AT&T and Sprint Say iPhone 4S Launch Ignites Record Demand

AT&T and Sprint turned to Twitter on Friday to announce record demand for activations and sales sparked by the launch of the iPhone 4S.

Sprint, which didn’t start carrying iPhones until this month, recorded its best day of sales in retail, web and telesales for a device family.

“We reached this milestone… read more

AT&T and Sprint Say iPhone 4S Launch Ignites Record Demand

AT&T and Sprint turned to Twitter on Friday to announce record demand for activations and sales sparked by the launch of the iPhone 4S.

Sprint, which didn’t start carrying iPhones until this month, recorded its best day of sales in retail, web and telesales for a device family.

“We reached this milestone… read more

AT&T and Sprint Say iPhone 4S Launch Ignites Record Demand

AT&T and Sprint turned to Twitter on Friday to announce record demand for activations and sales sparked by the launch of the iPhone 4S.

Sprint, which didn’t start carrying iPhones until this month, recorded its best day of sales in retail, web and telesales for a device family.

“We reached this milestone… read more

Why No One Company Will Ever Monopolize the Internet

Jonathan Rick is a social media strategist in Arlington, VA. You can follow him on Twitter @jrick and read his blog at JonathanRick.com.

The pace and power of web-fueled innovation is stunning. One day we’re swearing by Outlook, the next, we can’t live without Gmail. These changes exemplify the beauty of… read more

25 Essential Apps for Your New iPhone 4S

So you’re getting an iPhone 4S. Fantastic. But with more than 500,000 apps in the App Store, finding the best ones is no easy task. Mashable is here to help.

We’ve compiled a short list of our absolute favorites. Here you’ll find social standbys, top music hits, super addicting games, practical… read more

“The Muppets” New Trailer Reveals Epic Plot of Awesome [VIDEO]

The latest full-length trailer for The Muppets is now online.

It’s no secret that we’re excited about this movie. Really excited.

The film hits theaters this Thanksgiving and stars Jason Segel and Amy Adams, along with Kermit, Miss Piggy and the rest of the Muppet gang.

In the second trailer, Disney finally… read more

Somewhere Over the Double Rainbow [COMIC]

There’s no place like Facebook.

Mashable Comics are illustrated every week by Kiersten Essenpreis, a New York-based artist who draws and blogs at YouFail.com.

More Mashable Comics:

1. The Earliest Social Network Ever Discovered

… read more

Google+ la pacchia è già finita

Sarà stata la novità ad ingannare. Ma dopo il botto iniziale, Google+ ha già stancato. È un po’ come quando ci si fissa con una donna e, dopo un paio di mesi di vita di coppia, si scopre che non è poi tutto questo granché.

All’inizio la cosa ti prende e… read more

4 U.S. Government Agencies Getting Social on YouTube

The Digital Marketing Series is supported by HubSpot, an inbound marketing software company based in Cambridge, MA, that makes a full platform of marketing software and tools for better B2B lead nurturing.

The U.S. government has been engaging with social media, including YouTube, since 2009, when it signed Special Service Agreements… read more

More Bad News for Google+? Research Shows Sustained Downward Trend in Activity

Google+, the social networking service from Google, may have more than 40 million users, but traffic and activity levels are on a continued downward trend, according to a new research report.

“After a brief blip in Google+’s traffic surrounding the site going public, we saw a prolonged and sustained downward trend… read more

RIP Google Buzz

Google is shutting down the last remnants of Google Buzz to focus on Google+, the company announced on Friday.

“In a few weeks we’ll shut down Google Buzz and the Buzz API, and focus instead on Google+,” Bradley Horowitz, Google’s vice president of product, wrote on The Official Google Blog. “While… read more

How Non-Profits Are Using Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC]

Craigslist founder turned philanthropist Craig Newmark set out to discover which U.S. non-profits were the most effective social media users. It turns out, there doesn’t appear to be a correlation between social media savvy and an organization’s net worth.

“The deal is, it’s not about money, it’s about getting people… read more

The Economics of Social Gaming [INFOGRAPHIC]

The Social Media Infographics Series is supported by Vocus‘ Social Media Strategy Tool, a free, six-step online tool that lets you build a custom social media framework tailored to your organization’s goals.

The only thing cooler than a million dollars is, well, a billion dollars.

Fortunately for social game creators, that’s just… read more

Occupy Wall Street Protesters and Police Clash [VIDEO]

Occupy Wall Street, the social media-spawned movement that has gone viral across the U.S., turned violent Friday morning after the New York City mayor’s office announced cleanup of Zuccotti Park would begin at 7 a.m. Protesters have held their ground in lower Manhattan since Sept. 17, and though this morning’s… read more

Sites of the Week #175

For this Sites of the Week we have selected some great sites such as Mightybell and 10k Apart. Also we’re featuring the beautiful Kitchen Sink Studios portfolio, and much, much more! As usual we would love to hear from you, keep sending your suggestions to us and we will be… read more

Romney Trying to Win Election with Web Ads?

Presidential candidate and former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney has rolled out a new political web ad attacking President Obama and Chinese trade practices.

The ad, titled “Obama Isn’t Working: Trade,” slams China for counterfeiting U.S. goods and technology from big companies like Apple, HP and Google. It then questions why… read more

iPhone 4S: First in Line at NYC Apple Store Turns Down $1,500 [PICS]

We visited Apple’s flagship store in New York from 7 to 9 p.m. ET Thursday, where roughly 25 people were in line for the iPhone 4S. The device goes on sale Friday at 8 a.m. local time.

Spirits were high despite the drizzle. Passersby frequently stopped to question those at the… read more

An iMessage-Inspired Eulogy for Group Messaging Apps

It is often said that when one door closes, another door opens. But the phrase, it seems, can sometimes work in reverse.

As Apple launched its iOS platform on Thursday — including a new BlackBerry Messenger-like app called iMessage — the sound of a door closing behind the brief… read more

74 (More) Links for Photography Junkies

This has been a very active week online in the field of photography, and Toad Hollow Photography has been busy finding and creating a list of this weeks best links for tutorial, great photography and interesting blogs to share.  We sincerely hope you enjoy going through this list of incredible… read more

How to Deal With Email Overload

Ari Meisel is co-founder at Less Doing, where he works on making every task in life and business more efficient. You can follow him on Twitter @liontex and read his blog at arimeisel.com.

People spend a lot of time on email — way too much for their own good and productivity…. read more

Google+ Has 40 Million Users, Says Larry Page

Google came very close to its first $10 billion quarter and hit another milestone: 40 million users for Google+, as the company announced its third-quarter earnings on Thursday.

Google posted $9.72 billion in revenues, a 33% jump over the same quarter in 2010. Operating income for the quarter was also up…. read more

How People Use Smartphones and Tablets While Watching TV [STUDY]

So you watch TV without another screen to hand? You may soon be in the minority. TV viewing is increasingly becoming a multi-screen experience.

This is especially true for owners of tablets and smartphones in the U.S., 40% of whom use their devices while watching TV on a daily basis, according… read more

$4.7 Billion in Digital Goods Will Pass Through PayPal This Year

eBay says that its PayPal division expects to hit $4.7 billion in total payment volume (TPV) of digital goods in 2011.

The projection, announced at eBay’s X.commerce Innovate developers conference, would be a significant increase in transactions for digital goods — up 28% from 2010, when digital goods accounted for a… read more

Why New Media Literacy Is Vital for Quality Journalism

On June 17, 2009, Mashable made a mistake. In a report about the volume of Twitter activity surrounding the #IranElection movement, we accidentally used a “b” instead of an “m,” inflating the number of total tweets one thousand-fold. This, on its own, is not spectacular. Though we certainly try… read more

Book Suggestion: Predictably Irrational – The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

I am quite addicted to books, all sorts of books from design related to simple novels. Lately however, I have been reading some books about human behavior, mostly related to how we make decisions. I think it’s an incredible subject especially for designers like us who are trying to create… read more

Axe: Web Design Critique Comes to the iPad

There’s a never-ending debate over whether tablets can be productive devices, perhaps even substitutes for full computers, or if they’re simply to be relegated to the status of a nice tech toy. Despite the many brilliant productive tools that have been designed for the iPad, one of the best examples of areas… read more

Public Speaking – A Storytelling Odyssey

Credit: rmarinello on Photodune

Earlier this year, I wrote an article about presenting at Ignite. To recap, Ignite is an event that happens in more than 100 cities worldwide on a regular basis. Participants get up on stage in front of an audience and speak for five minutes on a… read more

Construct a Framework for a Cross-Cultural Design

Nowadays Graphic Designers work globally in many different Countries. The designer should visually communicate symbols and colors. These elements are part of our social everyday life and come together with a various range of meanings which are different for each culture.This makes obvious how much the study of the cross-cultural… read more

CircleMe Is a Social Network That Connects You to Yourself [INVITES]

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: CircleMe

Quick Pitch: CircleMe is a new social platform to track, engage with and share all your… read more

How Twitter Integrates With iOS 5

For social media fans, the tight integration between iOS 5 and Twitter is one of the best reasons to upgrade. We touched on this integration in our in-depth iOS 5 review but we wanted to spend some additional time looking at how it works and what it means for users.

Since… read more

Finally! Eric Schmidt Joins Google+

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has finally gotten the message and joined Google+.

The former Google CEO wrote his first public message on Google+ earlier today, a simple post with links to his thoughts on Steve Jobs (Schmidt served on Apple’s board of directors until 2009, when the competition between Android… read more

5 Online Tools That Are Worth Checking Out

There are many online tools out there, but getting by free and good ones is not that easy. Today, we are sharing 5 Online Tools That Are Worth Checking Out. Read each entry in the list and see which one suits your needs best.

You are welcome if you want to… read more

Facebook Timeline: 5 Sites for Customizing Your Cover Photo

Facebook’s new Timeline design gives you a big space for a photo at the top of your profile. So far we have seen some cool and creative uses of this new “cover photo.”

If you don’t have the time to design your own, consider these fun free services that can… read more

Google+ Lets You Search in Real Time — and Supports Hashtags

Google is giving Google+ users two enhanced ways to find information disseminating across the social network, with real-time search and hashtags.

“Now when you search in Google+, you’ll see a message about new posts the instant they’re available,” Vic Gundotra, Google’s SVP of social, explained in a post on Google+ Wednesday…. read more

Who’s Talking About TV Online? [STATS]

TV is getting more social every day. A recent study from Nielsen and NM Incite gives a detailed glimpse into how, when and who is driving the social TV buzz.

The study culled from years of data and millions of messages from all the major blogs, boards and forums covering TV…. read more

Apple Users Are the Most Generous [INFOGRAPHIC]

You can learn a lot about a person from his or her mobile device, browser or computer preferences. New research shows that — at least when it comes to donation patterns — Apple users trump their PC, Android and Blackberry using counterparts.

Mac users out-donate PC users, Safari users out-donate Internet… read more

How to Nominate for the 2011 Mashable Awards

Nominations for the fifth annual Mashable Awards, presented by Buddy Media, opened yesterday. To ensure it is as easy as possible to nominate your favorite tech and social media innovations and innovators of the year, we decided to show you how.

How To Nominate

Nominating your favorite digital startups, companies… read more

Google Engineer Accidentally Posts Rant About Google+

More bad news for Google+: First, we discovered that Google’s top management apparently aren’t big users of the company’s social network, then traffic fell and now it appears that at least one of the rank-and-file is pretty critical of the platform as well.

Steve Yegge, a Google engineer, intended his… read more

StumbleUpon Doubles User Base in 16 Months, Surpasses 20 Million Users

For a service that some say drives more traffic to websites than Facebook, StumbleUpon is not well known. However, user data that the company has released suggests that “stumbling” is on track to enter the mainstream vernacular.

In the past 16 months, the personalized discovery engine has doubled its user base…. read more

NASA Turns its Space Missions into a Kid-Friendly Video Game

NASA hopes its new space mission simulation video game will get tech-saturated kids excited about space travel.

The game, called NetworKing, is free and works on PC and Mac. The goal is to establish integrated communications networks, while getting users familiar with NASA’s 5 year-old Space Communication and Navigation program. Players… read more

7 Top Journalists to Subscribe to on Facebook

Facebook continues to emerge as an excellent tool for journalists, most recently with the addition of Facebook Subscribe. The feature is beneficial for many reporters and editors who are using the platform for sourcing stories, posting links to articles and connecting with audiences.

Though Facebook Subscribe has implications for all types… read more

Interview with Shelby White (Wanken) + Giveaway

Shelby White also known as WANKEN is visual designer and photographer currently living in Portland, Oregon. His blog is part of a quality content that will surely inspired your retro side on visuals and photography and more. He’s also the creator of Designspiration.net, image-based inspiration resource that is really on… read more

Raven: Site-Specific Browsing Like You’ve Never Seen It

A site-specific browser allows you to have the convenience of a dedicated desktop app wrapped around a website. You’ve seen these before and might even have a few Fluid or Prism apps sitting in your dock. Even so, you’ve never seen an app quite like Raven before.

This innovative browser attempts… read more

PayPal Seeks to Become the Web Payment System to Rule Them All

eBay is set to unveil PayPal Access, a service for letting users use their PayPal accounts on other websites without the need to register an account or a credit card.

The service, which will make its debut Wednesday at eBay’s X.Commerce developers conference in San Francisco, essentially eliminates the need to… read more

5 Digital Marketing Commandments for Luxury Brands

Duke Greenhill is the founder and CEO of Greenhill+Partners, a premiere New York-based creative marketing agency specializing in luxury brands and engaging the emerging affluent. You can reach them at TheFutureOfBranding.com.

Lately people are talking about luxury brands and digital marketing. I can’t count the number of times this week I’ve… read more

Current State of Social Media: The Big Four [Exclusive Infographic]

Current State of Social Media: The Big Four [Exclusive Infographic]

read more

Kickstarter Surpasses $100 Million in Pledges

Popular crowd funding platform Kickstarter has announced that more than 1 million people have backed at least one project, resulting in more than $100 million dollars in pledges.

Kickstarter allows users to post their projects and find funding for them from the Kickstarter community. Everything from the iPod nano watch to… read more

4 Ways Steve Jobs & Apple Changed the Music Industry

Max Blau is Paste Magazine‘s multimedia editor, where he oversees all audio, video and photo content on the website. He is also a freelance writer, photographer and videographer. Follow him at @MaxBlau or check out his blog.

During this decade of uncertainty and instability for the music industry, Apple has remained… read more

Automate Your World of Web Apps With ifttt

If there’s one major problem with web apps, it’s that it’s incredibly hard to get them to work together. For the most part, they don’t. Microsoft Word and iWork Pages work with Dropbox automatically if they’re all installed on the same computer. Now try getting Google Docs and Dropbox working… read more

The Return of Real-Time Social Environments

Max Jeffrey is a serial entrepreneur, podcaster and novelist. He co-founded ThisWeekIn.com, ZeroDegrees, SuperSig and The Palace and is currently writing the sequel to Max Quick: The Pocket and the Pendant (HarperCollins, 2011).

The last few months have seen an explosive resurgence in real-time environments, last popular in the late ’90s…. read more

No, Facebook Is Not Ruining Your Grades [STUDY]

The latest of several studies to look into the relationship between Facebook use and low grades has a counterintuitive twist — some kinds of Facebook use are correlated with higher GPAs.

“Facebook use in and of itself is not detrimental to academic outcome,” says study author Reynol Junco, a professor at… read more

Nominations Are Now Open for the 2011 Mashable Awards

Nominations for the 2011 Mashable Awards, presented by Buddy Media, are now open! This year marks our fifth annual community-nominated awards program, which recognizes the companies, people and projects that made the biggest impact on the digital landscape this year.

We’ve opened all 28 categories to nominations, covering four… read more

Zynga’s Project Z: A Facebook-Powered Social Network for Games

Social gaming juggernaut Zynga has announced “Project Z,” a platform for playing social games and chatting with friends powered by Facebook Connect.

Project Z, also known as “Zynga Live” and “Zynga Direct,” lets users start their games on Facebook and bring them to Project Z without interruption, and vice versa. It… read more

Zynga Unleashes CastleVille, Dream Zoo, Casino & Bingo

Zynga announced a slew of new Facebook games, add-ons and “express” versions of their social hits Tuesday, including CastleVille, Zynga Bingo and Dream Zoo.

The games — announced at Zynga’s Unleashed event at its new headquarters in San Francisco — are part of the company’s effort to expand into new genres… read more

Sharing on the Web: How, When, Where and Why We Do It [INFOGRAPHIC]

When are people most likely to share content on the web? How do they prefer to share it? What services are they sharing to most frequently? These are the burning questions of the age of social media. Bookmarking and sharing service AddThis just might have the answers.

AddThis is celebrating its… read more

Zynga’s Newest Social Game Wants You to Find Hidden Objects

Zynga has announced Hidden Chronicles, a new social game find hidden objects.

The new game doesn’t emphasize building farms or defeating rival empires. Hidden Chronicles instead focuses on discovering hidden objects within different mosaics. General Manager Roy Sehgal announced the game at Zynga’s Unleashed event at its new San Francisco offices.

As… read more

FarmVille & Food Courts: Inside Zynga’s New Offices [PHOTOS]

Zynga’s New Headquarters

There is a Zynga RV at the entrance.

Click here to view this gallery.

Zynga, the social gaming… read more

What Does the Future Hold for the Digital Media Industry?

There are some experiences our kids may never have. Folding down the corner of a page in a book. Leafing through the classifieds section of a newspaper. Renting a movie from the video store … and taking it back again the next day. Rushing home to… read more

Introducing The 6 + 1 Model For Effective Copywriting (Better Than AIDA!)

AIDA. Attention, interest, desire, action.

It’s the classic copywriting formula, studied and used by almost every copywriter on the planet.

Well, I’m not a fan.

Not because it isn’t accurate, and not because it doesn’t work. If your writing can get attention, grab interest, create desire and prompt action, then you’re doing a… read more

How Facebook’s New Features Will Affect Digital Marketers

Patrick Salyer is CEO of Gigya, which makes sites social by integrating a suite of plugins like Social Login, Comments, Activity Feeds, Social Analytics and Game Mechanics. Patrick can be reached on Twitter @patricksalyer.

With Facebook’s major changes set to roll out this week, little thought has been given to answering how Timeline and… read more

Easily Bundle & Share Web Content with Bundlr

Bookmarking apps are omnipresent these days. Almost all of them are feature rich and are either free or come with affordable freemium plans. Since bookmarks take up a negligible amount of harddisk space, you can virtually store an unlimited number of them. However, when you are trying to bundle relevant… read more

U.S. House of Representatives Videos Now Streaming on Mobile Devices

Fans of U.S. politics, take note: You can now view live video streams from the House of Representatives on your mobile phone or tablet.

The streams, available via HouseLive.gov, include videos of proceedings dating back to the start of the 111th Congress. Interested parties can click on “Video” to watch each… read more

iPads Now Driving More Web Traffic Than iPhones

Smartphones and tablets — particularly the iPad — are becoming an increasingly significant source of web traffic in the U.S.

According to web analytics firm comScore, smartphones and tablets accounted for 6.8% of all web traffic in the U.S. in August.

Approximately two-thirds of that 6.8% came from mobile phones, while the… read more

What Every Photographer Needs to Know about Email Marketing

Photographers are increasingly turning to new social media technologies to get word out about their businesses (Facebook pages, Twitter, Google+ and more are topics we’ve featured in the last year).

There’s certainly some wonderful potential to engage people with social media – but my suspicion is that many photographers are ignoring… read more

8 Simple Steps to Set Yourself Up on Social Media

Freelancers new to flying solo can be overwhelmed by the mass of marketing opportunities on the web. And while social media is a great way to promote your business, it can be enormously time consuming.

Like any marketing activity, it takes time to build up your brand, but there… read more

Weekly Design News – Resources, Tutorials and Freebies (N.107)

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This is our weekly column were we share our favorite design related articles, resources and cool tidbits from the past week. Enjoy :)

If you would like to receive our daily updates you can follow us on Twitter, on Facebookor by subscribing to our RSS feed.

CSS3… read more

10 New Twitter Tools That Will Get You Tweeting

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Whether you’re new to Twitter or an experienced user, Twitter tools make everything easier. Here are some of my favorite new tools to make Tweeting easier and more useful for any user. Try one or two that looks useful and leave a comment in the box… read more

Giftiki: The Social Gift For the Facebook User Who Has Everything

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: Giftiki

Quick Pitch: Giftiki provides friends a free and social way to pool small monetary gifts… read more

#OccupyWallStreet Protests Grow

The Occupy Wall Street movement, a series of nationwide demonstrations that opposes corporate greed and social inequality, has caught fire this past week.

Professional unions joined with the protesters last week, including the United Auto Workers, the United Federation of Teachers and National Nurses United. Several political figures have shown… read more

Guardian to Readers: Here’s Our Upcoming Story List

UK newspaper The Guardian is making its schedule of upcoming stories available to the public in a two-week experiment, in an effort to elevate transparency in the newsroom. The paper is inviting readers to contribute by contacting the reporters assigned to each story.

The paper has embedded three Google Docs spreadsheets… read more

Dungeons & Dragons Gets A Facebook Game

Dungeon Masters, start your engines. Dungeons & Dragons, the original table-top role-playing game, is coming to Facebook.

Atari has created a new social game for Facebook called Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of Neverwinter.” Players can customize their own characters, find loot and fight ghastly, digital beasts.

The app looks much like a… read more

Google+ Traffic Falls 60% From Post-Launch Highs [REPORT]

Traffic to Google+ spiked 1,200% in the first few days following its public launch Sept. 20, but has since plummeted by 60%, according to a report from a data analytics company.

Chitika tracked Google+ traffic before and after the social networking service opened its gates to all users.

“The data shows… read more

Twitter to Reformat All URLs With T.co

Twitter announced Monday that it will soon begin reformatting all links posted to its service with t.co, regardless of length.

Previously, only links that were 20 characters or greater were reformatted with t.co.

T.co is Twitter’s official URL shortener, which is designed to prevent malware and phishing attacks. Unlike other URL shorteners,… read more

Facebook Apps Just Got More Mobile-Friendly

Facebook is bringing its platform to mobile. The social network is allowing app developers to connect users more easily to the mobile or web version of their apps when using the site on a mobile device.

To start, Facebook is launching support for the Facebook mobile website and Facebook for iPad,… read more

Groupon Deal Counter Intentionally Misrepresents Total Purchases

Groupon’s deal counter will no longer accurately reflect the total number of Groupons customers have bought for each deal, the company said in a statement Monday.

Instead of showing the actual number of Groupons purchased, the company will display an imprecise count that has been reduced by between 0.5% and 19.5%…. read more

Mashable Community Guidelines: Commenting Do’s & Don’ts

Commenting is an integral part of the Mashable community. It allows everyone to participate, contribute and connect.

We truly value the comments on our site and are constantly looking for ways to improve the dialogue. That’s why we’ve put together some community guidelines with tips on how to make the most… read more

UNICEF’s Little Orange Box Goes Digital This Halloween

UNICEF, which has helped raise more than $164 million since 1953 with its iconic orange boxes, is taking its Halloween fundraising digital. The charitable organization is launching an online “Trick-or-Treat” portal and including QR codes on its instantly recognizable orange boxes.

The main feature of the web portal is UNICEF’s… read more

Facebook Acquires Social Q&A Service

Facebook has acquired two-year-old social question-and-answer startup Friend.ly for an undisclosed sum, the companies announced Monday.

The Friend.ly team will join Facebook and focus on new products for the social network, while the Friend.ly site will continue to operate as a separate service, the startup says.

“We’re excited to announce that we… read more

3 More Industry Leaders Join the Mashable Media Summit

The Mashable Media Summit unites industry leaders and experts to reveal the latest innovations occurring in media. Held on Nov. 4 at the TimesCenter in New York City, the one-day conference will examine how technology is transforming journalism, advertising and media business models.

Three new industry leaders have joined our dynamic… read more

Plan Group Projects with Todofeed

When faced with a complex project that requires multiple skill sets, it’s always a good idea to look for help. Teams that can split up their work and utilize each member’s skills efficiently work fast and deliver great results. But it’s not always easy to delegate tasks – there may… read more

Supporting Your Product: How To Provide Technical Support

Whether your product is an open-source script, a Web application or a downloadable product, you will need to provide some form of technical support. This article explores the subject based on my experience of supporting our company’s product, Perch, a small content management system (CMS) that we sell as a… read more

SnapTags: Will they kill QR codes?

I remember a time when truncating the UPC bar code on the cover of a magazine was a huge coup. Taking the huge, lumbering code, which took up too much real estate on the cover of a publication, was bothersome and affected the design space.

Cutting the bar code by half,… read more

5 Most Popular Musicians to Subscribe to on Facebook

Facebook has for many years been a portal for musicians to share their music, photos and thoughts as well as interact with fans. Now, the world’s largest social network offers them another way to let fans into their lives: the Subscribe button.

While almost every big-name artist and band has a… read more

A Twitter Client for Budget Shoppers

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: Tweetalicious

Quick Pitch: A shopping discovery engine built on the Twitter platform

Genius Idea: Although many retailers, brands… read more

10 Easy Strategies for Better Portrait Shoots

Where you choose to shoot depends entirely on the style you want to use, the time of the year and what you want to achieve artistically. But starting inside is usually a great way to get everyone, particularly children, accustomed to your camera. If you start your shoot in a… read more

7 Reasons Why Recruiters Like Facebook More Than LinkedIn

Despite the challenges social media presents for human resources professionals, it plays a growing role in talent recruitment. The big question, though, is where to find talent.

While employers continue to use professional networking site LinkedIn for recruiting, especially when hand-picking for executive positions, they prefer interacting with students and graduates… read more

5 Amazing Eco-Friendly Office Buildings of the Future

Sustainable design. Experts have been telling us for decades that we should be building with these two words in mind, but which projects are really pushing the envelope, and which are merely adhering to the current standards?

We’ve done some digging and found wonderful architectural designs that are either planned or… read more

Inside the Most Successful Digital Music Licensing Service You’ve Never Heard Of

Leave it to the cold, dark shores of Scandinavia to finally crack the code on digital music distribution. X5, a tiny music group from the great Scandinavian North has not only made money by selling digital music, it’s beat out music giants like Sony and Warner Music on the Billboard… read more

5 Ways Tech Can Make New Hires Feel Like Part of the Team

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Once an employee is hired, our job isn’t over. In fact, it’s just begun. Especially when there are surveys out there that say 84% of employees plan… read more

Linkswitch #89, Web Presence, Pricing War, Writing Problems

Take Control of Your Web Presence with Ten Top Tips

Social media is a brilliant way to build your brand, which in turn grows your client base. But it can suck hours out of your busy day. And time is the one resource that we freelancers crave.

With a simple routine,… read more

Please Lord, Save Us from the FarmVille Movie

The writers of Toy Story are reportedly in talks to pen a movie based on FarmVille, the popular Facebook game.

Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen said in an interview with IGN that they’re working with Zynga on a movie based on one of the company’s most popular games, adding… read more

Will There Ever Be Another Steve Jobs?

Steve Jobs leaves behind a nearly unrivaled legacy of invention and innovation.

His products are loved by millions and copied by competitors; his design aesthetic has become the barometer by which all other things are compared, and his vision of the future has given life to products and services that have… read more

67 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed

The news this week took a somber turn upon hearing of the death of Steve Jobs. This week’s roundup is no different. Our features pay tribute to the man who not only made Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world, but who helped to advance innovative technology… read more

3 New Mobile Apps For Video-Sharers, Fitness Phobics & Creatives

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.

Each weekend, Mashable selects startups we think are building interesting, unique or niche products.

This time we’re… read more

Best of the Week #191

It’s time for our best news of this week. We have a lot of graphic and web design, a bit of architecture, ads, tech news, awesome reads and other crazy stuff! So take a look at the links we’ve selected for your inspiration and to keep you updated about what’s… read more

20+ Joomla Social Bookmarking Plugins

20+ Joomla Social Bookmarking Plugins

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Meet Pinterest: A Private Social Pinboard That Collects Your Online Memories

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: Pinterest

Quick Pitch: Pinterest is a digital pinboard for things you love.

Genius Idea: A bookmark that makes… read more

Steve Jobs’ Secret Formula: How He Won Over Critics, Scored 317 Patents & Changed the World

I arrived at Apple’s headquarters a little before 9 a.m. after a beautiful drive down the 280 from San Francisco on a sunny July day. This wasn’t any ordinary trip to One Infinite Loop. Steve Jobs was on stage, but he wasn’t going to announce any products.

Just two… read more

Toys Take On Consoles: Spyro the Dragon Returns in Social Videogame [PREVIEW]

After a long break from videogame consoles, Spyro the Dragon is back in Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. The purple dragon’s new outing is another cute platform game, but there’s one major, potentially industry-changing feature: real-world toys that participate in the game.

Skylanders features a unique control system called the Portal of Power…. read more

Will the New Facebook Lead to Information Overload?

Soren Gordhamer is the organizer of the Wisdom 2.0 Conferences, which brings together staff from Google, Facebook, Twitter and Zynga along with Zen teachers and others to explore living with awareness and wisdom in our modern age. You can follow him at @SorenG on Twitter.

If you’ve been spending much time… read more