Tag Archive for 'Mashable'

Foursquare gets Wired mag cover, teams with Mashable and CNN, offers new badge rewards. Is it over for Gowalla?

Published on June 8, 2010 in Facebook, Foursquare, Google, business, mobile, social media and technology. View Comments

Back in March I wrote a post about the battle for venue checkins between mobile location–based services Foursquare and Gowalla. Since then there have been some developments that certainly point to the rise and rise of Foursquare.

Since then Foursquare has been busy courting local businesses and partnering with a growing number of bigger brands. It has followed in Twitter’s footsteps in trying to become a platform by launching an App Gallery. In addition, a couple of weeks ago Foursquare announced that it was starting to reach close to a million checkins a day.

Now Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley has gone and landed himself on the cover of Wired UK, although Josh Williams from Gowalla is also featured in the article within.

Wired cover

Click on the image to go to Dennis Crowley’s Flickr stream for the back story, ‘So this happened. (Wired UK, July 2010)’.

In addition, Mashable, one of the world’s most popular blogs, is partnering with Foursquare to give Foursquare users tips and recommendations on social media venues, tech gatherings, startup headquarters and some of their own dining picks.

Last year in a CNN post, Next year’s Twitter? It’s Foursquare, Mashable’s founder Pete Cashmore argued that Foursquare was already aligning itself to become a mainstream hit in 2010. His post alone would have done no end of good for the service, and now this.

Furthermore, at the Mashable Media Summit, it was revealed that Foursquare is fast-approaching 1.6 million members and is now experimenting with CNN Cup badges. The new badges are a move towards addressing “badge fatigue” by attempting to add more value to badges.  For example, once a badge is unlocked it will guarantee the holder priority entrance into specific parties and events. It’s the equivalent of a VIP program.

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Above is a Google Trends comparison between the search terms ‘Foursquare’ and ‘Gowalla’ over the past 12 months. It’s based on the average search traffic of each search term. This doesn’t reflect user growth, but I think it certainly gives a good indication of the buzz surrounding Foursquare, which you’d have to agree is a big factor in encouraging users to at least try the service. What’s clear is that there is certainly no shortage of interest. Foursquare is going from strength to strength.

As Business Insider points out, the battle may now be between Foursquare and bigger companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter. Do you agree or disagree? Still sticking with Gowalla?

Gulf oil spill social media response

Published on May 3, 2010 in Twitter, environment, politics, social media and video. View Comments

There seems no doubt that there’s going to be a large amount of social media content in relation to the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill. If the impact of the ongoing spill turns out to be as bad as many are suggesting, there is sure to be a continuing deluge of images, video clips, blog posts and status updates hitting the social web.

The aftermath of the spill could go on for weeks or months and have a devastating impact on the Gulf Coast. In addition to mainstream media coverage, something tells me that as the oil spill reaches the coast, citizen journalism is going to go into overdrive. With all the clean-up volunteers and people living in the area, no doubt people will tell their own stories with cameras, blogs and via Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Unsurprisingly, right from the outset blogs often categorised as “green” such as Grist (a Technorati Top 100 blog) have been covering the spill. However, soon after it became a lead news story pretty much everywhere, I noticed “Gulf” trending on Twitter as people expressed themselves and passed around links to news updates, images and blog posts.

A couple of days ago NASA released the embedded satellite images of the spill, which very popular blogs such as Mashable and The Huffington Post helped to distribute far and wide on the web. The Huffington Post now has a page dedicated to ongoing coverage of the spill, with well over a thousand comments from readers.

Gulf Oil Spill 1

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ReadWriteWeb reported that a multimedia website has now been set up by British Petroleum, Transocean, (the oil rig owners), the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Department. The site has a Social Media section which links to a Facebook Page, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.

After the Bush administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina relief effort, the White House seems keen to communicate via all media that it will do “whatever it takes for as long as it takes to address this crisis”.  Here are a couple of messages that have appeared on Twitter and YouTube in response to the crisis:

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This video posted on YouTube was linked from Obama’s Twitter account with the message “From day one, we have launched & coordinated a relentless response to the Gulf Crisis.”

Let’s hope the Obama administration and the companies involved follow through with on their promises to put maximum effort into the clean up. Whatever the case, this is not going to be good.

5 ways to find the best Twitter connections

Published on April 12, 2010 in Twitter, clean tech and social media. View Comments

Lately, a few people have asked me about the best ways to find “good people” to follow on Twitter. Here are a few suggestions. They are perhaps more for those who are fairly new to Twitter but if you’re an old hand on Twitter, please feel free to add your own suggestions. This is by no means a comprehensive list.

Firstly, it really depends what you’re into, as to who you might want to find and start following, doesn’t it? It may take a bit of effort to find the people who are the most interested in similar things to you, depending on what you are into.

For instance, one of my growing interests is for emerging clean technologies, or cleantech. Here are some of the ways I have gone about finding people, organisations and blogs similarly interested. You could do the same for whatever subjects you are interested in.

1. Twitter (Real-Time) Search

One of the best ways to find people to follow and talk with is to use Twitter Search itself. Simply search for any term or combination of terms and you are sure to find people tweeting on that subject. The search updates in real-time, so it’s possible to keep it open and reply to some of those tweets as they happen. The search can be saved for later and repeated at will.

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2. Wefollow

Wefollow is a directory of Twitter users who have added themselves by tagging their profiles by category. It sprang from an idea by the founder of Digg, Kevin Rose. You simply enter a search term to find a list of the most influential and most popular profiles in that category. Don’t forget to add yourself so people can find you too.

wefollow

3. Who do you respect? Follow some of the people they follow

Out of the people you already follow, decide who you respect the most in your chosen category. Look at who they follow and have conversations with. Chances are you’ll find some great people to follow this way. You may even feel you want to contribute to the conversation.

4. Who do you respect? Look at their Twitter Lists

Twitter Lists have been around for a while now. Have a look for the public Twitter Lists of the people you respect in your chosen category. Chances are those people have made some lists of the people they most respect, for the benefit of themselves and others.

5. Mashable’s new Twitter List Directory

Mashable has only very recently started a Twitter List Directory. It’s by no means comprehensive yet, but is still worth a search under your chosen subject. You can also add your own Twitter lists to the index, which will help others find you.

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Got any other other good ways to find the best people to follow? let us know.