Technology is constantly changing the way we define and consume media in our daily lives. It’s advancing the relationship between news organizations and their communities, reinvigorating advertising and creating new business models.
When it comes to the future of media, the possibilities are endless and a number of questions arise: How will we consume news and information? Can media companies be sustained? Is print truly dead?
These questions and more will be addressed at the Mashable Media Summit in New York City next week, and we want Mashable readers throughout the world to be a part of the conversation. We’re thrilled to invite you to organize or attend a post-Media Summit breakdown to discuss the lessons learned about the future of media.
The Mashable Media Summit Meetup will take place on Nov. 16, about two weeks after the Mashable Media Summit itself. We hope to inspire reflection on how technological advancements in media will not only change the world but also affect you on a personal level.
Media Summit Meetup Themes
Here are a few topics the Mashable Media Summit will spotlight that we encourage you to discuss at your local Meetup:
- Reinventing journalism with social reporting
- Advancing the relationship between news organizations and their communities
- Reinvigorating advertising and creating new business models
- Changing the way we consume media and entertainment
- Redefining the way we view privacy and our senses of self
Feel free to talk about these ideas or your own. Your Mashable Media Summit Meetup can take just about any shape you’d like, depending on what best suits your community.
Ways You Can Participate
- Sign up to attend or organize your own event on the Mashable Meetup Everywhere page. For more information on how to organize a Mashable Meetup, check out our Mashable Meetup guide.
- Share what you’re doing for your Mashable Meetup or leave suggestions for others in the comments below
- Use the #MediaSummit hashtag on Twitter.
- Find the next Meetup near you:
If you have questions about Mashable Meetups or want to bounce ideas off of other experienced organizers and Mashable staff, check out our Mashable Meetup Organizers Facebook Group, a private group for discussing the creation of Mashable Meetups.
We look forward to seeing your Mashable Media Summit Meetup plans!
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ProfessorVasilich
Presenting Sponsor: AT&T
More About: community, mashable, mashable meetup, media summit, meetup For more Business coverage: 
Peter VanRysdam is the CMO of web design company 352 Media Group and the author of Marketing in a Web 2.0 World. Connect with him on Twitter @Peter352.
Lost in all the announcements about Timeline and frictionless experiences at Facebook’s F8 conference in September was a change to the Open Graph that had developers salivating.
Instead of being restricted to simply “liking” a page or post, Facebook announced you could “verb any noun.” That means you can “watch” a movie, “cook” a recipe or “hike” a trail. Developers can dictate those terms, creating custom user experiences for their sites. However there is one caveat.
Many developers saw this as the green light to create a “dislike” button on Facebook, a much debated add-on that millions of users are petitioning for via various Facebook groups. However, those hopes are quickly dashed during the Open Graph development process, when developers who typed “dislike” received this message:
Other words like “loathe” and “doesn’t like” aren’t on the blocked list, leading you to infer “dislike” was specifically excluded, presumably along with a laundry list of profanities. But why would Facebook block what at least a vocal minority are clamoring for? And the better question is, should they?
SEE ALSO: How to Time Your Facebook Posts to Reach the Most Fans
I used to be a supporter of adding the “dislike” button right next to “like.” Many blogs and sites like YouTube employ a “thumbs up/down” graphic alongside every video or comment. However in learning more about the issue and the potential ramifications, I’ve been convinced otherwise.
For Facebook, it comes down to money. The site has built a platform that is without a doubt the most targeted marketing tool for brands of all sizes. Where else can you target potential customers down to their specific interests, age, sex and zip code? Sure, dissatisfied users can post negative comments on a brand’s page, but that company has complete control to moderate and address those issues.
A “dislike” button has entirely different implications. Rather than encouraging people to “like” its own page, a company could promote the link to “dislike” its competition. There is nothing illegal about this type of hostile environment, but it is not business friendly. Remember that advertisers are the ones funding your beloved social network.
The arguments in favor of a “dislike” button are reasonable enough; however, they don’t outweigh the potentially disastrous negatives. Users understandably don’t feel comfortable “liking” a status update about a friend’s dog being put to sleep, but they may want to click a “dislike” button in order to be alerted of other comments on that post. The easy solution is to simply comment on the post with your condolences. If you’re concerned enough to want to stay in the loop, you should be concerned enough to post your sympathies. Consider the flip side, with people able to “dislike” your wedding photos or the announcement of your new nephew. Granted, as my mother would say, those people aren’t your real friends, but the opportunity for cyber-bullying is a far bigger concern than the need to subscribe to posts.
While I’m against a Facebook sanctioned “dislike” button on every post for the reasons above, I don’t agree that developers should be prohibited from making their own. I could see a group like PETA creating an app on its page that lets you dislike the concept of clubbing of baby seals, much like a petition. But they shouldn’t be able to elicit people to dislike a specific company. Users have a variety of other ways to express their concerns with those they disagree with.
There are legitimate uses for a “dislike” button, but putting them on every page is unnecessary — and it’s asking for trouble. Facebook knows better than to bite the hand that feeds it, and as an advertiser on the platform, I have to agree.
What do you think? Should there be a button on every page? Should developers be allowed to create one, or should Facebook continue on its current path?
More About: contributor, dislike button, Facebook, features, Open Graph, Opinion, Social Media 
Apple is definitely building a television set, according to Nick Bilton of the New York Times. The TV, which will include extensive voice control courtesy of Siri, could be announced as soon as late 2012 with a consumer release in 2013. Bilton quotes anonymous sources saying that an Apple television is a "guaranteed product for Apple" because "Steve thinks the industry is totally broken", which is echoed by passages in Steve Jobs' biography.

Bilton says the project has been in the works for years, perhaps as far back as 2007 (the year the iPhone launched and the company launched the Apple TV set-top box. As far as controlling the new set:
It’s the stuff of science fiction. You sit on your couch and rather than fumble with several remotes or use hand gestures, you simply talk: “Put on the last episode of Gossip Girl.” “Play the local news headlines.” “Play some Coldplay music videos.” Siri does the rest.
Of course this experience goes beyond just playing TV shows or the local news. As the line between television programming and Web content continues to erode, a Siri-powered television would become more necessary. You aren’t going to want to flip through file folders or baskets of content, checking off what you want. Telling Siri to “play videos of cute cats falling asleep” would return an endless YouTube stream of adorable napping fur balls. Bilton firmly believes the television is coming, but says the company "still has quite a bit of work to do on the project", citing the physical design of the TV in particular. He also cites the expense of the display itself, though those prices are falling rapidly.
In a bid to set aside the speculation about if an Apple television is in the works, the piece finishes simply, "it is coming though. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when."
Apple television mockup courtesy Nick Bilton/New York Times Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
• Steve Jobs' Lack of License Plate Explained
• Apple Releases iPhoto 9.2.1 to Address Crashing Issue
• Pixelmator 2.0 Launches Tomorrow, With Content-Aware Fill and Full Lion Support [Now Available]
• Steve Jobs Biographer Walter Isaacson Speaks With The Daily Show's Jon Stewart
• Mint.com Releases iPad-Native App

Bill Clark is the CEO of Microventures, a startup fundraising platform that uses crowdfunding to allow investors to invest between $1,000 to $10,000 in startups. He also manages the venture capital firm MicroAngel Capital Partners. You can follow him on Twitter @austinbillc.
If you think you have what it takes to invest in startups, but are unsure of where to target your first seed investment, it may be worth your time to profile some other successful angel investors. By studying their strategy, the types of investments in their portfolio and the trajectory of their investments over time, you will start to develop your own strategy that works with your pace and desired investment outcome.
Don’t be discouraged if you’re unable to quickly and exactly mirror successful investors. Their strategies have most likely been developed over time; and they have learned from their own mistakes.
Below I summarize the strategies of some of the most successful angel investors, which should help as you start to build your own investment strategy and begin looking for the next big opportunities.
Ron Conway: Google, Twitter, Square and Paypal

Ron Conway is probably the best known and most successful angel investor in recent time. He has invested in some of the most successful companies in the past 10 years. Conway has focused his investing strategy on early stage, high-tech companies, and continues to examine current social, social commerce and mobile markets.
The most important factor for Conway is the team. “We start with the people first. We think the ideas that entrepreneurs start with evolve and change dramatically from the beginning and sometimes end up unrecognizable, so we believe in investing in the people,” he says.
Conway makes a lot of small investments too, a tactic commonly known in the industry as the “spray and pray” strategy. He is then able to make additional investments in the companies that perform the best. Since he invests in most of the best early stage startups, and is able to spread his money around, only a portion of his portfolio needs to succeed for him to continue earning.
When Conway makes an investment, he doesn’t worry as much as the typical investor about the valuation he is getting. He has publicly offered startups convertible debt with no cap, which is very favorable to the startup. When he is investing at a seed level, it doesn’t matter if the company is valued at $3 million or $5 million — when you are looking for the big exit, the end result doesn’t change that much.
An investment from Conway doesn’t guarantee your startup will have a successful exit, but because his network is extensive, his investments certainly catch attention of a wide group of potential investors interested in getting on board.
Reid Hoffman: LinkedIn, Facebook, Zynga, Flickr

As far as angel investors go, Reid Hoffman ranks right up there with Ron Conway in terms of number of deals and successful exits. He is the CEO and founder of LinkedIn and has invested in Facebook, Zynga, Flickr and others.
Hoffman is very interested in web 2.0 companies whose innovative ideas can reach millions of users and scale efficiently, and looks for three things when he is investing in a startup:
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How will you reach a massive audience? He targets products and services that have the potential to reach millions of users and keep them engaged.
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What is your unique value proposition? He doesn’t like to invest in companies that can’t distinguish themselves from their competition.
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Will your business be capital efficient? Meaning, will your idea continue to get funding in later stages of growth?
Chris Sacca: Photobucket, Twitter, Instagram, Turntable.fm

Sacca started angel investing in Photobucket when he was first at Google. Since then he has gone on to create his own fund and invest in companies like Twitter and Instagram.
Sacca will invest in seed and early stage technology companies, as well as secondary transactions from founders who are looking to sell shares for liquidity. As simple as it sounds, he looks for products that consumers want. This can be demonstrated by his investment in Turntable.fm. He recognized early that users would become engaged and spend a lot of time on the site.
He plays an active role in the companies in which he invests by becoming an advisor, further ensuring the brands continue their successful trajectories.
Chris Dixon: Hunch, Skype, Milo

Dixon is the co-founder of Hunch and also invests through his founder collective fund. He has made investments in companies like Skype and Milo, and in 2010 was named by Businessweek as the number-one investor in tech.
Dixon almost exclusively invests in seed stage deals and looks for high-tech startups, but also invests in industries outside high tech to diversify the risk. When he looks at a company he is not only looking at the technology, but also at the team involved. He will ask people who know the founders what they think of them to get “Social Proof” before making an investment.
“That is the most important aspect to the investment,” says Dixon, “The environment changes, you discover flaws in your original concept, and good entrepreneurs adapt and change. The only way you would’ve seen it is if you’d understood the passion and guts of the people involved.”
Peter Thiel: Facebook, LinkedIn, Friendster, Yelp

Thiel is one of the co-founders of Paypal and was the CEO of the company before it was acquired by eBay. His most famous and successful investment to date was a $500,000 investment in Facebook for 10% of the company. He has also made investments in LinkedIn, Friendster and Yelp.
Peter believes that the best predictor of a startup’s success is how much the CEO is paid. The larger his salary, the more likely everyone else is paid high, and therefore, the faster you’ll burn through money. If the CEO is paid less than average, it more likely his interest will line up with the equity shareholders.
Additionally, Thiel has also recently given 20 kids under age 20 $100,000 to pursue innovative scientific and technical projects. It is clear that Thiel believes the millennial generation encompasses the visionaries of the future.
Mike Maples: Odeo, Twitter

Before becoming an angel investor turned VC, Maples was an entrepreneur and co-founder of Motive Inc. After he left his corporate gig, Maples decided to make angel investments with his own money. He was very successful, and soon created his own fund to invest other people’s money.
Maples prefers to invest in startups that have low capital requirements, meaning that a company won’t need tens of millions to succeed and prove its model. To Maples, one of the most important qualities for a startup company is a solid team.
His first investment was in Odeo, founded by Evan Williams. When Odeo was failing, Williams tried to give Maples his money back, but Maples believed in him and asked Williams to invest that money in his next venture. That venture was Twitter, and you all know that story.
Ashton Kutcher: Flipboard, AirBnB, Skype

While Kutcher hasn’t been investing for that long (approximately four years), he has made several high profile investments already, including Flipboard, AirBnB, Skype, Zaarly and about 40 others. He now makes most of his ventures through his partnership fund, A Grade Investments.
Kutcher can add a lot of value when he invests; his social reach includes 7.5 million Twitter followers. When he looks at a startup he tries to understand what problem it is solving, and how many people are in the market for that particular solution. He also believes that you are investing in the founders more than anything, so having confidence and trust in them is a big factor when taking an investment leap.
If you are interested in investing in startups and want to mimic the pros, examine the factors that, according to them, foresee a successful business.
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Look at the founders. Good investors make sure a company’s founder really understands the industry he’s entered and the problem he is solving. The founder can make quick, tough decisions to take the startup to the next level. Most startups fail, but a great founder can even transform an unlikely idea into a successful business.
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Look for early investment opportunities. Angels are also interested in investing in the seed stage, potentially just an idea and some founders. Many investors believe this approach is how you can make a big return on an investment that is somewhat smaller than a later round investment.
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They look at the idea itself. These angel investors are looking for something cutting edge that no one else is doing, or a problem that no one else is solving. When they find it, they jump at the chance to get involved and see the idea through to success.
Images courtesy of iStockphoto, dblight, Flickr, The DEMO Conference, jdlasica
More About: angel investing, Business, contributor, features, investors, Startups, venture capital For more Business coverage: 
The fragile economy and slumping jobs market are causing unrest in America and across the world. As a response of sorts, the U.S. government and the Young Entrepreneur Council are putting their faith into young, fresh-faced entrepreneurs with the launch of the Gen Y Fund, a startup accelerator aimed specifically at students.
The Gen Y Fund is the first private enterprise to take advantage of the government’s reforms to its Income Based Repayment (IBR) program, which will start in 2014. IBR was first introduced by President George W. Bush to help alleviate student debt repayments. The program extended the repayment period allowing students to pay back their loans in lesser amounts over a longer period of time. The White House announced IBR will take on more of an entrepreneurial spirit, helping students not just to repay their loans but also to start businesses by lowering barriers to entry. Both the fund and the IBR reforms were recently announced by the White House.
Even though the Gen Y Fund is not partnered with the White House and will receive no government funding, it is intimately tied to supporting young entrepreneurs. The $10 million fund will invest $15,000 to $50,000 into early-stage ventures from students across multiple verticals. It is pairing these investments by further alleviating student debts and providing mentorship and guidance, much like an accelerator.
The Fund will select students through an application process on the Gen Y Fund website. The students will get a variety of perks. For instance, they’ll have their federal student loans paid for up to three years. Some students will receive campus housing for up to two years and have access to business and entrepreneurship courses from partner universities such as Princeton and Georgetown. The students will also get mentorship from the Young Entrepreneurship Council (YEC) to help refine and develop their business plans.
The concept is both simple and ambitious. Basically it implies young entrepreneurs will naturally come up with good ideas so long as financial barriers like debt and seed funding are taken care of. “There is obviously a crisis going on in America right now,” says Scott Gerber, founder of the YEC and Gen Y Fund. “Young people are facing a tough economy and especially entrepreneurs that are recent college grads which is a quickly growing spectrum in the job market.”
Of course, the Gen Y Fund is purely altruistic. The Fund receives money from private investors who are then rewarded with some equity in the student ventures. Gerber, however, says the idea is not to pull a fast one on young business-people, but rather to put some meat behind their investment and mentorship opportunities.
Gerber has long been a proponent of youth entrepreneurship both through the YEC and pushing policy-makers to help students enter the marketplace. The Gen Y Fund is taking advantage of the IBR reforms and Gerber team is working to pass a Youth Entrepreneurship Act which would aid student debt forgiveness.
The Gen Y Fund runs on a little bit of blind faith that young people, without financial burdens, will naturally have innovative ideas that can turn into feasible businesses. It’s an impulse that runs through the White House as well: “When President Obama launched the Startup America initiative earlier this year, he called on the private sector to do more than business as usual to promote the next generation of high-growth entrepreneurs,” says Tom Kalil, deputy policy director at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “The new Gen Y Fund answers this call to action, drawing more young entrepreneurs “off the bench” to start innovative companies that boost job growth, and complementing the Administration’s ongoing efforts to help borrowers manage student loan debt.”
The Fund is aiming to invest in as many as 100 startups over the next three to five years. If the fund is proven a success, Gerber hopes to extend it for generations of young people to come.
What do you make of the Gen Y Fund? Does the answer to America’s financial woes lie in young innovators? Is the government right in reforming IBR? Sound off in the comments.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Mathematical Association of America
More About: america, Business, entrepreneurs, Politics, Small Business, Startups, US 
It was an odd coincidence this morning to see two people with personal blogs I follow both talk about TV and the possible future ahead.
Marco mentions how he and his wife no longer have cable or watch live TV -- it's all on demand, Netflix or AppleTV stuff and he goes on to describe how in the new Steve Jobs book there is a passage about possibly reinventing TV in the same way Apple tackled music players, cellphones, and tablet computing.
Rafe talks about the decline of TiVo and how it really needed to be included as software for cable companies in order to succeed and how their future looks grim as young people move away from TV towards more internet streaming.
Rafe's point about people moving away from broadcast cable TV reminded me of how last week when I upgraded my TiVo to the latest Elite version, I thought of my circle of friends when thinking who could have my TiVo Premiere with lifetime service I bought a couple years ago. I literally had to go about ten people down before I found someone willing to take it, and even they didn't have a full cable package and mostly wanted to record OTA signals. My circle of friends includes a lot of early adopter geek types, but if they are the canary in the coal mine for cable companies and TiVo, know that they are moving in droves to downloaded content instead.
Apple is working on a TV set that could appear by the end of next year or early 2013.
According to three unnamed sources, Jeff Robbin, a software engineer who helped create iTunes and the iPod, is leading development on an Apple TV set that goes far beyond the $99 console the company currently has available.
Interest in a potential TV set was sparked by the release of Apple founder and former CEO Steve Jobs’s authorized biography Monday. In the biography, Jobs told author Walter Isaacson he had finally discovered how to build an integrated, wirelessly synched TV set with “the simplest user interface you could imagine.”
Although Apple declined to comment, sometimes-reliable Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster says a TV set is indeed in the works and could be announced by the end of next year or in 2013. The TV set could be accompanied by a cloud-based system that would allow users to access and search for content obtained through Apple and third-party services such as Netflix.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Robert Couse-Baker
More About: apple, Apple TV



Maria Ogneva is the Head of Community at Yammer, where she is in charge of social media, community programs, internal education and engagement. You can follow her on Twitter, her blog, and via Yammer’s Twitter account and company blog.
Many execs intuitively realize that engaging staff in open, transparent dialogue is vital to a business. However, that level of support is still a large leap for many organizations. It’s important to get executive leaders sold on the value of social support, because executive engagement improves company morale and makes for a more productive business.
Some executives are very socially sophisticated, while others may require extra coaching. Learn how to help guide your execs’ social efforts.
1. Listen First
What makes an executive social? Plugging into the market, anticipating customer and employee needs and proactively encouraging an organization toward action. In the end, listening is a huge part of achieving these goals.
2. Communicate Externally and Internally
A CEO who tweets and blogs is ideal. Those social actions humanize a company’s executive staff. Customers and partners feel enthusiastic that they can engage with someone high-up in your company.
What will make the most impact, however, is when each and every employee becomes an external ambassador, not just the few people at the top. That can only happen when everyone on staff has access to the same information, and is able to communicate that information across social networks – with guidance from the community manager, of course.
3. Be Open and Accessible
Approachable executives are paramount to foster a culture of openness and sharing. Encourage your leadership team to establish direct lines of communication.
Social media expert and author Charlene Li does a lot of training with corporate-level executives, helping them to overcome hesitations associated with online communication. Her website contains helpful tips and observations.
4. Coach and Reverse Mentor
Consider establishing a coaching system that disregards job titles to ensure that employees from all levels in the organization interact using consistent language, best practices and policies.
For instance, traditional mentoring has been a top-down process during which an executive mentor adopts a junior mentee. However, social rests on a different set of skills. Therefore, it may make sense to pair up “digital natives” with “digital dinosaurs,” says digital services agency Deloitte. Social communication can be new and different for some, so don’t assume that everyone is comfortable with it.
5. Start Small Conversations
Start executives off by encouraging them to post to a private space that you can monitor, then provide direct feedback. As the exec gets more comfortable, advise the following:
- Start out by doing short updates: thoughts on the industry, or key strategic initiatives that you’d want people to rally around.
- Over time, try evolving those short updates into longer-form posts. Discuss what’s going on in your world, and why the exec team is making certain decisions.
- Be prepared to have a deeper dialogue. If you choose to be present in social media, you should also be accessible, which means answering tough questions.
6. Focus on Impact
It’s important to stress from the beginning that executive involvement will affect how the organization views social. As leaders, executives must recognize that their actions will affect not only themselves, but also the entire social process.
For example, my company’s customers generally report significant bumps in engagement after the CEO joins and engages on social media. One customer organization saw a 27.93% increase in messages, a 28.37% increase in replies and a 49.60% increase in “likes.”
Becoming an open and social organization takes time and hard work, and is much more complex than people realize. Social must be incorporated into everything a company does, not just as an afterthought. Therefore, it’s important to listen, act and learn.
Dynamic learning comes from creative internal friction, from taking risks and failing, from employees who challenge and support one other. Only then will a business be equipped to deal with its market.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, kzenon
More About: Business, contributor, features, How-To, Social Media For more Business coverage: 
Apple is making plans to roll out a new pilot program that will allow customers to pickup orders placed through the company's online store at one of their local retail stores. The program, reportedly known as Sherwood, will include any product available through the online store, including custom-configured Macs, engraved and gift-wrapped products, and the full slate of third-party accessories.
 Apple's retail store EasyPay system with Sherwood offerings
Customers placing online orders will be offered the ability to select an Apple retail store for pickup, with standard configurations and accessories generally being available on a same-day basis as store stocks allow. Other items may take a few days to be delivered to the store.
In-store pickup of items purchased online will reportedly require proof of purchase and an ID, with one major benefit of the program being the ability to designate one additional person to be eligible to pick up the order. One of our sources also notes that the program offers the benefit of being able to avoid home delivery of holiday gifts that might otherwise reveal the nature of the gift during the upcoming holiday period.
With the rollout of Sherwood, Apple retail stores will also begin accepting returns of eligible online orders, streamlining the return process so that customers do not necessarily have to deal with return shipping issues.
Apple already offers some integration of online shopping and its retail stores, offering users the ability to reserve products from available retail store stock. The company has also expanded that program during certain busy holiday shopping times to include gift wrapping of standard-configuration Mac and iPod products.
The Sherwood pilot program will reportedly be initially available only through select retail stores, with company planning to expand it across the retail store chain in the future. Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
• Siri Co-Founder Dag Kittlaus Leaves Apple
• Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs Interview on 60 Minutes Tonight
• Some Scenes In The Avengers [Not] Filmed On an iPhone [Updated]
• T-Mobile: Apple's Decision When We Get the iPhone
• Some iPhone 4 Cases May Not Work for iPhone 4S After Light Sensor Move

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