Excited about your new Facebook page but don’t know what’s next?  What does a truly advanced company look like in social business?  They can say yes to seven or more of these ten criteria. We’ve been interviewing the most sophisticated brands in the world when it comes to social business for our upcoming report on “Enterprise Social Strategists Role”.  We’ve come to learn which companies are advanced and why.  Secondly, I meet a variety of..   show all text

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Of all topics, this is one of the perennials. People want more traffic, more attention, more awareness to their blog. It’s fair. We work hard on our blogs. We want more attention and traffic. If your business depends on volume, this is especially important (for instance, if you’re using ads). Getting traffic is a tricky business, and it requires a lot of experimentation. I’ll tell you what’s worked for me, so far, and I’ll tell you what you might try. Maybe others ..   show all text

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People are increasingly sharing different types of information on Twitter. For example, Tweets point to web pages, photos, videos, hashtags, people, check-ins, and more. Exploring Tweets is a great way to discover new and interesting information. And with devices of all shapes and sizes connecting to the Internet, we’re constantly looking for new ways to make this easier. To date, we’ve created applications for a variety of mobile phones, giving you instant access to Tweets and grea..   show all text

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In the debate between the old version of Digg and the new Digg, the readers have spoken. Last week, Digg launched version 4.0 of the popular social news website. It’s been a rocky road pre-launch, so why would it be any different post-launch? Since the launch of the New Digg, which introduced the ability to follow friends, a faster architecture and personalized news, users have been in revolt, mostly over the types of stories reaching the front page. Digg has since addressed some of these..   show all text

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Selecting the right wine for every occasion is a form of art most of us only pretend to understand. That’s why Lion Nathan Wine Group, a wine owner and importer, has put QR codes on wine bottles to help everyday wine buyers make better selections. Cellar Key, a joint initiative between Scanbuy and Lion Nathan Wine Group, applies QR code technology to the art of shopping for wine. Initially, Cellar Key will feature six wines from the Lion Nathan Wine Group. QR codes will be featured on the..   show all text

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If I were MySpace, I would be shaking in my boots. Earlier today, Apple launched iTunes 10, the latest rendition of its wildly popular music software. Really though, iTunes 10 is just a vessel for Ping, Apple’s new music-centric social network. Available immediately to iTunes’s 160 million+ users through the desktop, iPhone and iPod touch, Ping is a social network where users can follow their friends and their favorite artists. As Apple CEO Steve Jobs described it, Ping is Facebook ..   show all text

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Steve Jobs has revealed iTunes 10, the newest version of iTunes complete with a new logo, new features and its very own social network for music called “Ping” that he described as Facebook meets Twitter for music. Ping allows users to follow others, just like Twitter. You can follow artists or your friends to find out what they’re listening or what they’re creating. It has custom song and album charts, a news feed, 17,000+ concert listings, and is available to 160 millio..   show all text

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This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. In addition to writing for their human readers, web writers and bloggers have to consider the digital web crawlers employed by search engines like Google. Your business can’t skip the task. Since most would-be readers use search engines to find blog posts, you need to make sure that Google ranks your site highly whe..   show all text

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Travelers and city adventurers looking for a better way to harness geolocation data for their own amusement, get ready: Gowalla is releasing a brand new beta feature designed to crowdsource the best a city has to offer. Gowalla Highlights is a web-based product that currently consists of 18 place-based questions that query members about their favorite date night locales, watering holes, spots for people watching or celebrity sightings, etc. The power of the product is in the aggregate. Gowalla ..   show all text

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We’re a little too focused on collecting humans like marbles. Our fans. Followers. Subscribers. Impressions. Once upon a time, numbers like gross circulation mattered a bit more, because the available channels and paths for information were somewhat limited. So by putting yourself visibly in one of them, chances were pretty good that you’d actually be seen, and command a fair bit of someone’s attention, at least for a few moments. Now? Not nearly. Clicking “follow”..   show all text

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Back in July 2009, Twitter made a big stink about developers using the term “Tweet” in their Twitter apps. The Twitter API team had contacted a third-party developer—TweetKnot—informing the company that it had “grown uncomfortable” about the use of the word “tweet” in the app’s name. That was before the company effectively secured the trademark with the USPTO, notably. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone promptly clarified the situation in a blog p..   show all text

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Electronic Arts’ wildly successful Madden NFL franchise has made the leap from the Xbox to Facebook. The gaming giant has launched Madden NFL Superstars, the company’s second social game since it acquired social game maker Playfish. The company’s first social game, FIFA Superstars, is one of Facebook’s most popular apps with nearly 4 million monthly active users. Madden NFL Superstars isn’t a port of the popular console games; it’s a completely new experience..   show all text

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Serving up search results based on what your friends clicked: It’s been a hot topic lately, and one that Facebook has seen fit to claim as its own. The social networking goliath has just won a patent covering a certain type of search algorithm, one that is largely based on the interests and clicks of a user’s friends and friends-of-friends. Specifically, the patent is for “ranking search results based on the frequency of clicks on the search results by members of a social netw..   show all text

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Apple has announced that it will be live streaming its September 1 “special event,” where the company is expected not only to reveal a new line of iPods, but a new version of Apple TV as well The announcement is surprising. Historically, Apple has not provided live video for any of its keynotes or special media events. It’s unclear what prompted the tech giant’s change of heart, but you will be able to watch Steve Jobs revealing Apple’s newest line of products for ..   show all text

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Here at Mashable, we’ve been putting the iPhone 4 through its paces, and have come up with some handy tips and tricks that can help you get more out of your Apple-flavored mobile. We’ve covered all kinds of basics, like making search results more relevant, creating shortcuts for your favorite websites, better organizing your apps, and making the most of Maps. And, as ever, if you’ve got suggestions for more iPhone magic not covered here or in our previous Keyboard Shortcuts po..   show all text

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Does your business have a Facebook page? Have you ever wondered what successful Facebook page owners are doing right? Well, look no further. This article examines 10 of the top Facebook pages from brands you’ll likely recognize. Regardless of the size of your business, you’ll discover great ideas that will help you take your Facebook experience to the next level. Each of these pages has incorporated unique features that have attracted hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions!) of f..   show all text

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Digg has hired Amazon exec Matt Williams to be their new CEO, we’ve confirmed. This ends a months-long process that began with the ouster of former CEO Jay Adelson in April. Founder Kevin Rose has run the company since then. Williams has been with Amazon for more than a decade – since 1999. He is currently the GM of Consumer Payments. But he has held a variety of jobs – GM Webstore, Director Tech Alliances, Director Community & Cross-Merchandising and Director, Auctions an..   show all text

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A video of a young girl in a red sweatshirt throwing several puppies into a river has caused a huge social media backlash on sites like 4chan, reddit and Facebook. The backlash is similar to the one caused by the Cat Bin Lady, a woman who was caught on video throwing a cat into a dustbin, and whose identity was quickly revealed by 4chan members. Similarly, some members of 4chan and reddit started a campaign to find out the identity of the girl, while a Facebook group related to the incident has..   show all text

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Today, Google will begin rolling out Priority Inbox for Gmail, a new feature for managing massive amounts of e-mail. Your inbox will never be the same again. Priority Inbox is Google’s attempt to solve the e-mail woes of Gmail power users. At its core, the feature is an algorithm; Priority Inbox uses information such as keywords, the people you e-mail the most and your e-mail habits to select the most pressing e-mails in your inbox. Those e-mails are brought to the top of your Gmail and m..   show all text

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In the last couple of hours, Facebook has been unstable for many users (including us), according to numerous tweets from those affected. In the last 15 minutes or so, Facebook seems to be completely inaccessible. While downtime happens far more rarely to Facebook than, say, Twitter, world’s largest social network has occasionally had stability issues. It’s a big deal: with 500 million active users, complaints about downtime mount up pretty quickly. We’ve contacted Facebook to ..   show all text

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With the help of Gmail, Google has turned Google Voice into a legitimate Skype competitor. Is it enough to make people abandon Skype for Google Voice calling? The Skype software application has been around since 2003. Since its launch, it has garnered hundreds of millions of users because of its ability to make crisp and clear audio and video calls to both phones and other computers. It’s been the gold standard on voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology. But Google has pushing its ..   show all text

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Posted by Doug Aberdeen, Software Engineer People tell us all that time that they’re getting more and more mail and often feel overwhelmed by it all. We know what you mean—here at Google we run on email. Our inboxes are slammed with hundreds, sometimes thousands of messages a day—mail from colleagues, from lists, about appointments and automated mail that’s often not important. It’s time-consuming to figure out what needs to be read and what needs a reply. Today, ..   show all text

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Email overload has finally met its match. Tomorrow, Gmail is rolling out a new feature called Priority Inbox that is going to be a Godsend for those of you who dread opening your email. In short, Google has built a system that figures out which of your messages are important, and presents them at the top of the screen so you don’t miss them. The rest of your messages are still there, but you don’t have to dig through dozens of newsletters and confirmations to find the diamonds in ro..   show all text

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This series is supported by Gist. Gist provides a full view of the contacts in your professional network by creating a rich business profile for each one that includes the most news, status updates, and work details. See how it works here. Today’s CEO is not social. So says Forrester Research’s CEO George Colony. Very few of the CEOs at top companies in the U.S. and the rest of the world have any material presence on the popular social media sites. Colony believes they should be so..   show all text

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This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. For all the praise that brand advertisers have for social media, they must be aware that it’s very much a double-edged sword. And for all the free marketing, advertising and brand promotion via Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and other platforms used to help build an identity and relationship with your customers, it ..   show all text

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Mostly the young are interested in letting others know their physical location. Others are reticent for safety reasons, or against providing too much information.

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After being down for an entire week, popular random video chat service Chatroulette is back with a new version. The transition to version two wasn’t exactly graceful; Chatroulette was supposed to be down one day, but the extended downtime, during which the site was nothing more than a white page with a simple text message, saying the new version will launch “shortly,” was a sign that not everything had gone according to plan. So, what did the new (and, hopefully, improved) Cha..   show all text

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Cisco has made an offer to acquire Skype before they complete their IPO process, says one of our more reliable sources. We have not been able to confirm this rumor one way or another via other sources, which isn’t surprising. A company in lock down during the IPO process is usually even more tight lipped than normal. But if true this would be one very big acquisition. Skype insiders are hoping for an out of the gate valuation of $5 billion or so, we’ve heard. Presumably Cisco would ..   show all text

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