Last year I wrote this post reviewing 40 years of using email. Now, granted I am almost old enough to recall many of those events and while I wasn't exactly present at the dawn of email, I know people who were. But it seems as if email, at least corporate email, has come and is in the process of going all in my own lifetime. A number of factors are making turning off, or at least reducing your email dependency, more viable these days. And I should point out that we are talking here about just eliminating internal emails; no one is suggesting that we go without emails to connect people in different domains.

• Second, as social media becomes more prevalent, it becomes easier to have conversations in the public eye, or at least on the corporate Intranet. I don't mean just using the built-in messaging feature of Facebook, but posting questions and replies using the discussion features of these products, so that everyone can see the conversation threads. But it isn't enough for something like Yammer or IBM's Connections to be popular, they have to be universally used for this to work.

  One social media advocate, Luis Suarez, was chronicled in Wired this month showing how he does this. Now, granted he works for IBM, and IBM has done a very solid job of moving all of its employees to Connections over the past few years. But if you only have a couple of departments that have become socialized, you are still going to need email to connect to the rest of your enterprise colleagues.

• Next, more people are practicing inbox zero messages. This means you try very hard to file incoming messages and delete those that don't apply to the here and now, so your inbox only has a few messages in it at any given time. This has been my own standard operating procedure for many years and works well, but you have to say on top of it. It also means when you go on vacation, or are away from the Internet, your inbox will pile up quickly.

• Finally, other technologies are taking the load off email, including texting, Instant Messaging and group chats and other services. This is certainly the case for many Gen Y'ers, who grew up with these kinds of technologies and as a result were slow to adopt email as their native communications tool. Again, this has to be universal throughout a corporation; otherwise it won't work as a substitute for email. 
  

None of these are really good solutions for getting rid of all email, and even the IBMer Suarez still uses emails for meeting notifications (I guess they haven't completely trained folks how to set up meetings in Connections.) What really helps is how the management team deals with their own emails: there are still some companies that have secretaries who print out emails for their bosses, I know how barbaric! But if you have the right mix of people and under the right set of circumstances, I can see email playing less of a role in our communications in a few years.

Of course, you can always pick up the phone or send a fax. (Just kidding.)

MasterCard has gone beyond Google Wallet to show a new mobile platform that could use multiple mobile technologies to solve mobile payments. Known collectively as QkR, they focus on QR codes for mobile payments but also audio cues, NFC short-range wireless, and even Microsoft's Kinect for the Xbox 360. One system would have an NFC 'coaster' that could recognize products shown on TV and let users tap an NFC-equipped phone or tablet on the coaster to buy whatever's on TV.

It's about time someone did something cool with Kinect that wasn't an art project or a glorified Dance Dance Revolution. A new Mastercard prototype makes it scary easy to buy stuff off your TV with the flick of an arm.

If you're prepared to swipe, snap, and gesture your way into colossal credit card debt, Mastercard has you covered. Mastercard Labs is currently demoing a new shopping and payment system called QkR. It uses all of the smartness of your phone and the vision of Kinect to make buying stuff a breeze. I saw it, and I'm afraid of what my credit card bill is going to look like.

The Kinect gesture-shopping is amazing. While watching a QVC-like infomercial for a silly t-shirt, I simply followed the instructions "wave to buy." A transparant-grey shopping dialogue popped up with fields for size, color and quantity. I bought the shirt, directed the purchase to ship to a stored home address, and I was instantly back at the infomercial, which had been playing behind the dialogue all along.

Got munchies? At one point I was shown that if I performed the sign language for eating--basically just miming the act of stuffing a hamburger in your face--QkR would pull up a dialogue for buying food.

Did I mention that I did this all with gestures? Not typing, dialing or clicking, but motions so simple I could have done them while sitting on my couch holding a beer in the other hand.

Sure, I was basically watching crap, but I used a QkR app loaded onto a Sprint Nexus S to buy products in a lot of different ways that could be incorporated into quality shows. While watching the infomercial, I scanned a QR code from a segment about a flashlight and the app immediately dumped me on a product page. I purchased it in under 30 seconds. Later while watching a television ad for some golf gear, I pressed an ear-shaped icon, and the app listened Shazam-style before pulling up a product page. Bought it. WHAT? I don't even like golf!

There are other examples: I scanned coupons and deals off Facebook. I used the phone's NCF chip to activate a purchase by setting it down on a special coaster. I'm dying to see what Mastercard left behind in the lab because it was all really cool.

The Kinect buying won't catch on unless the hardware starts getting installed natively into new TVs, but the bottom line is that buying shit is going to get really easy. Way easier than 1-Click or buying songs on iTunes. Sure this is only a prototype, but Mastercard's product might just hit the spot. This was the promise of Kinect all along, right? Kinect was going to eliminate barriers. So everyone inhibited by the mouse and multi-touch screens, get ready. In shopping, gestures are the new clicks.

• What is the critical question which, if we explored it fully with the community, would lead to breakthroughs relative to the challenge at hand?

• Who do we invite to engage with us on the question? What possibilities open when we convene the members in virtual and physical community?

• What commitment do we each choose to make in exploring the question?

• What level of ownership do we each choose to take in the practice of innovation?

Ever since we introduced the concept of Dashboard Intelligence, we've received great feedback and questions about how to use Netvibes professionally for real-time business intelligence. Today, we've launched a new website that has everything you need to know about Dashboard Intelligence. Check it out at business.netvibes.com!

What is Dashboard Intelligence?
Dashboard Intelligence (DI) is business intelligence evolved for the real-time Web. (We hesitate to simply call it "BI 2.0", because it's much more than that.)

Traditional business intelligence applies business logic to corporate databases to create analytic reports and automate standard business processes. This worked great in the '90s, when you could impress your boss by turning last month's sales data into this month's sales report. But today, the real-time Web is infinitely faster, vaster and more chaotic than any corporate database and business intelligence can't keep up. (In fact, new research indicates this may be the reason why Enterprise 2.0 isn't growing as fast as expected; see our report on GigaOm.)

This is where DI comes in. Netvibes Dashboard Intelligence makes the daily chaotic flow of Tweets, feeds, websites, apps and social sentiments manageable and meaningful. The best part is that unlike traditional business intelligence, which is optimized for large corporations, DI can help any-sized team or organization save enormous amounts of time, boost real-time knowledge sharing, and make faster, better decisions.

Netvibes Dashboard Intelligence from Netvibes on Vimeo.

How does the DI process work?
Netvibes Dashboard Intelligence operates on a new three step process:

1. Listen to Everything - The first step is to regain control over your daily workflow by monitoring everything, both internally (databases, CRM, ERP, etc.) and externally (feeds, blogs, Tweets, friends, customers, clients), all in one real-time dashboard.

2. Learn from Everyone - Next, extract real meaning and knowledge by using smart tagging and filters to pull best ideas, key trends, and hidden experts to the top of the stack.

3. Act in Real-Time - Finally, send live mobile alerts to decision makers, automate reports, and trigger real-time business decisions to stay ahead of the competition.

by Doug Collins

Great read from the archives of Spigit, and a new tool coming to a portal near you....

How do you create the conditions where your employees will co-create commitment and mutually respected responsibility in the innovation process. Doug Collins looks at the four cornerstones of that process: vision, ethics, courage, reality and how you can go about fostering them.

Innovation processes often begin with a meeting. That meeting must take place thousands of times each day across the globe. The leadership convenes a small group of people to help them determine the environment they need in order to become more innovative.

Participating in a dialogue with the groups that carry this innovation charter is always rewarding. The critical questions we ask, at first, gravitate towards the transformative: What doors open for us as we make innovation a priority? What shape does our working life take on with our coworkers and our customers as we engage with one another in more innovative ways?

At some point, though, the group touches on the more sober subject of accountability. Who do we expect to participate in innovating when the process becomes more open and accessible? Do I make innovation part of my day job? Does the organization penalize me if I don't participate?
The sub-text here is always, "but, I already have a day job with its own allotment of many sticks and few carrots."
Accountability or leadership?

At these times when the group's charter begins to weigh on them, my mind turns to an observation that the author Peter Koestenbaum makes in his book, Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness.

"All authentic products (including services) must contain within them at least one element or module of leadership information. Thus, whatever else you sell, you are also selling leadership help to your customers" (emphasis added).

Thinking of leadership in this broader context helps shift the focus from "How do we hold one another accountable?" to "What does it mean to help the people in our organization achieve leadership in innovation?". That in turn reopens the group to the larger possibilities for change that a focus on innovation--and working in an authentically innovative environment--can bring.

Likewise, shifting the focus opens the door to the question of commitment. That is, if the group is chartered with selling the benefits of innovation to their peers, then what do they want their peers buy into by way of leadership? What must they all commit to in order take the lead in creating a more innovative culture? What price do they pay to realize leadership in this domain?
Bringing out the willingness to learn

What the group finds is that innovation, as with other attributes that have broadly positive connotations such as quality or sustainability, in reality serves as a stalking horse for people's willingness to engage in the messy act of learning something new and acting on that learning.

The commitment one makes to learn how to build an automobile with greater quality, for example, does not differ from the commitment one makes to learn how to pursue ideas about how to create new types of automobiles. The nature of the commitment is the same.

Helping the organization achieve leadership in innovation means that the group helps them get to the point where they find themselves asking themselves what price they are willing to pay in terms of following where their learning takes them in terms of, for example, their willingness to disrupt and displace current practices. Helping colleagues achieve leadership in innovation may even mean watching them leave to create new businesses that they feel will enable them to pursue their ideas to fruition. The group comes to understand that they can encourage innovation--or perhaps foment it in the eyes of the people who value the status quo. They cannot manage it in the conventional sense of the word, however (1).

Figure : Recasting the conversation

Vision, Ethics, Courage, Reality

Applying the model may, for example, lead the group to pose the following questions:

People still entertain a prosaic notion of the knowledge worker: the amiable soul walking around with compelling insights in mind which, if we could only get them to stand still long enough to write them down (the desire to impose accountability), would improve all our lives. If only they would spend ten minutes each morning capturing their ideas. Perhaps we could give them a prize if they do so. Perhaps we could prod them if they decline.

Nothing could be further from the truth or farther removed from reality. Wake up.

In truth, we increasingly live in a world of free agents: people who exercise discretion in how they spend their time and with whom they spend it. Leading an innovation initiative today involves selling people on the idea that achieving leadership in innovation holds, or can hold, great meaning to them, offering them a path by which they can more fully realize their potential by whatever terms they agree to realize it with you--with your help.

In closing, if you participate in a group chartered with helping your organization become more innovative, then you will eventually find yourself advocating new ways of thinking and behaving within your community (i.e., selling).

Thinking about how you sell your leadership help, in terms of helping your clients achieve leadership in innovation, helps you clear the accountability trap. Innovation can become what it always should be: an invitation for learning, an opportunity to realize one's potential, and a catalyst for reframing the terms by which the organization operates.

1 hour ago by Chris Boorman

Chris Boorman is the chief marketing officer and senior vice president of education & enablement at Informatica. He is responsible for Informatica's global voice to the market, which includes corporate, partner and field marketing.

The thinking about social media in corporate marketing departments is rapidly evolving. Initially, social media was seen as yet another broadcast opportunity for pushing messages out into the world, and for many companies that view persists. A social media consultant recently said that even today, when he approaches potential clients for the first time, they typically refer him to their PR agency, because "they handle Facebook for us."

There's nothing wrong with using social media as a tool for disseminating marketing messages or trying to establish deeper relationships with current or potential customers. However, there is another use of social media which may prove to be more powerful over the long term: Listening to the voice of the customer by data mining social networks.

Currently, CRM systems create customer profiles to help with marketing decisions using a combination of demographics and prior behavior, primarily historical buying patterns. These systems essentially enable companies to see their customers in the rear view mirror.

The customer data available via online communities like Facebook is both richer and more forward looking. A financial organization with access to such data would not only know that a customer had a checking account, savings account, two CDs and a mortgage, but also that the same customer was interested in golf or gourmet cooking -- information that could be useful in planning future marketing initiatives. Every minute of every day, Facebook, Twitter and other online communities generate enormous amounts of this data. If it could be tapped, it could function like a real-time CRM system, continually revealing new trends and opportunities. Here's how.

Tapping Social Media Data

The good news is that with today's technology, this data can be tapped. But the process is not without its challenges. The data stream is a prime example of "Big Data." Dealing with data sets measured in petabytes is a challenge in itself, and there is a serious problem with the signal-to-noise ratio. At my company, we estimate that at best, only 20% of the social media data stream contains relevant information. But before this problem even arises, companies face the issue of identifying their customers among the millions of participants in any given online community.

The Problem of Customer Identity

Most companies approach the problem of finding customers on social sites through the slow, arduous and expensive process of participating themselves. On Facebook, for example, businesses can gain access to the profiles of anyone who clicks the "Like" button on the company's business site (depending on each customer's privacy settings). With the right pitch, offer or game, companies can gradually gain an enhanced understanding of a subset of their social customer base.

With new matching technology that's now available, the process is faster and more comprehensive. For example, matching technology uses artificial intelligence to figure out whether a given "John Smith" in a company's customer database is the same individual as a particular John Smith on Facebook. The algorithms that accomplish this are extremely sophisticated, and they work. In fact, matching technology has been successfully used by law enforcement agencies to locate criminals.

If a company has one or two key pieces of information about its customers -- e-mail address is often the most important -- that company can accurately identify them on a social site and extract a substantial amount of data, including both profile data and transactional data that can reveal relationships important for marketing purposes. (Again, the amount of data available for any given customer depends on that customer's personal privacy settings.)

Putting Data to Work

The second problem with social media is transforming data that is potentially useful into data that is actually useful. Social media data is generated by an entirely different technology stack than the transactional data that typically feeds CRM systems. Accordingly, it is stored in entirely different formats. That data can be transformed into a useful format with Master Data Management (MDM) technology.

MDM is the process of managing business-critical data, also known as master data (about customers, products, employees, suppliers, etc.) on an ongoing basis, creating and maintaining it as the system of record for the enterprise. MDM is implemented in order to ensure that the master data is validated as correct, consistent, and complete.

MDM has been used for more than a decade by companies that want to integrate disparate databases for a 360 degree view of their customers (or product portfolios, for that matter). It is equally effective in integrating social media data into existing CRM systems, and filtering that data for relevance.

What this all means is that companies can achieve important process improvements with bottom-line significance. For example, they can:

• Obtain behavioral data that will allow them to more appropriately target segments for better marketing results.
• Obtain data on personal preferences and interests to move closer to a true one-to-one relationship with their customers.

The disciplined use of demographic and historical customer data has enabled large numbers of companies to substantially increase the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. Social media data will enable marketers to take targeting to the next level. It's Big Data, but today's technology can handle it.

Google just announced that it plans to shut down 1-800-GOOG-411 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              1-800-GOOG-411      end_of_the_skype_highlighting, its voice-powered directory assistance service, on Nov. 12. GOOG-411, which launched in 2007, was the company's first foray into voice-powered search. According to Google, GOOG-411 "provided a foundation for more ambitious services" on smartphone platforms like Google's own Android and Apple's iPhone. Interestingly, today's announcement also notes that Google plans to put all of its resources "into speech-enabling the next generation of Google products and services across a multitude of languages."

Sponsor

For those who relied on GOOG-411, Google suggests using the company's text message-based search service (466453) for finding local businesses.

GOOG-411 Shuts Down, But More Voice-Enabled Services From Google Coming Soon

GOOG-411 was likely not a huge money-maker for Google, but it provided the company's researchers with a massive data set for improving its speech recognition algorithms. GOOG-411 clearly served its purpose and even though Google is shutting it down now, the company is bullish on voice recognition. Android users with access to the Froyo update can already control most of their phones' features by voice (courtesy of Voice Actions), for example, and Google's iPhone app also features build-in voice recognition. Judging by today's announcement, Google plans to make voice recognition a core feature of more of its services in the future.

LogitechLogitech Z523 today showcased its Google TV media center, the Logitech Revue. The Revue builds on the strongest features of Google TV, complementing the platform with powerful hardware and a number of peripherals.

Google TV is designed to quickly deliver the content you want directly to your TV. This includes anything from media on your hard drives to online media from sources like YouTubeYouTube. As we learned earlier this week, the Google TV platform will support the Android Marketplace, meaning that any app you enjoy on your mobile device will be playable through your TV. So, anything from Angry Birds to Netflix can be launched from Google TV. Like AndroidAndroid, the Google TV platform is very much open and expandable.

The Logitech Revue runs on a 1.2Ghz Intel Atom CE4100 processor, so device functions are snappy and fluid. This horsepower will come in handy when the Revue is coupled with the Logitech TV Cam.

The wide-angle TV Cam features a Carl Zeiss lens and is designed for video chatting from the comfort of your living room. It utilizes the new Logitech Vid HD app for messaging. The software will also be available for OS X and PC, so Revue users will be able to video chat with anyone who owns a computer and a web cam.

Perhaps the most important factor, however, is Revue's focus on simplicity. With devices of this nature there are often a number of complex connections needed to make the device function in conjunction with your other home theater devices.

Logitech has tackled this conundrum by embedding the same Harmony Link technology found in its Harmony remotes directly into the Revue. When setting up your Revue, simply input the model numbers of your TV, receiver, etc. and Revue will interpret remote commands and rebroadcast them via built-in IR blasters.

The Revue also adds to the Harmony family with an all new wireless keyboard that comes bundled in the package. The RF keyboard features all the standard Android buttons along with a trackpad. Logitech is also separately selling a rebooted diNovo Mini Keyboard with Android buttons. Neither keyboards are necessary, however, as apps are being released for both Android and iPhone that provide a high level of control over the Google TV platform.

The Logitech Revue functions as a sort of home theater middleman. Instead of running your cable box or satellite receiver directly into your TV, these devices will be connected to your Revue and it will in turn connect to your TV via HDMI.

As a result, the Logitech Revue avoids scrambled signals and is able to function with any provider, a fact that anyone who has used a home theater PC will appreciate. There is, however, a strategic partnership with DISH Network, that creates a deeper level of integration between Revue and DISH satellite receivers. While other DVRs will be accessible, the partnership enables Revue to actually search content stored on a DISH DVR and then quickly play it.

A word from our sponsor:

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The Career Explorer tool will also point to those within students' networks who may be in a position to help them advance their careers.

"LinkedIn is about connecting talent with opportunity at massive scale. Career Explorer is the latest example of how we make that possible by providing one of our fastest growing demographics, students and recent college graduates, unique and valuable insights enabling them to develop the optimal career path," says CEO Jeff Weiner.

While the Career Explorer tool could prove useful for college students in formulating their career paths and building their professional networks, the tool has the added benefit for LinkedIn of convincing college students into becoming frequent users of the site early in their careers.

Career Explorer will be available immediately to students at 60 U.S. universities, and LinkedIn says it plans to expand that over time. Students at those universities will be able to log in to LinkedIn and see the Career Explorer option available to them under "Jobs."

Many consumer advocacy groups, web companies and startups are ranting about the perils of losing net neutrality. Net neutrality, they say, is what made the Internet what it is today by giving small companies the opportunity to become big companies, and it rightly puts the user in full control of what he views on the Internet.

Huge telecommunication companies like Verizon, and cable providers like Time Warner, however, could potentially profit a good deal from charging websites like YouTube () for priority treatment and faster loading times. They argue that prioritization is necessary for a functional internet and that regulated net neutrality will stunt innovation. Thus the battle between the two groups has commenced.

A federal court decided in April that the FCC lacked the authority to impose net neutrality. The FCC fought back in May by deciding to reclassify broadband transmission as a "regulable telecommunications service." Verizon and Google spurred additional controversy this month by releasing a joint proposal for a legal regulatory framework.

Both sides -- those opposed to FCC regulation of net neutrality and those who think it's necessary -- proclaim that their defeat would be Armageddon. But should we really be this worked up about this? The following are the worst-case scenarios that might emerge from how the conflict could pan out.

1. Government Regulation Makes the Internet More Like TV

When the FCC starts regulating an industry, it has a tendency to continue to add regulations. Some fear that if the FCC starts enforcing net neutrality it would open the door for the FCC to decide what is appropriate content for the web.

"The government already attempts to determine what's appropriate for you to so see, like R-rated movies during prime time," says Dave Farber, a former chief technologist for the FCC and a professor of computer science and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. "You could see a future FCC doing the same thing with the Internet ()."

2. Provider Discrimination Makes the Internet More Like TV

If the FCC doesn't regulate net neutrality, there's still a chance that the Internet will increasingly end up functioning like television. The fear is that if priority access becomes available, only giant companies will be able to purchase it. Whereas now consumers have infinite choices of Internet content that loads the same way, there will be limited sites available that will enjoy superior access.

"It could be like cable: A company delivering mediocre content and ads to your home for an inflated fee," says Chris Riley, a policy council at a public advocacy organization that promotes net neutrality called Free Press.

Art Brodsky, the communications manager for consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, says that this sort of content restriction would most likely take the form of a "select channel" section of the Internet. "I don't know if they would prevent anybody from surfing," he says. "But they could do it the opposite way and say, 'here are the best things.'"

3. Government Regulation Stunts Innovation

A technological detail that many miss in the net neutrality debate is that some web services require differential treatment in order to be functional. Faber, who says he switches between defending and attacking net neutrality based on his mood and the definition in use, points out that innovations like voice over IP would be useless if there were no way of prioritizing that traffic.

Wireless, too, has different technological hurdles than broadband Internet that a strict net neutrality policy might make impossible to clear. Opening up the ability to purchase better access times would pave the way for innovations that require superior bandwidth, like high-definition or 3D video. Restrictions on net neutrality, however, could cut off these potentially profitable new innovations.

"We want the broadband infrastructure to be a platform for innovation," argued Verizon and Google () in their joint blog post. "Therefore, our proposal would allow broadband providers to offer additional, differentiated online services... It is too soon to predict how these new services will develop, but examples might include health care monitoring, the smart grid, advanced educational services, or new entertainment and gaming options."

4. An Unfair Playing Field Stunts Innovation

Giving priority treatment to companies that can pay fees also raises some concerns about fair play.

"It freezes out the potential for the next innovators and puts the smaller guys at a disadvantage," Brodsky says. "And as we know, it's the smaller guys who made the Internet what it is today. And they had a chance to grow into big guys because the Internet is an open place."

Instead of becoming the next Google, the fear is that the next Google will instead have to pitch their idea to Google itself. Startups won't be able to afford the fast-lane fee themselves.

5. Consumers Pay to Access Internet Content

As with cable TV, it's possible that some of the cost to put websites on the Internet's "fast lane" will be passed on to the consumer.

"Suppose someone set up a system where, if only I paid a certain amount of money would my IP address get through -- a sort of cable-ization of the net," Brodsky says. "The worst case scenario is that if you want to go to ESPN, it will cost you so much."

Faber thinks it's more likely that the fees would be passed on to consumers in the form of a micro-increase in the prices of advertisers' products. For instance, the price of a bottle of Coke might go up a cent because the websites that Coke advertises on are paying a fee for priority treatment.

6. Wireless Networks Overload, the Internet Slows Down

Verizon and Google included a phrase in their proposal that allows service providers "to engage in a reasonable network management." This would include the power "to reduce or mitigate the effects of congestion on its network."

Which begs the question: What would happen if the FCC created regulations that banned service providers from mitigating these effects? Would the Internet overload?

Well, actually yes, according to some. Steve Largent, the president and CEO of CTIA, the trade association of the wireless communications industry, argues in an editorial for USA Today that the wireless Internet has a finite amount of spectrum that needs to be managed.

7. Super Mergers Control the World

Some fear that without net neutrality, an Internet provider would be able to merge with a media company and make its own content the fastest to access, leaving the consumer with a choice between a long download or viewing that company's content. Some fear that it could get even worse than a collaboration between provider and media company.

"It might not be Comcast and NBC. It might be Microsoft, Comcast, and NBC," Riley says. "They'd control the software, they'd control the content, and they'd control the pipeline that delivers that content to you."

Others, like Faber, argue that a super merger would violate existing Federal Trade Commission regulations and anti-trust laws. Also, aligning with one media company wouldn't be the most profitable route.

"I just don't understand the economic motive to do it that way," Faber says. "If there's any competition at all, that's not going to work."

Faber says he has no problem with some companies buying priority treatment from Internet providers as long as all companies have the opportunity buy equal access. As long as everyone can have it, he says, it's fair and far preferable to government regulation.

Now that you've read the worst that can happen, what do you think? Will any of these become reality? Is the future rosie? Tell us in the comments below.

Over the last three years, social media marketers have gotten a lot more sophisticated about the programs they deploy and how they're measured. Platforms like Sysomos and Radian6 () have become vital tools in understanding not only the social universe in which you operate, but how that universe responds to your brand.

But for all of our success, we're still largely entering strings of Boolean variables into a tool and waiting for matching results to roll in. Most tools have added sentiment processing, but that clearly has a long way to go. Beyond sentiment, however, how are these tools going to evolve to provide more insights? The answer is with math.

Cluster Analysis Shows Promise

Cluster analysis is one of the features that many tools are adding. Basically, it involves complex mathematical computations that analyze how certain words are gathering -- or "clustering" -- relative to your search topic. It finds the words that are mostly likely to be associated with your search word. This may provide unexpected insight into what's being said about you. In fact, some articles suggest it's a way to predict record sales two weeks before they happen.

The downside to cluster analysis is that it's complex. Nilesh Bansal, the CTO of Sysomos, likes cluster analysis, but worries it's not that easy: "We very often find ourselves explaining to clients what these features mean and how to use them best. For a full blown unguided cluster analysis, a team of technical analysts will be required and it cannot be point and click."

Semantic Analysis Will Also Be Key

When it's not just where words appear but what those words mean that you're trying to decipher, semantic analysis will become key. Semantic analysis strives to understand what words mean in context to provide deeper insights.

Marcel LeBrun, CEO of Radian6, likes to think of various "analytic lenses" to apply to the vast data they collect. LeBrun says he doesn't see cluster analysis as a direction to move in, but as one of the tools in the analyst's toolbox.

He explains that cluster analysis works on the basis of math, but it can't differentiate apple (the fruit) from Apple (the company). Semantic technology, he says, can add additional insight because of its ability to identify entities and nuances in language.

Depth vs. Simplicity

For a while, the relative strength of social media monitoring tools was dependent on how much data they indexed, and how far back they had stored it. Today, major competitors have largely mastered indexing the stream (private Facebook () updates being the obvious exception).

So the new race is on to display and interpret that data better than the next guy. Every monitoring tool is rushing to improve their dashboards, and competitors like RowFeeder are trying different approaches.

All of these companies are working with very smart people who can make data dance. Sysomos' Bansal published a paper on cluster analysis applied to social data three years ago, indicating that they are ahead of the curve. The real challenge is to apply these complex lenses to the data in a way that lets us non-PhD holding marketers understand it at a glance -- and to do it flexibly enough for different monitoring objectives.

Through cluster analysis, semantic analysis and enhanced dashboards, we're likely to see an aggressive monitoring "arms race" over the next year. For the companies involved, nothing short of market share gains are at stake.

We just released a new version of the Twitter widget to support OAuth. We did this because in the coming hours Twitter will no longer support the traditional method with login and password which was used until now.

The only thing that will change for you is that you'll have to click on an "Connect" button in order to allow the widget to interact with your timeline. That's all. Easy, isn't it?

If you're curious, you can read Twitter's official announcement and if you want to have more information about OAuth I'd recommend you the following Wikipedia page. You can also check OAuth's official website to have more information about the protocol.

Don't hesitate to contact our support team in case you have any trouble with this migration.

As in its last report back in April, Google and Facebook continue to dominate websites that offer third-party login options. Across the 250,000 sites that use Janrain Engage, Google () represents the preferred sign-in option for 38% of users.

Facebook () is in second place, with 24% of sign-ins and Yahoo is in third place with 14%. Twitter (), which is a popular option in certain segments, only accounts for 5% of generalized sign-in data.

Google is the dominant catch-all login in the aggregate, but other services, particularly Facebook, really take the lead when websites are segmented by type.

For example, for news media sites, Yahoo represents approximately 34% of all logins. For magazine publishers, Facebook is the clear choice amongst website visitors. Fifty-seven percent of logins are from Facebook, nearly triple its nearest competitor, Google, at 20%.

Likewise, with music sites, Facebook leads with 55% of logins and second place Twitter is at 18%. Retail () brand logins are also largely dominated by Facebook.

It makes sense that Facebook has such a strong presence in magazines, retail brands and in music. This can likely be tied with the brand and publishers' usage of Facebook pages.

Facebook and Twitter Dominate Sharing

More and more publishers are integrating sharing options like Facebook Like buttons or the new Twitter Tweet buttons into their sites. Many publishers are seeing increases in traffic as a direct result of these sharing tools.

According to Janrain's data, Facebook is the preferred sharing network for 53% of users. Twitter is close behind with 37%. Keep in mind, Janrain's platform allows users to cross-share to multiple networks at once, which indicates that there may be some overlap.

Still, this is an important distinction from the single sign-in data. To us, this represents that while Google may be used as a frequent sign-in option -- perhaps because of how closely the service is tied to an e-mail address -- when it comes to engaging and identifying with information online, Facebook and Twitter are where users value their time.

Do you use one social network for login purposes more than another? What services do you frequently use to share links or post about interesting items you find online? Let us know!

Pew study finds majority of Americans don't want government to prioritize affordable broadband

By Sean Hollister

For desktop Internet users, e-mail may be playing second-fiddle to the likes of Facebook and social games like FarmVille, but on mobile devices, e-mail is still number one.

In fact, new research from The Nielsen Company suggests that e-mail represents 41.6% of mobile Internet time for users in the United States.

Putting that in perspective, if all mobile Internet time was condensed into one hour of usage, e-mail would represent 25 minutes of time spent.

In fact, mobile e-mail usage continues to grow, even as social media continues to become a bigger and bigger part of the mobile experience. Last fall, ExactTarget commissioned a study on smartphone Internet usage and found that the rise in social media adoption has lead to an increase in how much we e-mail from our mobile devices, and not the decrease many analysts were predicting.

Mobile E-mail is NOT Just for Business

It's easy to conflate mobile e-mail with business users, after all, this was the demographic that first fully embraced the ability to send and receive messages from their mobile devices.

Over the years, however, e-mail usage on mobile devices has become less about business and more about staying in touch with personal contacts. According to ExactTarget's research, 71% of business professionals with smartphones said that they send more personal e-mails than work-related missives from their mobile devices.

Don't let the business suit fool you -- next time you see a smartly dressed corporate type tapping away on their phone, chances are, they are probably e-mailing with friends.

Part of the reason we're seeing an increase in personal e-mail communication devices is because of the nature of mobile. Users are always connected to their inbox and thus, can always receive a message.

E-Mail for Breakfast and After Sex

As we noted earlier this summer, more than 50% of U.S. online users check their e-mail before doing anything else online.

When you consider that peak Internet usage often takes place around 7 a.m., it's not a stretch to say that many of us check our e-mail on our mobile phones before, well, stretching and getting out of bed.

It's not just when we wake up that we check e-mail; studies indicate that more and more individuals check e-mail in the middle of the night and even after sex.

Again, the always-connected nature and location-ambivalence of mobile devices makes it easier for users to check their message or jot off a quick note, whether it's the most appropriate time or not. I think we've all seen "that guy" at a solemn event like a funeral desperately trying to refrain from checking his BlackBerry during the service. Heck, some of us may even be that guy.

Is Social Media Eroding E-mail Usage?

Last year, Nielsen looked into what impact social media is having on e-mail usage. The results showed that there is a strong correlation between those who are frequent e-mail users and users that are also active across social media.

In fact, the study basically showed that social media makes users consume more e-mail, not less. Part of this is an effect of the e-mail nature of many social networks. Facebook, for instance, sends you an e-mail when you get a new wall post or someone sends you a message. Likewise, Twitter and Foursquare send you follower updates, and Twitter sends out direct message notifications.

Many blog comment systems can notify users when someone has responded to an article online, and services like Google Buzz bring commenting on social statuses or shared Google Reader items to the inbox.

We should note, however, that more and more users are starting to treat services like Facebook as replacements for an e-mail inbox. E-mail is still more versatile, but for users that have a heavily populated social graph, sometimes social networking services can offer a more convenient messaging experience.

"Jennifer Van Grove"

In a survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, an overwhelming majority of technology experts and stakeholders believe that social networking and online sharing is more than just a fad for today's youth.

More than two-thirds of those surveyed indicated that the Millennial generation -- otherwise known as Generation Y -- will continue to use social networking tools as they mature into adult life stages and have families of their own.

The research is part of Pew's fourth "Future of the Internet" study which includes responses from selected experts and Internet () users who were asked to think about "the future of the Internet-connected world between now and 2020."

When it comes to Millennials, 67% of experts in the respondent pool agreed with the following statement:

"By 2020, members of Generation Y (today's 'digital natives') will continue to be ambient broadcasters who disclose a great deal of personal information in order to stay connected and take advantage of social, economic, and political opportunities. Even as they mature, have families, and take on more significant responsibilities, their enthusiasm for widespread information sharing will carry forward."

Pew found that the experts believe the advantages and social benefits of sharing personal information online far outweigh the consequences, an attitude that these young "digital natives" will carry into adulthood. A survey response from a Mozilla programmer exemplifies this notion: "Unless Generation Y has a collective privacy-related epiphany, they will continue to happily trade it for convenience."

There's even consensus that society may learn to forgive these teens of their youthful errors in judgment online.

Those dissenting with the majority (29%) believe that Generation Y will lose interest in social networking and age out of sharing personal information online.

At the rate teens are using social networking sites, it's easy to see why the experts believe social media usage will grow with younger generations as they mature. Where do you stand on the subject?

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

Sometimes the hardest part of having international clients is finding a way to connect with them. Small businesses often have to worry about different time zones, different languages, and even different customs and traditions.

While there's no catch-all, golden resource that can solve every problem a small internationally-minded business could have, there are some easy ways to keep your business up-to-date and in the overseas loop.

Here, we'll help you through the basic steps of interacting with overseas clients, from translating pleasantries to tracking shipments to making sure you don't accidentally call them in the middle of the night.

1. Basic Information

Before you even get started, it's important to know the basic information about your client's country. Usually the most thorough and reliable way to bone up is through the country's official webpage. England, for example, has a good site with lots of information. Unfortunately, most of these sites are geared towards tourism and less so the time-pressed businessperson.

Wikipedia () can actually be a great, quick and comprehensive alternative. Wikipedia pages exist for most major countries and include a helpful info bar on the right side of the page (usually just below the country's flag). This information includes official languages, government make up, population estimates, GDP, currency, time zone, and calling code.

Also check out The World Factbook, maintained by the CIA. It includes "information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 world entities," according to their website.

2. Time Difference

No one likes getting a business call at 3 A.M., especially when you thought it was scheduled for 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Time zones and time differences can be difficult to remember on the fly, especially if you're handling international clients from more than one country.

Time Zone Converter is one way to keep all your zones and time differences in check. The site lets you convert any time from a huge range of possible countries and zones. Ever wanted to know what time it is in Moscow, Russia when it's 11:25 A.M. in Dublin, Ireland? (The answer is 2:25 P.M.). You can also look up time differences on specific days, perfect for future meetings or conference calls that might overlap with tricky shifts in daylight savings. One catch: Zones are described by their central cities, so you'll still be able to convert even if you don't see your home town.

World Time Zone is a more graphical display of time zones across the globe. You can either eyeball the map, based on Greenwich Mean Time, look up relative times in world capitals, sort according to continent, or simply type in the place you're looking for. With an impressive, nearly exhaustive list of cities, if World Time Zone doesn't have it, it probably doesn't exist.

Lastly, if you're in a hurry, you can alway use Google (). All you have to do is search "time City, State, Country,". For example, if you "time Atlanta, GA" Google tells you the time right now in Atlanta.

3. Translation

Quoi? Qué? Huh? No matter how you say it, it's important to speak a little of your client's home tongue. Fortunately, there are some simple ways to pick up some pleasantries without taking a night class.

Some basic often-used options include Yahoo! Babel Fish, Bing's Translator and Google Translate () (complete with its own drag and drop buttons). All three are easy to use, but a little slow when in the middle of a chat, and are best employed in emails. Word of caution: Though the language range is impressive, and usually spot on, sometimes idioms and complicated sentences can throw off the accuracy. For example, the phrase: "So great speaking with you again!" translated into French on Babel Fish reads "Parler tellement grand avec vous encore" (To still speak so large with you again!).

Google also has some translation bots you can add into your Google Chat. By adding a series of coded bots as friends in Google Chat, you can send quick IMs to be translated. For example, en2fr@bot.talk.google.com will translate from English "2″ French. This is helpful when you need a sentence quickly, or when you're typing an IM.

4. Chat Services

Phoning long distance can rack up bills pretty quickly. Free chat services like Skype (), Google Chat and Campfire are fast, effective, and accepted ways to speak with your clients. Skype is an instant messenger with a built-in web-video function. You can use it as either a phone, IM chat, or for face-to-face discussion online. After both parties set up an account, the whole process is free and relatively pain free. Also, some phone and portable devices have Skype enabled so you can take the chat service with you. Google Chat offers similar services to Skype, with expanded video and phone options being included.

Campfire is a message-based business group chat and file-sharing service. Campfire has more customizable options than Skype or Google Chat but requires a monthly payment. It is also tailored for people within a business -- meaning it might be the perfect option if you have an office overseas and don't mind the monthly fee.

5. Shipping

Nobody like shipping things, but it is a necessary evil. While you might have to slog through getting your package to the post, a couple sites can help you track how and when it gets to your clients. TrackThis, TrackthePack, and Packagetrackr are online services that let you track shipments by email, text message, Facebook or Twitter. All three sites track major US shipping carriers like FedEx, UPS and DHL Global Mail by looking up your tracking code. Packagetrackr promises all the same services as the other two but will auto-detect your tracking code when you email your shipping confirmation to its email address. And as an added bonus, TrackThisPack has an iPhone app.

6. Cultural Faux-Pas

When dealing with other cultures, it's important to know what is in good taste and what is considered bad etiquette. For example, it's best not to invite your Indian client to a steak house without first asking (cattle are sacred for Hindus) or to give your Russian client an even number of flowers as a thank you (even numbers are reserved for funerals). There are a variety of ways to find these customs and traditions on independent sites, About.com or Kwintessential's extremely helpful international etiquette guide. Often, the best way to gauge foreign customs is by politely asking about anything you're unsure of.

These resources can help you connect with your international clients and improve the reach of your small business. While this post focused on web-only resources, there are many other resources out there and ways to connect. Please add your favorite resources, hidden gems and best tips in the comments below.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto (), AlexMax

Leyl Master Black is a Managing Director at Sparkpr, one of the world's top independent PR agencies. Leyl has more than 15 years experience driving high-impact communications programs for emerging technology companies.

A couple of months ago, we talked about ways to engage your fan base on Facebook. Several readers asked how B2B companies could take advantage of the tips we shared, and I know that some organizations are still wondering if it even makes sense to try to reach a business audience on Facebook ()

In my view, Facebook presents a unique opportunity to connect with and educate your target market in a way that your website and even your blog can't match. The trick is coming up with meaningful content that people will want to share, and that brings them back again and again.

Here are some tips for creating a powerful presence on Facebook that will engage a business audience.

1. Become an Industry Resource

Whatever business you're in, chances are that you're keeping up with industry news and maybe even writing about it on your blog. You're likely running educational webinars or speaking at industry conferences. You're also engaging with customers, helping to solve their business problems and maybe even documenting the process with case studies. This means that you probably already have a large number of resources to share. Why not funnel this content onto Facebook and make your Page the go-to place for insights and information on your particular industry?

A good example of this approach is 360i, an award-winning digital marketing agency. Tapping the deep expertise of its team, 360i keeps its Facebook Page updated with industry insights on topics that matter to the brand marketing audience, such as how businesses are taking advantage of Google Places or new trends with Foursquare.

The 360i team showcases industry research and reviews cool new technologies that marketers can use in their programs. They post a weekly summary of all the important industry news, and provide readers with astute commentary that puts the news into context. In short, they've positioned themselves as experts in digital marketing and become a valuable resource for their target audience on Facebook.

2. Engage the Community

In the past, your customers may have had little interaction with each other, and the outside world could only see a list of customers on your website (if you put them there). As a marketer, you wouldn't know what all your customers were doing with your products, or even how to reach them.

Now, you can use Facebook to engage directly with your customers and make them part of your marketing efforts. For example, you can ask customers to share their successes on your wall and get feedback on new product features. You can encourage them to recognize great service people and reward them for their input with a discount or other promotion. You can also solicit customer references for case studies and media opportunities and find out who's doing something innovative with your product.

BigCommerce, a company that offers e-commerce shopping cart software, routinely reaches out to its Facebook fan base to identify reference customers and uncover interesting use cases for the media. For example, when the company wanted to promote the success of its recently launched Facebook shopping application, they simply posted a query on their page asking which customers had seen a boost in sales from the application and who would be willing to talk to the media. Within 24 hours, the company had generated fifteen new customer references and were able to immediately turn this information into media coverage.

3. Expand Beyond Your Wall

There are now a host of different applications for Facebook that let you do more than post on your wall. If you're selling B2B products online, you can set up a shopping tab on your page to drive traffic to your e-commerce site and encourage viral sharing of your products. Get Satisfaction (), a popular social CRM and customer support platform, recently launched a Facebook version of its application so your customers can ask questions and get support right on your Facebook Page.

You can also set up a promotions tab using Fan Appz to offer special deals to your Facebook fans and even use these deals to support lead generation programs. For example, if you sell software licenses, you could offer a 20% discount on the annual fee for people who enter the promotion code at an upcoming webinar or bring the coupon to your booth at a conference.

4. Lighten Up

While many of us use Facebook in our day-to-day business, the vast majority are usually there to have fun and engage with friends. So no matter how serious your product is, inject some humor and levity into your page.

For example, if you're selling enterprise security software, why not do a poll where people rate the most evil tech baddies in films like Hackers and The Terminator? If you're a marketing agency, you could do a "Which Mad Men Character Are You?" quiz that assigns users an identity based on their answers, which can then be shared with their friends. Just keep it relevant to your industry and safe-for-work.

And even if your website needs to stay "all business," Facebook is where you can give a face and personality to the company. You could do an "employee of the month" feature on the page where you profile someone who's making a big difference at the company or who achieved a significant milestone. Include photos or even a short video.

You can highlight what the company or employees are doing in the community or in support of a particular cause, which has the added benefit of putting the weight of your fan base behind these efforts. You can also consider posting behind-the-scenes photos of engineers hard at work on the next product release, or a smiling customer service rep on the phone with a client. All of these ideas will help your fans make a stronger and more personal connection with your company.

These are just a few examples of how companies can use Facebook to engage with B2B customers, and I'm sure there are many more out there. If you're using Facebook to market to other businesses, I'd love to hear what else has worked for you!

Survey says: most teens don't have a data plan, almost all send text.

We've seen a number of creative uses for augmented reality recently, from Iron Man to virtual pets and even tattoos. An interactive billboard in the Netherlands brings a powerful new example to the category by putting passersby in the middle of a virtual street fight.

The Dutch government created the billboard to address a pressing problem for public employees, who are often the targets of aggression and outright violence when performing their daily service duties. The problem is compounded by Dutch citizens' reluctance to interfere in others' fights.

The goal of the PSA is to encourage citizens to stand up for public workers in violent confrontations. The augmented reality billboard, placed above a busy intersection in Amsterdam, shows a real-time view of the street below but superimposes a green screen-filmed street fight into the otherwise empty curb space. As passersby stop to stare at themselves on the billboard, they are confronted with a tense altercation occurring right in front of them.

The Dutch government hopes the ad will provoke a feeling of shame by showing citizens what they look like when they ignore such situations. It's an ambitious and complex emotional experiment that injects AR into daily life. It's also inspiring intense interest from Amsterdam pedestrians.

Check out the video below and let us know what you think. Is an augmented reality street scenario jarring and strange or is it the future of advertising? Or both?