Social Media

Another week has flown by in social-media land, which means, you--and I--have missed a lot of developments, new products, etc. Most of them, of course, don't matter, but these Week in Review posts (February 26, 2012; February 19, 2012) are meant to help you catch-up with the ones that do. Each weekend, you can help by posting links in the comments section or emailing me at sreetips@sree.net or tweeting with @sree or #sreetips.

First stop: Mashable's 48 Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed by Matt Petronzio (@MattPetronzio) is where I … Read more

With Yelp's impressive IPO out of the way, all eyes are now on Facebook and its highly anticipated public debut. And thanks to Yelp, Facebook will have a lot of momentum for its IPO.

On its first day as a public company, Yelp's stock jumped by more than 60 percent, valuing the company north of $1.4 billion. It remains to be seen how Yelp will fare in the weeks to come, but for now Wall Street has declared Yelp a winner.

It's a stark difference from Groupon and Zynga's run on the public market. Groupon … Read more

Every year at the South by Southwest Interactive conference, hundreds of apps vie to do what Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, Beluga, and Group.me have done over the years: Dominate the conversation and springboard to huge success.

Each of those apps became the talk of Austin, Texas, during SXSW because they were total game-changers when it came to how people communicated with each other. And because SXSW is the confluence of all the movers and shakers in the interactive community, there's no better place to have an app blow up. Succeed there, and the community will yell out your app'… Read more

If you were ever a Boy Scout, you may recall earning an archery or camping badge. Girl Scouts offer athlete, naturalist, and many others. But what if you're a kid with serious 3D printing or laser cutting chops? Is there a badge for you?

There is now, thanks to the folks at Adafruit Industries, a New York-based open source hardware and maker products emporium. Starting in the next few days--timed to the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts on March 12--Adafruit will begin offering a broad set of skill badges that reward kids--and presumably others--for completing any of a … Read more

Flipboard tonight unveiled a new version of its popular iPad app, an update led by the inclusion of Cover Stories, a feature that gives users a one-stop feed for the articles the service considers most relevant based on their social connections and what they've already read.

The new feature was introduced originally with Flipboard's iPhone app, and until now it hasn't been available for the iPad. But this new release makes Cover Stories a key component of the company's plan to make its app the best place for users to go to catch up on the … Read more

We all know that controlling your brand is crucial, especially in big business. You can't afford to let someone else get ahold of your name, and in the Internet era, that means keeping your Web site locked down, far from anyone else's reach.

So it was quite a surprise to me when I found out today, via the Twitter feed of the great game designer Brenda Brathwaite, that Zyngo CEO Mark Pincus could be in real danger of losing Markpincus.com.

According to a Whois search, the URL expired on February 9. And while registrars usually give domain … Read more

With big brands, entertainment companies and everyone else frantically trying to figure what really works on Twitter, we're in a stage of hashtag experimentation right now.

I wrote recently about Sports Illustrated putting #SILinsanity on its cover story about NBA shooting star Jeremy Lin. A student of mine said that someone complained that using hashtags on the cover meant the magazine was "taking advantage" of a public phenomenon. In today's world, that's like complaining that the New York Times is "taking advantage" of the 2012 elections by covering the heck out of them.… Read more

Hewlett-Packard cut 270 employees from its troubled webOS division today, a move aimed at cutting costs, but which calls into question the company's recent statements that it is committed to the platform.

According to The Verge, HP slashed the positions because "it no longer needs many of the engineering and other related positions that it required before."

The company's decision comes not long after it said it would open source the webOS platform and after the recent departure of former WebOS chief Jon Rubinstein.

The Verge published a statement from HP about the layoffs this afternoon … Read more

Another week has flown by in social-media land, which means, you--and I--have missed a lot of developments, new products, etc. Most of them, of course, don't matter, but these Week in Review posts are meant to help you catch-up with the ones that do. Each weekend, you can help by posting links in the comments section or e-mailing me at sreetips@sree.net or Tweeting with @sree or #sreetips.

First stop: Mashable's 34 Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed by Matt Petronzio (@MattPetronzio) is where I go to catch up with the best of what … Read more