubarak government. His disappearance became a main focus of the protests in Cairo. After he was released he said, "If you want to liberate a government, give them the Internet.” Click here to view this gallery. More About: Mobile, Social Good, Social Media, Twitter For more Mobile coverage:
Asana and Orchestra Help Me Slowly Regain Control of Email![]() Editor’s Note: TechCrunch contributor Semil Shah currently works at Votizen and lives in Palo Alto; you can follow him on twitter @semil This is not a rant against email. This is a story of hope. It sounds nuts, but I really enjoy email, though I realize I’m in the tiny minority and that it’s legitimately unmanageable for many, especially those that don’t use clients that automatically thread messages by subject or label. The complaints against email are universal and valid: Lines of lines of emails accumulate with the force of a snowball racing down the side of a mountain during an avalanche, and the business of crafting and answering emails only creates more email. It’s a never-ending cycle, making any “Inbox 0” achievement ephemeral at best. I see three main reasons why email falls short. First, anyone has the ability to invade your inbox if he/she can get your email. Filters and labels help, but it’s not enough. Second, there are currently few tools in place to empower the recipient to limit the size of emails that come into his/her inbox, though one could imagine it wouldn’t be that hard to build these features into current products. Third, the work of creating context and prose around all these emails places a cognitive burden on the recipient to determine what action to take on the email, and then how to track that action to a point where it can be mercifully put to bed. Twitter, to its credit, gets you quite far. There are no expectations around responding to public replies, and users can limit their DM inbox simply by which accounts they follow. Of course, those messages are limited to 140 characters in size, and while DMs are insanely effective for short bursts of private communication, oftentimes those conversations are moved back to email in order to coordinate. So, we’re back to the drawing board. The plain fact is that email still remains a very strong channel and will continue to be for a long time to come. As anyone who has worked on user acquisition metrics will know, despite all the time we’re collectively spending on social networks, the click-through rates through other private social messaging systems is typically below the rates email can produce. Additionally, nearly everyone on the planet has been trained to check their email as the first and last things they do on a computing device. A billion people may be on Facebook and billions of tweets may be sent per week, but not everyone you need to communicate with is on these messaging services — they’re mainly using email. And, then, after all this, here we are. Email is not going away. I’ve concluded that the only thing we can do is to create systems and layers on top of our email in order to exert control on our work flow and time. To that end, I’ve been testing out a few new products and services and thought I’d share my opinions, but I’d also like collect your points of view in the comments below. First, I’ve attempted to route most of my unsolicited emails through my About.me page. Anyone can send me a message through the site, limited by character size. The email I receive truncates any long message and I don’t feel compelled to write back if I don’t want to. But, my email is pasted all over the Internet, so this doesn’t solve all the problems. Second, I’ve attempted to tie a Shortmail account to my Gmail, which limits emails by character size, and I’m excited to really test the service when it’s ready for it (you can import your contact lists from Gmail and Twitter, and start to convert over). At the moment, I never received a few test messages to my Shortmail, so I wasn’t able to test this integration. Even if I could tie it back into Gmail, this tie-in may only make sense for someone who receives an insane amount of inbound email and needs to place a restriction on the email flow immediately. And, third, I’ve tried to convert inbound emails, both at work and personally, into action items. It boils down to asking, upon receiving each email: “What is the action item?” It’s really hard for me to create this new habit, but I’m trying. (I know there are many options in this category — too many to list here — such as Clear and Workflowy, among many others. Therefore, I’ll just share what I’ve been using and would be curious to know what works for you.) At work, we’ve been using Asana for nearly all nontechnical tasks. I love the web app, the soft blue hues of the software, and how lightweight it feels. Your team members can send tasks to your Inbox (either from within the app or by forwarding an email to Asana, which is powerful), and then you get to mark if it’s something that will be done today, or if it’s upcoming, or if it’s for later. For each task, your teammates who are following that task can comment within the thread, and just that slight option actually reduces the amount of and size of correspondence around a task. The single best part of Asana’s design is that you can control the order of your “Taskbox” and experience the satisfaction of marking a task as “complete” and then archiving it out of sight, out of mind. I’d be lying if I said that our team doesn’t go back into email for certain communications, but I have noticed that the number of emails has decreased, and that everyone knows what each other is working on. Adoption in the workplace is a bit easier since we all have to collaborate to get things done. It’s early in the process, but so far, the net-net is positive. (I’ve also been using Asana’s iPhone app, which looks nice but mimics the interaction design of the Facebook iOS app, a design that reduces my desire to use it on the go.) For personal matters, I’ve converted all of my to-do lists and tasks to Orchestra, a beautifully designed iPhone app that also has a web app. I had been using Google Tasks, which is really easy because it rests within Gmail, where all of my work flow is, so I had to strong-arm myself to bring everything over to Orchestra. After I did, I realized it was worth the effort. The software design makes it feel as if I’m being more productive, which in turn motivates me to complete tasks faster and faster. I can now dictate my tasks into the Orchestra app, and see them update on the web in real-time. I’ll even go so far to say that Orchestra, as a native iOS application, is one of the all-around slickest pieces of software I’ve seen on the iPhone platform. I’ve been trying to take each email and ask, “What is the action item from this thread?”, and then determine if it makes the cut into Orchestra. Although Orchestra has robust tools for delegating and managing the tasks of others, I haven’t used it personally in that sense yet. While it’s provided a productivity boost for me personally, I still have to go back to email to announce that other tasks have been completed, though I’m enjoying Orchestra much more than Google Tasks. I’m resigned to believe that until I win the lottery, I’ll be checking my email constantly, and that I’ll continue to have to monitor it because it’s the best channel out there. Therefore, the only thing I can do to exert a bit more control is to ask of every email that comes in. I’m trying to train my brain to do that, but after using email for two decades, it turns out the switching costs are really complicated. That’s why we feel we’re drowning in a swirling sea of emails, and why products such as Asana and Orchestra provide me with a makeshift raft and navigation device. Here’s hoping we all make it safely to shore.
Photo Credit: Creative Commons Flickr / Daehyun Park
Who’s Winning the Twitter and Facebook Presidential Election? [INFOGRAPHIC]President Barack Obama’s Facebook and Twitter following leaves Republican presidential candidates in the dust. The president has more than 25 million Facebook Likes and more than 12.5 million Twitter followers. Since his 2008 campaign for president, Obama has changed the way the public engages with political candidates running for office. He was and still is the social-media-savvy candidate who reaches out to voters on the online platforms where they communicate. President Obama’s social media accounts are primarily run by his campaign staff, but Obama signs the tweets he writes with -BO. In October 2011, Obama found one more way he could connect with young voters: by joining Tumblr, a blogging site used by tons of young people. Other candidates have followed Obama’s tech-savvy lead. They have signed up for social media platforms and their staffs post regularly. On average, the 2012 presidential candidates post to their accounts two to five times per day, according to PRMarketing.com, who created the infographic below. When it comes to followers and Likes, Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich split second place. Romney comes in second with 1.4 million Facebook Likes, while Newt Gingrich has 1.4 million Twitter followers, ranking him the second most followed 2012 election candidate, although many of his followers’ accounts are inactive. A former Gingrich staffer told Gawker that Gingrich purchased Twitter followers on eBay. Ron Paul is the third most followed candidate with more than 862,000 Facebook Likes and more than 130,000 Twitter followers. Rick Santorum is next to last with nearly 130,000 Twitter followers and more than 138,000 Facebook Likes. Gary Johnson, the libertarian who has been in and out of the race, has the least amount of Facebook Likes and Twitter followers, but he is building his following. He has more than 23,000 Twitter followers and 149,000 Facebook Likes. Check out the infographic below. Twitter and Facebook numbers have increased for all candidates since the infographic was made. Followers and likes don’t always translate to endorsements, but do you think a candidate’s following could turn into votes? Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, manley099 More About: infographic, Twitter, U.S. presidential election |
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