15 junio 2010 – Gabriel Catalano®

In the crude wake of BP fiasco, biking to work takes on new meaning.

Just do it!

Last year, I took a fall from my bike riding into work. There was a gash in the sidewalk and then a gash in my knee! Given I hit the pavement full on, it could have been a lot worse. I waited out the momentary shock –you perspire, you shake- and got back on my horse.

A copywriter by trade, you’d think I could come up with a better opening to a story about biking to work, especially given this is bike-to-work week in Chicago. But I won’t lie to you. Safeness is not a bicycle’s preeminent calling card, and if one elects to take surface streets in lieu of bike paths, it can get even harrier. Don’t forget to wear a helmet. Continuar leyendo «In the crude wake of BP fiasco, biking to work takes on new meaning.»

Arming My Mafia At 7-Eleven

Originally published in MediaPost

If, decades from now, I lie on my deathbed having flashbacks of some of the more humiliating moments of my life, then last week’s encounter at a 7-Eleven will be one of them. It was at such an establishment on East 23rd Street in Manhattan where a young, amiable staff member saw me working the Slurpee machine and asked, «Do you need help with that?»

The fact was, I did. I didn’t know how to get the Coke Slurpee to come out, nor did I know how to order an Oscar Mayer hot dog. I was juggling a handful of store-brand products as well, while surreptitiously reaching for my iPhone to document it all (see photos and screenshots on Flickr).

You might ask why I was playing the part of a convenience store anthropologist. No, I wasn’t trying to be the Jane Goodall of the Slurpee kingdom. Instead, I was there, still in my sport jacket following an Internet Week event, to arm my mafia. This mafia consists of nearly 300 friends and virtual associates in Mafia Wars, one of three of Zynga‘s social games (along with FarmVille and YoVille) participating in a cross-promotional deal with 7-Eleven. Continuar leyendo «Arming My Mafia At 7-Eleven»

Social Media Accounts For 22% Of Time Spent Online

By Doug Caverly

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Nielsen finds global social network/blog numbers on the rise

The Web is a vastly more social place now than it was a year ago, according to new data from Nielsen. Double-digit growth occurred in a couple of categories, and at this point, Nielsen believes an impressive 22 percent of all time spent online is spent perusing social networks and/or blogs.

Actually, that figure may be even larger for June; Nielsen’s latest stats are from April (and so the year-to-year comparison was made with April 2009). But in any event, a lot has changed, and Nielsen described the differences this afternoon with a paragraph full of percentages. Continuar leyendo «Social Media Accounts For 22% Of Time Spent Online»

Las decisiones tomadas en grupo

¡Decisiones, decisiones Comprender la psicología de la toma de decisiones puede permitirle llegar más rápido a una conclusión. Ya sea que esté eligiendo un lugar de vacaciones o un proyecto para financiar, este articulo de Lyndsay Swinton le será una herramienta útil.

Decidirse sería (al menos en teoría) lo más fácil de todo. Después de todo, sólo hay una persona involucrada. De manera que saltaremos directamente a la zona más complicada de la toma de decisiones grupal. Allí hay choques de personalidad, luchas de poder y planes no dichos, pero siempre se puede llegar a una solución.

Un camello es un caballo diseñado por una comisión

En la toma grupal de decisiones, hay un número de métodos que pueden aplicarse. Esos métodos se abren en un abanico que va desde la toma “directiva” o “participativa”. En los que están más cerca de la modalidad “directiva”, la decisión es tomada por un limitado número de personas en el grupo. Los que están más abajo en el especto, hacia al ámbito de la participación, permiten el acceso de más personas a la toma de decisión. Continuar leyendo «Las decisiones tomadas en grupo»

Mil millones de usuarios de banda ancha

Según cálculos de la Unión Internacional de Telecomunicaciones (UIT) este año cerrará con más de 1.000 millones de usuarios de banda ancha para acceder a Internet.

El mismo estudio estima que en cinco años el acceso a Internet a través de móviles y de computadoras portátiles superará al actual dominante acceso a través de computadoras de escritoio.

El segundo anuario sobre el análisis de la competitividad en la banda ancha móvil, elaborado por la IDC, ha probado la velocidad de carga y descarga en las cuatro redes de banda ancha en la telefonía móvil en el país, a través de 2.000 pruebas independientes durante nueve meses, especialmente en áreas metropolitanas. Continuar leyendo «Mil millones de usuarios de banda ancha»

Una aplicación de Associated Press para móviles que cubre el mundial

: Image via CrunchBase

La “AP 2010 World Cup Coverage”, se puede bajar de diversos lugares, por ejemplo iTunes, Ovi de Nokia, BlackBerry App World y Android Market.

Associated Press, la agencia mundial de noticias e informaciòn, está dando a los usuarios de teléfonos móviles de todo el globo acceso al mundial de fútbol 2010 con una nueva aplicación.

La aplicación fue diseñada para profundizar la experiencia del campeonato para quienes quieren estar en todo momento al tanto de los resultados en cualquier lugar del globo terráqueo, con cualquier idioma y cualquier plataforma móvil. Las características de esta aplicación incluyen idioma inglés, español, francés y portugués y programa customizable para los 32 países que participan en el torneo, lo cual permite a los usuarios seguir a su equipo favorito a lo largo de todo el mes. Continuar leyendo «Una aplicación de Associated Press para móviles que cubre el mundial»

Does the World Still Need Twitter?

Why Twitter is Getting Away with So Much Downtime

Twitter users know that the service goes down fairly often, but that doesn’t seem to alienate them. While Twitter has certainly had its issues with user retention in the past, it continues to grow. Last month, the site grew by nearly 10% (over the previous month) by our estimates, with total registered users estimated at 122 million. That’s not Facebook-like numbers, but it’s pretty significant. One almost has to wonder if those numbers would be higher if the «Fail Whale» didn’t make so many appearances. Twitter users, for the most part, don’t seem to mind him too much though.

The Downtime

Frequent downtime is nothing new for Twitter. It’s been going on pretty much as long as Twitter’s been around. You would think that by now, they’d have it under control, but no such luck… Continuar leyendo «Does the World Still Need Twitter?»

Social Media Case Study: Facebook plus integrated marketing helps raise $950,000

Recently, I wrote about a case study that included excellent use of integrated marketing and social media – Facebook Case Study: From 517 to 33,000 fans in two weeks (plus media coverage). The MarketingExperiments community of marketers wanted to get a deeper look at the details, so I figured, why not go straight to the source?

Brenna Holmes, a senior online account executive and strategist at Adams Hussey & Associates (AH&A), was the digital brand strategic advisor on this campaign for her client, the California State Parks Foundation (CSPF). I asked her many questions from our audience along with a few of my own…

Let’s start with your role in this campaign. Social media operations is a huge challenge in itself. We’ll get to what you did in a moment. But first, how did you get it done? Continuar leyendo «Social Media Case Study: Facebook plus integrated marketing helps raise $950,000»

The Singularity: Playing on Thursday Nights

By ASHLEE VANCE

Craig Blankenhorn/FOX John Noble plays Walter Bishop, a mad scientist, on “Fringe.”

I flicked on my TV one day and heard someone say this: “Science and technology have reached a point where our means are finally catching up with our imagination.”

This statement caught my attention because I’d spent months digging into the Singularity movement. As I wrote in an article this Sunday, believers in the Singularity movement promise a time when a superior intelligence rules, man and machines merge and scientific progress occurs at an astonishing rate. In theory, the believers say, our imaginations can be transposed onto the world through things like genetic engineering, nanotechnology and virtual reality. Continuar leyendo «The Singularity: Playing on Thursday Nights»

Secret Confessions of a Social Network Rejecter

Posted by Andrew G. Rosen

You’d be hard-pressed to find a 30-year-old American who is not connected on at least one social network. While on vacation a few weeks ago, I came across that man. A dinosaur among men. Below is a brief Q&A on why a seemingly “normal” person would choose to turn their back on a digital revolution that is being embraced by the masses. I anticipate a healthy debate in the comments section below,

Q: Why have you chosen to shut social networks out of your life?

A: I don’t see the need. If I want to share something with someone, I will arrange a meeting, pick up the phone, or, if I’m very busy, send them an email. Continuar leyendo «Secret Confessions of a Social Network Rejecter»

Coca-Cola Zero: The Carwash

The impossible is made possible again and Coca-Cola Zero is giving away a Lamborghini Gallardo LP-550 Valentino Balboni. This new website from Turkey is created by C-Section to promote the campaign and it features the ultimate carwash.

3 beautiful girls give the Lamborghini it’s first wash before one lucky winner claims it at the end of the campaign. Visitors are warned upon entrance: A little bit of hand skill is required if you don’t want to miss the amazing details of this carwash. Continuar leyendo «Coca-Cola Zero: The Carwash»

DoYouBuzz Can Help You Easily Create Customizable Resume and Spread It Across Social Networks

People whose work involves computers need to have an online version of their resumes a.k.a. curricula vita. If you plan on uploading an online CV furnished in Microsoft Word, you will not stand out from the crowd. You need a resume that is brilliant and eye catching. DoYouBuzz can help with that.

DoYouBuzz is a wonderful website that helps you create an online resume within minutes. The site features free and paid accounts. While you can take full advantage of the site’s services only through the paid account, the free version will be a good place to start.

You start by creating a username and password on the site. Entering your name gives you your very own DoYouBuzz URL. As you move on you can transfer information from your LinkedIn and Viadeo accounts. At the time you enter your name, you can also enter your employment type and field. Continuar leyendo «DoYouBuzz Can Help You Easily Create Customizable Resume and Spread It Across Social Networks»

5+2 Best Apps To Securely Sync Online And Share Your Files

This is one of the very best list of its kind where you can find incredibly useful and life saver data synchronization applications that you would love to bookmark for future use. I hope everyone of you will like this list, you can try these whether you are an office worker, a manager, a supervisor, a student, a home user, etc. These great tools will give you excellent experience and peace of mind when you need online synchronization and data sharing. Just take a look at them and share your thought’s here.

You are welcome if you want to share more useful synchronization applications that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter and follow us on Google Buzz as well.

IDriveSync

Continuar leyendo «5+2 Best Apps To Securely Sync Online And Share Your Files»

Hold The World In Your Hand With Google Earth For iPad

Google Earth, the world’s most famous virtual globe, map and geographic information program from Google is now available on the iPad. This news had been in the pipeline for a long time and now that it’s finally here, Google earth is sure to do wonders on the glorious multi-touch screen of the iPad.

The Google Earth app available now on the App store carries version 3.0 of the software and supports both the iPad and the iPhone.

The official description of the app reads as follows: Continuar leyendo «Hold The World In Your Hand With Google Earth For iPad»

30 of the Best Web Typography Resources Online

It seems there are two camps among web designers: those who embrace web typography, experiment with it, and try new things in virtually all of their designs; and those who avoid it like the plague, opting to use standard, web-safe font stacks with little variation.

It also seems like a lot of the designers who fall into the second group wish they were more like the first.

The resources below can help you improve your web typography, regardless of which camp you fall into.

There are tools for creating unique typography, references and articles that can teach you typographic principles, and plenty of inspiration and news to keep you updated on the state of web typography.

Typography Tools

Typetester
Typetester lets you compare up to three fonts, side-by-side, with whatever sample text you want. You can specify the baseline font size, typeface, size, leading, tracking, alignment, word spacing, decoration, color and background color to get a very accurate picture of what your fonts will look like on the actual website. Then, when you’ve got everything looking just the way you want it, you can grab the CSS.

Continuar leyendo «30 of the Best Web Typography Resources Online»