Jetsetting from New York to Silicon Valley and everywhere in between helps high-tech travelers gather a wealth of knowledge about life spent in airports and at 35,000 feet. So, if you’ve got a trip coming up, you’ll find this infographic’s insights about the most tech-friendly airports and airlines to be incredibly useful.
For longer flights, you need to be completely juiced up beforehand … or have access to outlets onboard. There are 17,000 outlets in the 40 busiest American airports; that may sound like a lot, but it equates to just 5.5 outlets per gate, on average. That’s not a very favorable ratio when you consider how many people are traveling with smartphones, eReaders, tablets, laptops or any combination thereof. (Tip: Virgin America has outlets in every row of the plane to keep you charged in the sky, so there’s no race to recharge at the gate.)
Even when you’re all charged up, you might not be able to afford being offline for hours at a time, so inflight Wi-Fi isn’t just a nice perk — it’s a must. So it’s good to know that AirTran and Virgin America have Wi-Fi on 100% of their aircraft.
And when you’re managing travel or booking flights, you might think to yourself, “Oh, there’s an app for that.” But you should know that few airlines have apps that are fully functional — Delta’s is ranked the best among all U.S. carriers, scoring 8 out of 10 possible points.
Lastly, in case you didn’t learn how to travel efficiently from George Clooney in Up in the Air, there are some handy tips for expediting your trip through the TSA lines at the bottom of the graphic. Want to take it to the next level? This tech-lover’s jacket could be a helpful tool.
In short, this infographic from OnlineMBA.com highlights pretty much everything you need to know about high-tech travel. Noticeably missing from the airport map are LAX, SFO and Chicago’s O’Hare, but we’ve got you covered with information regarding airport Wi-Fi and Boingo Hotspots.
Infographic courtesy of OnlineMBA.com
More About: infographics, travel, trending 
from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/01/12/airport-tech-travel-infographic/?utm_source=fe...
Televised Republican debates are about to heat up — not only between the remaining five party presidential candidates — but between viewers using Twitter. Fox News hopes to open up the digital floor for comments during Monday’s Republican debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C., with a live Twitter debate.
Viewers are encouraged to share their thoughts over Twitter in real-time during Monday’s 9 p.m. ET debate. They can use the debate’s official hastag #scdebate as well as #answer and #dodge to convey sentiments about individual candidates. Simply attach a candidate’s name to #answer — if he has answered the question well — or #dodge — if he has diverted from the topic completely — and the Twitter data analysis system will do the rest. The results will be displayed on FoxNews.com.
Fox News Digital’s Vice President and General Manager Jeff Misenti told The New York Times that questions or concerns attached to these tweets will be incorporated into the conversation.
Fox’s Bret Baier will moderate the debate between former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Rep. Ron Paul from Texas, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The debate follows former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman’s withdrawal from the presidential race and announcement that he will funnel support he’s seen during the race toward Romney.
SEE ALSO: Fox News, Google Join Forces for New Hampshire Primary
Twitter has stated that the use of social media during political debates gives the U.S. people a way to direct the conversation to topics of interest. The hot topic of the debate tonight may be South Carolina’s 10% unemployment rate. Will that be the center of the digital conversation? We’ll be waiting to find out.
Twitter has also set up a list of politicians, journalists and U.S. election staff for viewers to follow so they never miss a beat The list features Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, Fox’s Greta Van Susteran, Bret Baier and CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jessica Yellin.
This is not the first time the social media world has meshed with the political sphere on TV. Fox News and Twitter tracked live reactions during the Iowa debate on Dec. 15. NBC and Facebook also teamed up last week to host an online stream and conversation with a comment widget and digital polls.
Will you be tuning into Monday night’s Fox News debate and contributing your thoughts on Twitter? Let us know in the comments below.
Image courtesy of Flickr, IowaPolitics.com
More About: Fox, Media, Mobile, Social Media, social networking, television, TV, Twitter 
from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/01/16/fox-twitter-republican-debate/?utm_source=feed...
The sports media Twitter party is overcrowded and a bit overwhelming. Voices bombard — and often bludgeon — the intellect with “takes” and rumors from all angles. It can be hard to separate the relevant from the reactionary, the entertaining from the downright idiotic.
Here, Mashable provides its latest attempt at cutting through the noise and making sense of the hysteria.
We recently featured sports media’s biggest Twitter stars, by taking a look at who has become huge and how. The 11 writers and broadcasters we profiled have some 6.6 million followers combined. How did they get there? We found that most have a few things in common: They tweet prolifically, they interact directly with followers, and they work for major media outlets like ESPN.
But listing which sports reporters are most popular and why only begins to scratch the surface. Who should sports fans be following for information, updates and analysis? Here we’ll highlight 10 more must-follow Twitter accounts, based on Mashable staff favorites and common reader suggestions.
SEE ALSO: 11 Sports Writers You Need to Follow on Twitter
CNBC sports business reporter Darren Rovell was the most recommended writer by the Mashable community. Reader Courtney Doman tweeted that Rovell is “easily one of the top follows for solid sports news,” and many others named a favorite as well.
Some of our latest picks work for major outlets such as Yahoo, Sports Illustrated and ESPN. Some are up-and-coming, while others are more under-the-radar. Some, like Rovell, have relatively large audiences. Most don’t. Combined, these 10 sports writers, reporters and websites tally some 750,000 followers — a quarter-million less than Erin Andrews, the third most-popular entry on our last list. But they’ve definitely got something valuable to say, nonetheless.
So click through the accompanying gallery and then weigh in with your thoughts. Who do you follow? Why?
 CNBC sports business reporter Darren Rovell has written two books and anchored five primetime documentaries. He's even won an Emmy for contributing the the network's 2008 election coverage. Rovell illuminates the machinations that make sports an economic powerhouse, and earns high marks on Twitter for frequent updates and quick-hit analysis. Click here to view this gallery.
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from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/01/16/twitter-sports/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medi...
In a move illustrating the blurring lines between content distributors and producers, Hulu is planning to launch a scripted series, a political mockumentary called Battleground.
Hulu executives, who unveiled the show at the Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles on Sunday, likened it to an independent movie, but for TV. “We’ve long asked the question, how come the creativity and vibrancy that exists in the indie film world doesn’t exist in TV?” Andy Forssell, Hulu’s senior vice president of content, said in an interview. The reason, according to Hulu executives, is that TV shows are under pressure to score big ratings within a short time. Without those constraints, Hulu can nurture new shows over a longer period.
This isn’t the first time Hulu has tried its hand at content creation. The company launched a reality show called If I I Can Dream in 2010. Hulu is also said to be planning to launch another new show this year, a yet-unnamed travelogue from director Richard Linklater.
Battleground, which follows the campaign of a dark horse contender for a Senate seat, is set to premiere on Feb. 14. Hulu has ordered 13 episodes of the 22-minute show. Hulu’s latest content creation plans put it in direct competition with Netflix, which announced its first original series, Lillyhammer, earlier this month. Hulu also has to vie with YouTube, which is planning to spend $100 million on celeb-studded channels that will start producing original content this year.
Like Netflix, Hulu wants to become less reliant on the studios and networks for its content. That’s an especially pressing concern for Netflix since HBO has decided to stop offering discounted DVDs to the service and Warner Bros. has announced it will delay the introduction of new movies on Netflix and others for 56 days after the discs go on sale, vs. the current 28 days.
What do you think? Can Hulu, Netflix and YouTube become effective premium content producers? Sound off in the comments.
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from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/01/16/hulu-to-scripted-series/?utm_source=feedburner...
What contributes to social media buzz when it comes to television? Well, for starters, grown women tripping on their heels, teleprompter tongue-twisters, awkward comments about Kate Beckinsale and, of course, Tina Fey’s photobomb.
That’s right. Sunday’s Golden Globes made for quite a bit of web chatter. Almost 17 million viewers tuned in to study Hollywood’s elite, which made for more than 1.1 million social media impressions.
Although the New Hampshire Republican Primary followed close behind in terms of social media buzz, last Tuesday’s event didn’t garner as many viewers as anticipated, with only 4.4 million total.
The data below is compliments of our friends at Trendrr, who measure specific TV show activity (mentions, likes, checkins) across Twitter, Facebook, GetGlue and Miso. To see daily rankings, check out Trendrr.TV.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, narvikk
More About: features, Social Media, social tv, social tv charts, Trendrr, TV For more Entertainment coverage: 
from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/01/17/social-tv-chart-1-16/?utm_source=feedburner&ut...
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Name: Farfetch.com
Quick Pitch: Shop the inventories of more than 200 high-end designer boutiques worldwide.
Genius Idea: Eliminates geographic barriers inherent in boutique shopping.
High-end boutiques — think Dover Street Market in London, or L’Eclaireur in Paris — tend to offer, from the perspective of discerning shoppers at least, some of the best product selections in the world. Yet few of those boutiques, lacking the resources or initiative to develop robust, international ecommerce offerings, have made their goods available for purchase on the web.
Enter Farfetch.com. To date, the four-year-old, London-based startup has made the inventories of some 200 boutiques in 12 countries available for purchase through its website. Its catalog of more than 35,000 products draws from well-known names at the luxe end of the fashion spectrum, including Balenciaga amd Yves Saint Laurent, as well as up-and-coming designers (Alexander Wang, Mary Katrantzou) and contemporary staples (Marc by Marc Jacobs, True Religion). The company has a current run rate of $60 million, up 200% year-over-year.
Its customer base is geographically diverse. Fifty percent of buyers come from new or emerging markets, says CEO José Neves. (Neves, interestingly, has a background in both fashion and technology, having founded a software company and a high-end suitwear business in his home country of Portugal while still in school.) The U.S. accounts for about 25% of sales, followed by the U.K., Australia, Brazil and France.
Farfetch.com announced Monday that it has raised a second round of funding of $18 million from Index Ventures, eVenture Capital Partners and existing investors Advent Venture Partners. The company plans to use the funds to continue to expand operations in Europe, North America, Asia and Brazil. Neves says he’s also working to build Farfetch.com’s brand so that the company can rely more on direct traffic, rather than on paid and natural search, to attract customers.
Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, 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.
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from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/01/16/farfetch-com-18-million/?utm_source=feedburner...
The 69th Golden Globe Awards were a relatively mild affair — even with Ricky Gervais as host — but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t still a ton of activity surrounding the awards on social media.
Twitter was the most dominant social network for the Golden Globes with a peak of 6,162 Tweets per second. As Mashable’s Brian Hernandez notes, that would easily put the ceremony on the list of top tweets per second.
What moments really connected with Twitter users? Networked Insights ran some analysis and came up with some overall trends.
According to Networked Insights:
- 62% of the conversation was about the winners
- 48% of the conversation was about the Red Carpet
- 12% was about upsets — that is, unexpected winners
- 9% was about Gervais
Gervais’s monologue was well received, but nearly 32% of the tweets about the comedian were about how he wasn’t making enough jokes or on-screen enough, according to Networked Insights.
Meanwhile, TweetReach worked with mhCarter Consulting and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to track and analyze tweets. It came up with this infographic:
Zooey Deschanel had the most re-tweeted post of the night when she flaunted her Prada dress and specially painted fingernails.
According to TweetReach, the second biggest spike of the night came with discussion of Tina Fey’s photobomb of Amy Poehler. We know that was our favorite moment.
Despite a lack of breakout moments, television ratings for the 2012 Golden Globe Awards were virtually the same as in 2011.
But networks such as Twitter added to the fun this year. Social media was definitely one of the reasons I continued to engage and watch the ceremony, even after it became apparent that Gervais was going to be kept away from the microphone as much as possible.
Did you stay tuned-in because of the online discussion? What moments were the most discussed in your social streams? Let us know in the comments.
Photo courtesy of @RickyGervais
More About: award shows, golden globes, Ricky Gervais, Twitter For more Entertainment coverage: 
from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/01/16/golden-globes-2012-twitte/?utm_source=feedburn...
After a CES related hiatus, we're back, and just in time for the premieres of a few of our favorite shows. Since we've been busy watching demo reels instead of what's on, feel free to let us know if we missed anything important during our Las Vegas trip (is anyone watching The Firm? Is it good?)Look below for the highlights this week, followed after the break by our weekly listing of what to look out for in TV, Blu-ray and videogames. AlcatrazThe latest show from J.J. Abrams ( Lost, Fringe) finds a San Francisco where some of the most dangerous inmates of the infamous prison are suddenly reappearing on the streets. We'd explain the plot further, but given its creator there's probably no point. Given his track record, it's certainly worth given a look, even if only because Jorge Garcia (Hurley from Lost) is in it. The series premiere airs tonight, check out a quick preview trailer embedded after the break. (January 16th, Fox, 8PM) ArcherIn case you somehow haven't caught on by now, we love Archer. While he's a terribly incompetent spy, Sterling Archer still somehow always completes his mission and in entertaining fashion. Season three is finally getting under way this week, if you've followed our advice you already have the S1 & S2 Blu-ray discs filed away and are ready to go. (January 19th, FX, 10PM) JustifiedUS Marshal Raylan Givens returns this week in season three of Justified, and with the return of his old friend Boyd Crowder to a criminal lifestyle, we're sure it will be an explosive one in Harlan County. After the events of last season, an all new lineup of interesting figures is set to try and take control of criminal enterprises in this tiny corner of the mountains, which will inevitably lead to two things: intricate, flowery dialogue, and people getting shot. (January 17th, FX, 10PM) Continue reading Must See HDTV (January 16th - 22nd) Must See HDTV (January 16th - 22nd) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments
from Engadget http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/16/must-see-hdtv-january-16th-22nd/
The United Nations is a huge organization: 193 member states and six major organs. As you can imagine, running the UN’s social media networks is no walk in the park. But the international organization is incredibly active on social media, using it as a tool to spread knowledge and information about its mission, goals and accomplishments.
So how does the UN, a very complex organization, manage such an active online presence?
We sat down with Nancy Groves, social media manager at UN headquarters in New York, to find out. Groves is part of the Secretariat, the UN body charged with carrying out the day-to-day work of the organization. She maintains an active presence on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Tumblr and other networks.
“We’re very involved in social media,” says Groves, whose previous job was working as a UN librarian. “There’s not much understanding of how the United Nations works out there, and we’re using social media to get our message out.”
“We’re very involved in social media,” says Groves, whose previous job was working as a UN librarian. “There’s not much understanding of how the United Nations works out there, and we’re using social media to get our message out.”
Educating people about the UN’s work, a mystery to many, is a top priority. Groves’s team often posts information and videos about the United Nations’s humanitarian work and other positive efforts to keep followers feeling good about the UN.
But not all the UN’s content makes you feel warm and snuggly inside. Groves posts about peacekeeping efforts, natural disasters and other emergency situations. And Groves definitely feels a “sense of urgency” when sharing info about disaster relief. The UN’s social media team was very active in connecting victims and relief centers during the recent tsunami and earthquake in Japan, for example. Groves says that Twitter is very important for the UN in times of crisis, because tweets are easily shared and can go viral quickly.
“We have to cover a broad range of work,” says Groves. “Famine, genocide, et cetera. We want to get the tone right.”
Groves’s team gets a lot of questions from followers. There’s a lot of UN haters out there, too, and Groves deals with them, well, diplomatically.
“We try to respond to every question that can be answered,” says Groves. “We do answer any criticism with statistics pages and informative links.”
The process of posting material online can sometimes lag for two reasons.
First, the UN works in six official languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) and every post has to be translated into all of them for inclusion’s sake. Groves often experiments with platforms popular amongst a particular language group, too. She sees her best numbers on Weibo, a Chinese site with over 300 million users, which is similar to a cross between Facebook and Twitter.
Second, all posts have to go through the UN’s political review process. But Groves has a few tricks up her sleeve.
“Info can be a little slow to get out because of the translation and political review process,” says Groves. “For that reason, we’re often using pre-approved content. There’s been one time when we didn’t get approval, but people who do social tend to already have sound judgement. More than one person reads everything,” says Groves.
That content could come from a more formal press release or a video that’s already gone through the UN’s formal review process. Groves has to be ever-mindful about language and wording, lest she inadvertently cause an international social incident. Her peer-editing process helps make sure that doesn’t happen.
“The ‘Be a Human Rights Defender’ campaign was an excellent way to spread knowledge about rights that a lot of people aren’t aware they have.”
The UN’s most successful social effort has been the “Be a Human Rights Defender” campaign, created to celebrate Human Rights Day. Groves’s team pushed out 30 different articles on human rights, each centered around one article in the Declaration of Human Rights. People that shared the articles were titled “Human Rights Defenders.” Groves said it was an excellent way to spread knowledge about rights that a lot of people aren’t aware they have.
And what about coordinating the social media efforts of the UN’s 17 specialized agencies, 62 Information Centers and 15 peacekeeping operations worldwide? After all, Groves is only part of the Secretariat, one of many UN bodies.
“We’ve got an informal working group of UN social media agents,” says Groves. “We try to have meetings based in New York at least once a month. It’s a positive trend for the UN as a whole, because it brings together all these different agencies and we can see how our work is inter-related. I know pretty much everyone doing social media at all the different agencies.”
Groves’s team is continuing to seek out new ways to use social media to spread their message. Groves says she’s even looking at Pinterest, the hot new image-heavy site popular amongst the Fashion and DIY community. She’s also gearing up for a major conference on sustainable development happening this summer in Rio, Brazil. For that, she’s making sure she has access to Portugese translators and a presence on the social media services that Brazilians love to use.
Do you follow the United Nations on social media? If so, what do you think of their digital efforts? Let us know in the comments below.
More About: Social Media, United Nations
from Mashable http://mashable.com/2012/01/14/united-nations/

We found Boxee at CES' ShowStoppers event this year, and when we cornered them to complain about dropping official PC and Mac support late in 2011, they were appropriately apologetic. Boxee's Liz Dellheim said that yes, they're sorry that they've abandoned that part of the company, and says that with just 20 people in their employ, and customers not connecting their PCs up to televisions that much anyway, Boxee just couldn't justify that support any longer. Instead, the company will focus on providing software for televisions and set-top devices, which Dellheim said offer "a more complete Boxee experience" than having to run inside the OS of a PC or Mac.
That, and Boxee really wants to bring live TV to their service. Licensing that content for a standard PC client would be much harder than a more limited TV service, so Boxee decided to focus in on making the best set-top service they could, rather than being forced to support individual users.
So if you were a big fan of Boxee on your Mac, that's probably the end of that. The client is still available on the website, but the company isn't supporting the official release. Fortunately, as we described in the original post, there are quite a few alternatives to look out for.
There is one piece of Boxee software that will be running on an official Apple product: Dellheim confirmed that the Boxee Remote app for iPhone hasn't been forgotten, and while no big updates are planned, the company will continue to include that bit of the Boxee ecosystem in future plans. It's good to know that Boxee hasn't completely abandoned us Apple fans, but yes, for now, the company prefers to build for its own hardware, not our computers. Boxee explains dropping PC and Mac clients at CES originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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from TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog http://www.tuaw.com/2012/01/14/boxee-explains-dropping-pc-and-mac-clients-at-...
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