Mashable is seeking site sponsors for our large, diverse audience — social media users, venture capitalists, early adopters, developers, bloggers and many more. You’ll receive hundreds of thousands of views per day in addition to weekly recognition as part of our “thank you” to our premium sponsors. Are you interested? Contact us for more information and to receive our media kit and rate card.
This week, our valued sponsors are: Lenovo, Campaigner®, CITGO and the Fueling Good Campaign, The Ben and Jerry’s Scoop Truck, AceProject, 7MainStreet, LoopFuse, BMW i, Discover Digital Group, Global Strategic Management Institute, Ford,, Sprout Social, Site24x7, IDG, CUNY School of Professional Studies, Oneupweb, SoftLayer, SRDS, Buddy Media, Clickatell, Microsoft BizSpark, MaxCDN and Eventbrite.
Lenovo. Lenovo does not just manufacture technology. They make Do machines — super-powered creation engines designed to help the people who do, do more, do better, do in brand new ways.
Lnovo supports Mashable’s Tech Innovators Series. Follow Lenovo on Twitter and Facebook.
Campaigner® email marketing enables small, medium and large businesses to strengthen customer relationships and drive sales by connecting to their customers quickly, simply and affordably. Visit www.campaigner.com to learn more.
Campaigner® supports Mashable’s Social Marketing Series. Follow Campaigner® on Twitter and Facebook.
CITGO and the Fueling Good Campaign, helping to change the world one mile at a time through contributions to local charities.
CITGO and the Fueling Good Campaign support Mashable’s Stars of Social Good Series. Follow the Fueling Good Campaign on Twitter and Facebook.
In New York City or San Francisco and want a free scoop? Try the Ben and Jerry’s Scoop Truck.
The Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Truck supports Mashable’s Social-Savvy Food Truck Series. Follow the Ben and Jerry’s Scoop Truck on Twitter at @BenJerrysTruck and @BenJerrysWest.
AceProject is a collaboration-oriented project management web application that empowers you to manage projects, tasks and time sheets. Create your free AceProject account here.
AceProject supports Mashable’s Digital Collaboration Series. Follow AceProject on Twitter.
7MainStreet is the first company to combine social networking, e-commerce, and comprehensive business reviews and listings. 7MainStreet helps organizations of all sizes.
Follow 7MainStreet on Twitter and Facebook.
LoopFuse provides forever-free marketing automation software that closes the loop between sales and marketing with smarter lead capture, scoring, and nurturing — plus Salesforce.com integration. LoopFuse helps marketers build better pipelines, run more efficient marketing operations, and enable more effective sales teams leading to increased revenue and reduced costs. Learn more about lead nurturing with LoopFuse.
LoopFuse supports Mashable’s Social Ad Series. Follow Loopfuse on Twitter and Facebook.
BMW i is a new concept dedicated to providing mobility solutions for the urban environment. It delivers more than purpose-built electric vehicles — it delivers smart mobility services. Visit bmw-i.com.
BMW i supports Mashable’s Global Innovation Series. Follow BMW i on Twitter and Facebook.
Discover Digital Group is a unique consultancy that focuses on identifying new e-revenue opportunities for both Fortune 1000 and startup clients alike. From developing new digital products to generating new audiences and revenue for existing online products, it creates smarter, more effective solutions for your business challenges. Follow DDG on Facebook to get a taste of the insights that are offered.
DDG supports Mashable’s Social CMO Series. Follow DDG on Twitter and Facebook.
Global Strategic Management Institute is a leading source of knowledge for today’s leaders. Its Social Media Strategies Series are the leading educational events for organizations looking to advance their online capabilities. Learn more at socialmediastrategiessummit.com.
GSMI supports Mashable’s Social Media 101 Series. Follow GSMI on Twitter and Facebook.
Ford supports Mashable Explore. The Content Exploration Series is presented by Mashable Explore, a new way to discover resources and information on your favorite Mashable topics. Mashable Explore is brought to you by the all-new, 100% reinvented 2011 Ford Explorer. Drive One.
Check out Mashable Explore here and follow Ford on Twitter and Facebook.
Site24x7, an online website monitoring service which allows users to monitor their website, web application and online web transactions. Users can get instant alerts when their website goes down. Site24x7 allows monitoring from across 25+ global locations. Site24x7 pricing starts from $1/Month/URL. Sign up for a 15-day Free Trial!
Follow Site24x7 on Twitter and Facebook.
With the explosion of mobile devices, advertising dollars will begin to shift to mobile for tech marketers this year. IDG Global Solutions President Matt Yorke talks about the rise of social and how IDG helps marketers create social campaigns. The line is fading between social media and traditional media. Earned media or sharing of information within social networks is becoming mainstream whether on a PC or mobile device. Learn more.
IDG supports Mashable’s Modern Media Agency Series.
Oneupweb is an agency specializing in search marketing, social media and design for mid-to-enterprise level brands. Keep up with Oneupweb through its blog and monthly newsletter.
Oneupweb supports Mashable’s Behind the Social Media Campaign Series. Follow Oneupweb on Twitter and Facebook.
SoftLayer provides global, on-demand data center and hosting services from facilities across the U.S. it leverages best-in-class connectivity and technology to innovate industry leading, fully automated solutions that empower enterprises with complete access, control, security, and scalability.
Follow SoftLayer on Twitter and Facebook.
SRDS connects agencies, brands and media through its online database of media planning data. SRDS is committed to making it easier to buy online ad space and build integrated marketing campaigns. Sign up for a free 14-day trial of the SRDS consumer and business database here.
Follow SRDS on Twitter and Facebook.
Buddy Media is Power Tools for Facebook. Have something new to tell 500 million people? Learn the best way to manage multiple brands on Facebook with this webinar.
Buddy Media supports Mashable’s Facebook Marketing Series, which is about how brands can advertise on Facebook. Follow Buddy Media on Twitter and Facebook.
Clickatell was the first provider of Online SMS Gateway connectivity, and after 10 years, is still the leading provider. Clickatell can deliver your SMS text messages to over 818 mobile networks in more than 222 countries and territories.
Follow Clickatell on Twitter and Facebook.
BizSpark is a program which offers new software businesses and entrepreneurs access to Microsoft design, development and production tools with no upfront costs for up to three years. Learn more or connect with a Microsoft BizSpark advisor here.
BizSpark supports Mashable’s weekly Spark of Genius Series, which showcases promising startups. Follow Microsoft BizSpark on Twitter and Facebook.
Mashable uses MaxCDN – Content Delivery Network to deliver its static content such as pictures, helping Mashable load much faster. Try it on your site now, and get a 25% discount with this coupon code: mashable.
Follow MaxCDN on Twitter and Facebook.
Eventbrite is an online events marketplace where tens of thousands of individuals, businesses and organizations of all sizes manage, promote and sell tickets to their events. Make your event a success on Eventbrite.
Eventbrite sponsors Mashable’s weekly social media and marketing event guide. Follow Eventbrite on Twitter and Facebook.
Intridea is an application development consultancy specializing in Ruby on Rails and mobile development, and has worked with many Fortune 500 companies and funded startups. Visit intridea.com or call 1-888-968-IDEA (4332).
Intridea has created the official Mashable apps for platforms including Android, iPad, and the Mac App Store. Follow Intridea on Twitter and Facebook.
Webtrends founded the web analytics industry in 1993. Today, its leadership extends much further to social media measurement, paid-search optimization and connecting the online and offline data silos scattered throughout organizations. Webtrends helps you analyze the data generated by your web site, blogs, online campaigns and enterprise systems to understand your customers and, ultimately, business opportunities.
Follow Webtrends on Twitter and Facebook.
Since 2007 W3 EDGE has assisted with creative, web development, and search and social media marketing for Mashable.com and its other web properties and projects. Day-to-day maintenance and support is handled by Frederick Townes and his W3 EDGE team.
Follow W3 EDGE on Twitter.
Rackspace Hosting is the world’s leader in the hosting and cloud computing industry. The San Antonio-based company provides Fanatical Support® to its customers across a portfolio of IT services. For more information, visit rackspace.com.
Mashable.com is hosted on Rackspace, and Rackspace sponsors Mashable’s Web Development Series. Check it out here, and follow Rackspace on Twitter.
iStockphoto offers easy, affordable inspiration with millions of safe, royalty-free photos, illustrations, video, audio and Flash® files. Browse the best stock library of royalty free content at prices anyone can afford. Mashable readers save 10%.
Mashable sources many of its photos from iStockphoto. Follow iStockphoto on Twitter and Facebook.
Dyn Inc. is a world leader in managed DNS, powering the best brands on the web including Gowalla, Mashable, Twitter, Wikia and more. For more information about Dyn Inc., visit www.dyn.com, e-mail hello@dyn.com or call +1-603-668-4998.
Mashable provides exclusive content on Dyn.com. Check it out here, and follow Dyn on Twitter and Facebook.
ConcentricSky offers web and mobile development with a focus on emerging technologies. With partners ranging from National Geographic and Encyclopedia Britannica to NASA and The World Bank, Concentric Sky is known for delivering innovative, world-class software solutions.
Concentric Sky is the only App Developer officially endorsed by Mashable. Learn more here, and follow ConcentricSky on Twitter.
Contact us for more information about supporting Mashable’s growth and development. Alternatively, visit our advertise section for more details about:
More About: Sponsors
For more Social Media coverage:
When you’re an entrepreneur, you don’t have much time to eat. Therefore, your life is made a lot easier and more efficient if your lunch is on wheels and can come to you. Enter the food truck, which has become a go-to lunch staple for busy entrepreneurs.
Read on to see what meals on wheels are fueling innovation at successful startups from San Francisco to Boston.
“Calexico: Delicious, delicious Mexican food in SoHo for when I’m working at home (rare) or have meetings down there. It’s been a staple in the neighborhood for a while.”
“3-Sum Eats — the BEST deviled eggs in the world, and an out-of-this-world BLT with truffled mayo. I’m only allowed to go once a week (doctor’s orders).” – Kevin
“Chairman Bao has amazing timing — either they’re nearby for lunch (Pork Belly Baked Bun is one of the most delicious things I’ve ever had) or at the Bloodhound bar, so you can wash your Bao buns with Recoils or bourbon. They’re really Twitter-savvy, so you can always figure out where they are. Also, they have a special place in my heart because we went there for lunch right after we launched and told them we were from Instagram, and the lady at the window said, “Oh, the photo app?” When the food trucks know about you is when you’ve made it in SF…” – Mike
“Kelvin Slush is located in the Flatiron district, all too conveniently close to the Foodspotting NYC HQ. The ginger and mint slush is so cooling in the summer time –- particularly the peach variation, which has a lot of zest. It’s an ideal mid-afternoon pick me up.“
“Wafels and Dinges are the best. I was introduced by @ninakix one late summer night and dream about their waffles. You gotta keep it pure — the liege wafel with some butter and sugar is all it takes.”
“Tough question, but I’d have to say Mexicue takes the cake. Big fan of Mexican food and love barbecue, so it’s hard to beat a combination of the two. Plus they’re outside our office in Flatiron a lot and there’s a cool vibe with the truck and the people who work there. I typically mix and match, but my go-to’s are the short rib and the BBQ chick tacos, as well as the pulled pork sliders.”
“Going to have to give a shout-out to the Rickshaw Truck! My favorite food in the world are dumplings — who doesn’t love an efficient and flavor-packed pocket of food and sauce! I mean, it is a wrapper of happiness. Our first “office” for Birchbox was in DUMBO, with the generous and wonderful drop.io team. There was limited access to multiple lunch options, and on one desperate day, we tweeted at the Rickshaw truck, and they came to DUMBO! They recognized a dumpling emergency — our hero!”
“Clover [Food Lab] is awesome. They basically create unbelievable fresh food, served up quickly and, bonus points, they use Square. So I can pay with a card and feel kinda like an ‘in-the-know’ hipster here in Boston … even if only for a moment.”
em>Image courtesy of Donald Rockhead
“LuLu B’s in Austin. The Lemongrass Pork is pretty much to die for.”
“The best food truck ever without question is: Koji BBQ out of LA. It’s an amazing fusion of Korean and Mexican, and half the fun is using Twitter to find out where they will be so it ties in some social media fun. Kogi is not exactly a secret — it’s super popular — but it’s amazing.”
“My pick is the Van Leeuwen ice cream truck … try the earl grey ice cream!”
The Social-Savvy Food Truck Series is supported by the Ben and Jerry’s Scoop Truck. In New York City or San Francisco and want a free scoop? Follow @BenJerrysTruck and @BenJerrysWest for details!
More About: Birchbox, bit.ly, chartbeat, Food truck, foodspotting, foursquare, gowalla, scvngr, Social-Savvy Food Truck Series
For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
Facebook has a problem that sounds good in theory, but not so much in practice: Too many customers.
There’s no question that the top advertisers want to be on Facebook and inventory isn’t a problem, either. But at the moment, Facebook lacks the infrastructure to stay on top of demand. That’s created a huge opportunity for about two dozen agencies that act as middlemen for Facebook’s ad business.
The firms, listed here, are presented as an alternative or a supplement to the automated Facebook Ads Manager tool. Since the tool was developed with small advertisers in mind, marketers with multi-million dollar budgets usually go straight to the middlemen. Why? In part it’s because Facebook offers so many variables — there are thousands of ways to slice and dice ads by size and composition, but also by demographic and psychographic.
“The reason people come to Clickable is that we’re giving advertisers and agencies the ability to maximize their buys across a great scale,” says Max Kalehoff, vice president of marketing for Clickable. “Our experience with Facebook is that one thing they’ve expressed is they don’t have all the answers.” A Facebook rep agrees and compares the API partners to the SEO industry that grew up around search. “It’s proof of a shift in how marketers think of social in marketing,” the rep says. “The ecoystem is good for everyone.”
Clickable’s specialty is small- to medium-size businesses. Clients include Heatwave Interactive, a gaming company, and Hachette Book Group. When such companies buy a Facebook campaign, Clickable takes advantage of Facebook’s scale to experiment with different types of ads and targeting to see which work best.
There are other factors. For instance, “ad blindness” can develop after a user has been exposed to a single ad multiple times. Marin Software offers a means to automate ads to avoid ad blindness, says Matt Lawson, the company’s vice president of marketing and alliances.
Another service the firms provide is tracking analytics. Facebook provides some tracking, but advertisers will likely want more. For instance, Facebook used to offer a tool that logs pageviews, purchases and other activities that happened after a consumer was exposed to a Facebook ad, but the company ended that program last September. So, if a marketer wants to get a good idea of a Facebook ad’s ultimate efficacy, they have to go elsewhere.
Facebook first opened its Ads API to outside firms in 2009, when the company got serious about leveraging its huge user base with advertising. The strategy isn’t unusual. Google and Yahoo also support a range of ad agencies that simplify buying across their networks. In fact, Google’s recent $400 million purchase of Admeld was designed to simplify a process Google described as “mind-numbingly complicated and inefficient” on its official blog.
What’s different in Facebook’s case is the company launched its ad program in earnest at the moment it became the hottest property on the web. It’s no wonder then that the now 22 companies with access to Facebook’s API hold a coveted position and must adhere strictly to Facebook’s standards. Those that don’t get taken off the list, at least for a short time. Dave Williams, CEO of Blinq Media, one of the first API partners, says some of the firms eliminated from the list were search ad firms that didn’t adapt to Facebook’s model. “They were looking at click-throughs and ROI,” says Williams. “But on Facebook, it’s all about engagement.”
While that ensures a high level of quality, large marketers are no doubt frustrated by the fact that part of their ad spend goes to two middlemen — the Facebook API companies often deal with ad agencies rather than with the clients directly. Like Google, Facebook might also see the value in solving the ad-buying process for clients. The Facebook rep, however, says that such seeming inefficiencies level out because the API firms are so good at maximizing the ad buys. While she wouldn’t rule out Facebook taking more control of the process at some point in the future, at the moment at least, the arrangement seems to be working. Says the rep: “We’re focusing on the core functionality.”
The Modern Media Agency Series is supported by IDG. Mobile and video advertising spend is small compared to search and display. The promise of mobile and video has not been realized for the past few years. But, IDC analyst Karsten Weide says the slow growth in mobile and video ads is beginning to change. Click here to learn more.
- How Agencies Are Spending Online Media Budgets [INFOGRAPHIC]
– 5 Ways Social Media Has Changed Marketing Campaigns
– The Pros & Cons of Working at Niche Marketing & PR Agencies
– The Impact of the Social Web on Media Agencies
– What Makes the Modern Media Agency [INFOGRAPHIC]
More About: advertising, Agency, api, facebook, facebook ads, Modern Media Agency Series
For more Business & Marketing coverage:
Speech and voice recognition technology have been around for half a century, but it’s still far from mainstream. Where are the machines that write down what we say? Where are the appliances that simply work based on voice commands?
The answer is that speech technology is a tough business. Not only does a machine have to recognize words, but it has to process accents, sentence structure, grammar, language, noise and other factors that help a machine distinguish “pain” from “pane” and a television from a human being.
That’s changing, though, thanks in no small part to Google‘s efforts in developing voice recognition tech. Since 2008, Google has been steadily releasing products that turn voice into text and voice into action. It started with Google Search by Voice for Android, but most recently debuted as an alternative way to search for content on the desktop.
Mashable spoke with Google Research Scientist Vincent Vanhoucke about the challenges of voice recognition, the impact of voice technology on mobile and what’s next for speech recognition technology.
In February 2009, Google introduced Google Search by Voice for Android. This was back when Android ran on the T-Mobile G1, a device with only 192 MB of RAM and Android 1.6. And while Google Search by Voice was far from perfect in those early days, it was still a technological leap for voice recognition. Here was a handheld that could dial and search by voice, something never successfully done at scale before.
Google’s speech recognition technology really took off though with the introduction of Google Voice Actions. “It was a transformative moment for us,” Vanhoucke says. Voice Actions gave users the ability to send texts, make calls, send emails, get directions and play songs without ever having to type.
While it took years for Google to get voice recognition good enough for voice-activated commands, it’s paying off. Vanhoucke says that there has been a sixfold increase in voice traffic as the microphone button has gained more ubiquity across Google’s Android devices.
The challenge of perfecting voice search on mobile wouldn’t even compare to the difficulties Vanhoucke and the speech recognition team faced with desktop voice search, though.
Google has received a lot of press recently for Google Voice Search to the desktop. Like Google Search by Voice for Android, Google picks up what the user says through the microphone, quickly calculates what the user said and feeds it back to the user in a matter of seconds.
And this technology was not easy to develop. “In fact, doing voice search on the desktop is a lot more difficult than doing it on mobile. No user would expect that,” says Vanhoucke, who leads Google’s acoustic modeling effort. He outlines two key differences between mobile and desktop search:
The result is that new algorithms had to be written that accounted for increased ambient noises and decreased voice clarity. It’s only compounded by the thousands of languages and approximately 230 billion words Google Search by Voice will eventually have to deal with.
Given all of those challenges, it’s astounding that voice search works at all.
Voice recognition technology has made some major advances, thanks to Google, but what will that mean for society?
For Google, it means the ubiquity of data. “Speech is another part of the accessibility and ubiquity story of being able to input information on any device,” Vanhouke argues. He doesn’t believe speech will ever replace touchscreens or keyboards, but that it makes it possible to access and input data while on the go (e.g., while driving).
Now that voice recognition is available in our pockets, Google’s vision of opening up new ways of inputting information and communicating is coming true. Much of what has to be done now, Vanhouke argues, is perfecting the system’s accuracy and speed so that it can “deliver on the Star Trek promise of being able to just talk everywhere and anywhere, and we still have a lot of work to do there.” As voice recognition gets more accurate, it becomes more useful.
One thing to watch out for is Android@Home, the search giant’s framework for controlling light switches, alarm clocks and other home appliances through Android devices. The goal is to make the home a smart and connected device.
As Google Android already has voice command technology built-in, it’s not inconceivable that Google or a third party could add voice commands for home appliances. It may not be long until we say “lights on” and “oven heat up 400 degrees” into our Android devices and assume vocal control over everyday household objects.
It might be some time until we’re giving voice commands to robot butlers and having philosophical conversations with our computers, but thanks to Google and other technology companies, the voice barrier to a smarter future is being torn down. In its place is a system for voice search and voice commands that, while still far from perfect, is improving faster than ever.
The Tech Innovators Series is supported by Lenovo. Lenovo makes machines specifically for the innovators. The creators. The people who move the world forward. Machines like the Lenovo ThinkPad and IdeaPad, meticulously engineered with visibly smart second-generation Intel® CoreTM processors to help the people who do, do what’s never been done.
More About: Google, Google Voice, google voice search, inovation, Tech Innovators Series, voice, voice search
For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
Those famous words, uttered by President John F. Kennedy at Rice University in 1962, kicked off a decade of innovation and scientific progress that culminated with the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, a moment that has since defined humanity’s tenacity for science and exploration.
The last manned mission to the moon was in 1972, though. No man or woman has set foot on the moon for 39 years. Not only that, but NASA is retiring the Space Shuttle fleet. Space Shuttle Endeavour has flown its last mission and Space Shuttle Atlantis will fly the last Space Shuttle mission (STS-135) next month.
If you fear that innovation in space aviation is coming to grinding a halt though, think again. While the government is taking a break from manned space flight, the private sector is gearing up for a new kind of space race — one that made SpaceShipOne, the first manned commercial spaceflight. That’s only the beginning, though — companies across the world are working on everything from space tourism to commercial space stations.
Private manned spaceflight is set to revolutionize aerospace and give future generations the ability to visit the stars on the cheap. Here’s some background on what has been accomplished so far and what space technologies humanity can expect to come to fruition in the near future.
Space flight and commercial launches have been the domain of world governments for decades, particularly NASA and the U.S. government. It wasn’t until 1984 that commercial satellites could be launched with private expendable vehicles, thanks to the Commercial Space Launch Act.
In 1995, entrepreneur Dr. Peter Diamandis founded the X Prize Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to the creation of “radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.” Here’s how Diamandis explained the original X Prize during the foundation’s first press conference:
“We’re announcing something called the X Prize, a $10 million contest to privately build a spaceship that’s able to carry three individuals, fly to 100 kilometers in altitude and do that twice within two weeks.”
Diamandis was inspired by the 1919 Orteig Prize, a $25,000 award for completing the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris. It was eventually won by Charles Lindbergh with The Spirit of St. Louis. More importantly, the prize sparked a wave of innovation in aviation that Diamandis wanted to emulate in space travel.
The prize, eventually renamed the Ansari X Prize after donors Amir and Anousheh Ansari, was won finally won in 2004 by SpaceShipOne, a ship designed by aerospace engineer Burt Rutan and funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
By the time SpaceShipOne made its victory lap, more than two dozen teams had competed for the original X Prize. According to the foundation, these teams spent more than $100 million towards the pursuit of private spaceflight, sparking the beginning of a new era in space travel.
Just a month before SpaceShipOne made its historic flight, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group signed a deal with Paul Allen and Burt Rutan’s joint venture (Mojave Aerospace Ventures) for the rights to create a fleet of ships based on SpaceShipOne’s original design.
Eventually a joint venture was created by Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites and Branson’s Virgin Galactic: The Spaceship Company. The joint venture would create SpaceShipTwo, a ship designed to carry six passengers and two pilots. Virgin Galactic would use the fleet of ships to create the world’s first private spaceliner, giving its customers the chance to make the trip into space and experience “zero G” from 110 kilometers above the earth.
The first SpaceShipTwo was unveiled in 2009 and has since made several test flights from Spaceport America, the world’s first commercial spaceport, based out of New Mexico. The joint venture is creating a fleet of five ships, with the first two already named (VSS Enterprise and VSS Voyager).
The first public flights are expected to take off by the end of this year or early 2012. More than 400 people have booked flights with Virgin Galactic for the not-so-small sum of $200,000 per ticket.
While Branson’s Virgin Galactic may be the best-known company in the private space race, it faces competition from a small group of companies trying to get their own spaceships into the air and above the earth. Still, the tremendous effort of getting anything into orbit, especially people, has proven to be a challenge of the highest order.
The only other commercial company to actually get a reusable spacecraft out of the Earth’s atmosphere is SpaceX, a private aerospace company founded by PayPal and Tesla Motors cofounder Elon Musk. The company achieved this with Dragon, a craft designed to carry seven people.
Dragon made its first flight in December 2010 and was successfully recovered, making it the first orbital flight by a private company (SpaceShipOne was a sub-orbital ship). Dragon has yet to make a manned spaceflight, but intends to make several in the next two to three years.
Dragon, along with the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rocket, form the core of SpaceX’s commercial spaceflight business.
While the company focuses on space transport (it has several lucrative contracts with NASA and others), Musk has made it clear that he wants to put a man on Mars. In the meantime, with the end of the NASA Space Shuttle fleet approaching, it will be up to companies like SpaceX to provide crew and cargo to resupply the International Space Station (ISS).
Other companies, such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Bigelow Aerospace, are also in the private space race. Bigelow in particular plans to create two space stations in the next five to seven years.
While we may not be living on the moon or going on interstellar adventures with Captain Jean Luc Picard, countless milestones have been achieved in private spaceflight during the last decade. And while a flight on Virgin Galactic will only be available to the rich and famous at first, the barriers to manned spaceflight will continue to drop as more companies innovate in the space (pun intended).
Concepts like the space elevator may seem far-fetched now, but so was the idea that traveling into space was even possible. And we doubt that the human race, known for its penchant for exploration, will be fazed by the challenges of reaching the final frontier.
The private space race is on.
The Global Innovation Series is supported by BMW i, a new concept dedicated to providing mobility solutions for the urban environment. It delivers more than purpose-built electric vehicles; it delivers smart mobility services within and beyond the car. Visit bmw-i.com or follow @BMWi on Twitter.
Are you an innovative entrepreneur? Submit your pitch to BMW i Ventures, a mobility and tech venture capital company.
Lead image courtesy of Flickr, densaer
More About: Ansari X Prize, Dragon, elon musk, Global Innovation Series, Google, innovation series, NASA, Paul Allen, space, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, x-prize
For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
Those famous words, uttered by President John F. Kennedy at Rice University in 1962, kicked off a decade of innovation and scientific progress that culminated with the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, a moment that has since defined humanity’s tenacity for science and exploration.
The last manned mission to the moon was in 1972, though. No man or woman has set foot on the moon for 39 years. Not only that, but NASA is retiring the Space Shuttle fleet. Space Shuttle Endeavour has flown its last mission and Space Shuttle Atlantis will fly the last Space Shuttle mission (STS-135) next month.
If you fear that innovation in space aviation is coming to grinding a halt though, think again. While the government is taking a break from manned space flight, the private sector is gearing up for a new kind of space race — one that made SpaceShipOne, the first manned commercial spaceflight. That’s only the beginning, though — companies across the world are working on everything from space tourism to commercial space stations.
Private manned spaceflight is set to revolutionize aerospace and give future generations the ability to visit the stars on the cheap. Here’s some background on what has been accomplished so far and what space technologies humanity can expect to come to fruition in the near future.
Space flight and commercial launches have been the domain of world governments for decades, particularly NASA and the U.S. government. It wasn’t until 1984 that commercial satellites could be launched with private expendable vehicles, thanks to the Commercial Space Launch Act.
In 1995, entrepreneur Dr. Peter Diamandis founded the X Prize Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to the creation of “radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.” Here’s how Diamandis explained the original X Prize during the foundation’s first press conference:
“We’re announcing something called the X Prize, a $10 million contest to privately build a spaceship that’s able to carry three individuals, fly to 100 kilometers in altitude and do that twice within two weeks.”
Diamandis was inspired by the 1919 Orteig Prize, a $25,000 award for completing the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris. It was eventually won by Charles Lindbergh with The Spirit of St. Louis. More importantly, the prize sparked a wave of innovation in aviation that Diamandis wanted to emulate in space travel.
The prize, eventually renamed the Ansari X Prize after donors Amir and Anousheh Ansari, was won finally won in 2004 by SpaceShipOne, a ship designed by aerospace engineer Burt Rutan and funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
By the time SpaceShipOne made its victory lap, more than two dozen teams had competed for the original X Prize. According to the foundation, these teams spent more than $100 million towards the pursuit of private spaceflight, sparking the beginning of a new era in space travel.
Just a month before SpaceShipOne made its historic flight, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group signed a deal with Paul Allen and Burt Rutan’s joint venture (Mojave Aerospace Ventures) for the rights to create a fleet of ships based on SpaceShipOne’s original design.
Eventually a joint venture was created by Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites and Branson’s Virgin Galactic: The Spaceship Company. The joint venture would create SpaceShipTwo, a ship designed to carry six passengers and two pilots. Virgin Galactic would use the fleet of ships to create the world’s first private spaceliner, giving its customers the chance to make the trip into space and experience “zero G” from 110 kilometers above the earth.
The first SpaceShipTwo was unveiled in 2009 and has since made several test flights from Spaceport America, the world’s first commercial spaceport, based out of New Mexico. The joint venture is creating a fleet of five ships, with the first two already named (VSS Enterprise and VSS Voyager).
The first public flights are expected to take off by the end of this year or early 2012. More than 400 people have booked flights with Virgin Galactic for the not-so-small sum of $200,000 per ticket.
While Branson’s Virgin Galactic may be the best-known company in the private space race, it faces competition from a small group of companies trying to get their own spaceships into the air and above the earth. Still, the tremendous effort of getting anything into orbit, especially people, has proven to be a challenge of the highest order.
The only other commercial company to actually get a reusable spacecraft out of the Earth’s atmosphere is SpaceX, a private aerospace company founded by PayPal and Tesla Motors cofounder Elon Musk. The company achieved this with Dragon, a craft designed to carry seven people.
Dragon made its first flight in December 2010 and was successfully recovered, making it the first orbital flight by a private company (SpaceShipOne was a sub-orbital ship). Dragon has yet to make a manned spaceflight, but intends to make several in the next two to three years.
Dragon, along with the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rocket, form the core of SpaceX’s commercial spaceflight business.
While the company focuses on space transport (it has several lucrative contracts with NASA and others), Musk has made it clear that he wants to put a man on Mars. In the meantime, with the end of the NASA Space Shuttle fleet approaching, it will be up to companies like SpaceX to provide crew and cargo to resupply the International Space Station (ISS).
Other companies, such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Bigelow Aerospace, are also in the private space race. Bigelow in particular plans to create two space stations in the next five to seven years.
While we may not be living on the moon or going on interstellar adventures with Captain Jean Luc Picard, countless milestones have been achieved in private spaceflight during the last decade. And while a flight on Virgin Galactic will only be available to the rich and famous at first, the barriers to manned spaceflight will continue to drop as more companies innovate in the space (pun intended).
Concepts like the space elevator may seem far-fetched now, but so was the idea that traveling into space was even possible. And we doubt that the human race, known for its penchant for exploration, will be fazed by the challenges of reaching the final frontier.
The private space race is on.
The Global Innovation Series is supported by BMW i, a new concept dedicated to providing mobility solutions for the urban environment. It delivers more than purpose-built electric vehicles; it delivers smart mobility services within and beyond the car. Visit bmw-i.com or follow @BMWi on Twitter.
Are you an innovative entrepreneur? Submit your pitch to BMW i Ventures, a mobility and tech venture capital company.
Lead image courtesy of Flickr, densaer
More About: Ansari X Prize, Dragon, elon musk, Global Innovation Series, Google, innovation series, NASA, Paul Allen, space, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, x-prize
For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
The Social Media 101 Series is sponsored by Global Strategic Management Institute. GSMI’s Social Media Strategies Series are the leading educational events for organizations looking to advance their online capabilities. Learn more.
One of the greatest challenges of social media marketing is juggling multiple accounts across a variety of networks. As messaging, engagement and analytics differ from platform to platform, keeping yourself organized is vital.
A great way to keep your social media presences in line is with CoTweet, a web-based social media management and analytics tool. It has a simple design and the basic plan, which has fairly robust features, is free. Like HootSuite, it’s accessed through your web browser rather than a desktop client.
Mashable spoke with Kevin Bobowski, CoTweet’s marketing director, for an explanation of how to use the platform for social media marketing.
While some platforms might leave you to your own devices after a product demo, CoTweet’s Services team is on hand to help you set up your account. This can be helpful if it’s your organizations first go at social media management. The social consultant will customize the setup and training based on your needs, and he or she will also record the training session, so you don’t have to worry about memorizing each step.
Already a social media management pro? You’re welcome to pass on the setup help and get your business started on the platform however works best for you.
CoTweet is an excellent tool for small businesses or divisions of larger businesses that spread social media duties among team members and have a customer service approach to engagement. It has a number of features in place that ensure each employee is doing his or her work — and taking responsibility for it.
Like many social media management services, CoTweet allows updates and follow-up messages to be assigned to specific social media managers. This can make responses more relevant as team members with certain knowledge bases can handle appropriate questions and comments from followers. The responder’s initials are included at the end of the tweet, letting the follower know there’s a person behind the handle. This not only puts the follower at ease, but also the marketing manager as he or she will know who to talk to if questions (or congratulations!) arise for a specific tweet.
What’s different about CoTweet is its OnDuty status, which notes who is responsible for social streams at a certain time. Aside from organizing your social updates schedule, it allows for more passive monitoring. The person on duty can receive e-mails when something needs to be acted on, freeing him or her up to go to meetings or take calls while remaining aware of social media activity.
The ability to track campaigns is the most important feature many marketers look for when deciding on a social media management tool. With CoTweet, you can not only manage clicks on content you publish within the application, but also integrate any web analytics platforms with campaign codes and shortened URLs.
“This provides closed-loop reporting and allows marketers to associate revenue and other success metrics to social media activity,” Bobowski says.
The platform recently launched a new Data Integration framework that allows you to extend the CoTweet application across other CRM tools, including Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Integration. This means you can associate a conversation from Facebook or Twitter with an individual’s existing CRM profile and then tag it as a lead or opportunity. The feature breaks down silos by integrating data across platforms, allowing you to create more comprehensive customer profiles and have more relevant conversations in social media.
“We’re delivering the industry’s first solution to give businesses a complete view of their customers across online, offline and social channels,” says Jesse Engle, general manager of the ExactTarget Social Media Lab, in a press release. “This will help enterprises significantly extend the benefits of social to sales enablement to better target campaigns, increase product demand, improve client satisfaction and quantify the true ROI of social media.”
Whether you’re looking for a high-level social data reporting solution or just combating “Twitter overwhelm,” CoTweet is worth a shot. The platform supports Twitter and Facebook and has an iPhone app. The Standard edition is free and allows up to six Twitter accounts. The Enterprise version costs $1,500 a month, but you can request a free demo.
Have you used CoTweet for marketing? Would you recommend it? Tell us your experience with the tool in the comments below.
The Social Media 101 Series is sponsored by Global Strategic Management Institute, a leading source of knowledge for today’s leaders. Learn more by visiting GSMI’s website, liking it on Facebook and following it on Twitter.
– HOW TO: Start Marketing on Foursquare
– HOW TO: Start Marketing on Gowalla
– The PR Pro’s Guide to Facebook
– How Barbie & Ken Were Reunited by Social Media
– How Converse Became the Biggest Little Sneaker Brand on Facebook
More About: analytics, cotweet, Social Media 101 Series, social media management, social media tools
For more Business & Marketing coverage:
While marketing activities on Twitter are often described by silly, Twitterized words — like tweetathon, twontest and tweetchat — these types of campaigns have proven successful for marketers and brands of all sizes.
There are a number of winning Twitter strategies used by top brands, but those same companies tend to mix up the types of individual marketing campaigns they run on Twitter, whether paid or organic.
Here are seven successful Twitter marketing campaigns from American Airlines, Network Solutions, UNICEF India, IBM, USA for UNHCR, McDonald’s Canada and appbackr. Read about their successes below and share your brand’s Twitter campaign victories in the comments.
In celebration of the 30th anniversary of its AAdvantage loyalty program, American Airlines ran a Twitter contest called “Tweet to Win 30K Miles.”
The Twitter contest was a smaller portion of a larger campaign, called “Deal 30,” which involved 30 partner deals and promotions over 30 weekdays. The AAdvantage team created a microsite that promoted a new daily partner deal or promotion — the Twitter contest occurred on the fourth day of the promotion. Participants had to register their AAdvantage number on a microsite, tweet the #Deal30 hashtag and follow the @AAdvantage account to enter for a chance to win 30,000 AAdvantage miles.
The campaign was promoted primarily through AAdvantage and American Airlines’ social media channels with the goals of driving traffic to the Deal 30 microsite to increase buzz for the remaining deals and to attract new Twitter followers for the recently launched @AAdvantage Twitter account.
Success Metrics: Within one week, the microsite’s bit.ly link gained nearly 18,000 clicks via Twitter, and the @AAdvantage Twitter account experienced a 70% increase in followers. And overall, retweets on Twitter increased 43% and the Deal 30 microsite garnered more than 27,000 entries.
Lesson: Weber Shandwick account supervisor and AAdvantage community manager Colin Alsheimer shares his takeaways about the campaign with Mashable:
“Given a valuable enough incentive, users will complete several registration steps for entry. The requirement to share a specific tweet and hashtag to an entrants own social network is what drove the success of this promotion, especially given that it wasn’t heavily supported by other media channels. In the future, we’d probably require that users take fewer steps for entry in order to increase the total number of entrants. Including a specific and unique hashtag was essential for tracking purposes.”
During the 2011 Super Bowl, domain registrar Network Solutions aimed to detract from competitor GoDaddy’s risqué media blitz while promoting its .CO product offerings. Instead of directly competing with GoDaddy’s substantial Super Bowl ad buy, Network Solutions worked with agency CRT/tanaka to spoof GoDaddy’s infamous Super Bowl commercials with hopes of garnering attention on Twitter among social media influencers.
With a $200,000 budget, the company developed a concept around Go Granny, “the original domain girl,” and created a series of mockumentary vignettes featuring Academy Award-winner Cloris Leachman.
While the campaign was centered around one parody commercial hosted on YouTube (embedded above), Twitter played a large role in the promotion and success of the campaign.
“Go Granny’s antics did not stop on YouTube. She took her sassy personality to drive traffic to the video,” says CRT/tanaka director of social media Priya Ramesh. “She took over Twitter for three one-hour long tweetcapades on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of Super Bowl weekend. During the tweetcapades, @Go_Granny‘s tweets were carefully targeted to win the attention of influencers like Guy Kawasaki and Scott Monty, under the premise she was inviting people to her Super Bowl party. The team of powerful mommy bloggers at BlogHer participated in the tweetcapades as well, tapping into their extensive networks.”
Success Metrics: In five days, the campaign inspired more than 3,500 tweets and garnered nearly 20 million impressions across Twitter, reports agency CRT/tanaka. On top of that, #GoGranny became a trending topic in Washington, D.C., and top influencers who tweeted about Go Granny included Gina Trapani and Brian Solis. Even more impressive, the company’s sales of the .CO domain increased by more than 500% during Super Bowl weekend as a direct result of the campaign.
Lesson: “Twitter is extremely helpful for generating buzz around an online social media campaign, but it needs support from other social outlets as well,” says Shashi Bellamkonda, director of social media and PR at Network Solutions. He continues:
“For maximum success, Twitter can’t stand alone. Beyond tweeting, our team dropped blog posts about the campaign, alerted our Facebook base, sent out an email to our customer, issued a press release and conducted traditional media outreach. We also worked with BlogHer to tap into their extensive network of influential women and mom bloggers. If marketers do their homework and recognize that Twitter campaigns must go hand-in-hand with other efforts, they will increase their overall success. In our case, once the Go Granny tweetcapades started, there was no stopping them.”
UNICEF India’s agency, OgilvyOne Worldwide, enlisted social agency BUZZVALVE to manage a three-month social media campaign to promote UNICEF’s “Awaaz Do” (which means “lend your voice” in Hindi) initiative, an effort to send eight million unschooled Indian children back to education.
“The thrust of our campaign lay in targeting influential personas and celebrities on Twitter,” says BUZZVALVE CEO Rohan Chandrashekhar. “A retweet or a mention by them proved crucial for our outreach program and to get word out about the campaign.”
Bollywood icons Priyanka Chopra and Shekhar Kapur were among others to tweet about the campaign. BUZZVALVE encouraged their participation by showing them how big of an impact they had on the initiative. Chandrashekhar explains:
“We set up a two-way communication channel between us and them, where we were able to show them through our analytics the kind of impact they were having on Twitter and among their followers on every retweet or mention about the campaign. In effect, rather than have them formally ‘endorse’ the campaign, we helped them ‘participate’ actively. Our analytics helped them understand their own influence and this acted as an encouragement for them be active campaigners. We thus created an environment for them to engage with us and the ‘Awaaz Do’ cause directly, by making real-time info about their impact available to them.”
Success Metrics: During the three-month campaign, the #AWAAZDO hashtag received 1,525 mentions and the @UNICEFIndia Twitter account gained 2,198 followers. The campaign itself received 60,540 impressions on Twitter during the time period, as calculated using Tweetreach. By the end of the campaign, the Awaaz Do website garnered 203,248 signups of people interested in “joining the movement” to help get India’s children back to school.
Lesson: Non-profit organizations can increase their celebrity endorsers’ activity with a campaign by showing them just how impactful their Twitter involvement is. Sharing analytics with celebrities involved in the campaign can encourage them to share the campaign with their followers more often.
For Lotusphere 2011, one of IBM’s annual user conferences for customers and partners, the tech firm expanded its typical social media strategy and created a social media hub, a single online landing page providing a live stream of blogs, Twitter comments, Flickr photos and videos of keynote sessions and interviews from the conference. To keep chatter organized on Twitter, the company employed the hashtag #ls11.
Success Metrics: By mid-event at Lotusphere 2011, which takes place from January 30 to February 3, there were more than 20,000 tweets tagged with the #ls11 hashtag, and the hub site’s video channel had garnered 34,000 views. As of February 15, 2011, there were more than 35,000 tweets with the #ls11 hashtag, and 9,500 of those tweets were retweeted. IBM calculates that the campaign garnered more than 41 million total impressions on Twitter.
Lesson: Whether it’s as simple as employing a hashtag or as strategic as creating a social landing page, aggregating and organizing conversation around your brand, especially during events, is key to making a splash on Twitter.
For World Refugee Day this year, USA for UNHCR held a “tweetathon” as part of its overall Blue Key Campaign, which asks Americans to purchase a symbolic $5 Blue Key pin or pendant to show their support for refugees worldwide and the 6,000 UNHCR staffers who work 24/7 to assist them.
The tweetathon took place on Monday, June 13, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET, seven days before World Refugee Day, and it featured a number of social-savvy “Blue Key Champions” tweeting via their personal Twitter accounts for at least an hour each, while supporting tweets originating from the official @UNRefugeeAgency Twitter handle. Roya Hosseini, wife of The Kite Runner author Khaled Hosseini and the Twitter voice of the Khaled Hosseini Foundation (@tkhf) also appeared on the tweetathon as a special guest, which especially increased awareness of the tweetathon and campaign.
Success Metrics: On the day of the tweetathon, 1,524 tweets used the #bluekey hashtag, which is a significant increase over the daily average of 50 that occurred during the rest of the campaign. Traffic to the Blue Key website also increased 169% over the previous high point. Furthermore, more than 50% of key purchases for that week were a result of the tweetathon.
Lesson: A tweetathon can significantly benefit a time-sensitive social good campaign. USA for UNHCR’s social media consultant Shonali Burke explains that the campaign experienced a huge bump in activity as a result of using Twitter:
“From December 2010 (when the Blue Key site was launched) until April 2011, there were approximately 1,100 keys dispatched. For the duration of the 6-week campaign (May 9 to June 20), there were 2,645 keys dispatched, and significant awareness created via online and social media. That’s a huge jump in just 6 weeks.”
Agency Golin Harris recently launched a geo-targeted Promoted Account for its client, McDonald’s Canada, which was the first brand in Canada to execute such a campaign. The goal was to leverage Promoted Accounts to increase @McD_Canada’s average new followers by using a ‘suggested follow’ that targeted Twitter users via specified keywords and hashtags.
While the client declined to share specific keywords used, citing “the competitive nature of how McDonald’s Canada gains followers using Promoted Accounts,” it was quite pleased with the results, noting that the use of diverse keywords and hashtags enabled the company to reach viewers of many demographics with many different interests.
Success Metrics: With a total budget of $15,000 USD, McDonald’s Canada gained 9,503 new followers over the course of the campaign. The campaign also drew in 14,200 profile views and resulted in a 4% overall engagement rate, which includes retweets, replies, favorites and clicks. This engagement rate is quite high when one considers that advertising click-through rates are generally subzero percentages.
Lesson: Paid advertising on Twitter, including Promoted Tweets, Trends and Accounts, can be an option for brands looking to gain new eyes. Brands should test out various hashtags and keywords to target their desired audience. “The Twitter team acted as a great resource to help McDonald’s Canada test out different keywords and bids to gain the greatest amount of new followers,” notes Karin Campbell, senior manager of external communications, McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada Limited.
App marketplace appbackr began using Promoted Tweets and Account in mid-May to promote the LSATMax app that is currently on its way to funding its next iteration via the appbackr platform. “The app is directed to people studying for the LSAT, so a 20 to 26 age group roughly,” says Sarah Cornwell, product manager at appbackr. “Our online marketing budget for this app was split between Facebook ads and Twitter. In the past, we would have focused entirely on Facebook, but with Twitter, we can watch the impact in bit.ly, and we like that immediate feedback.”
Cornwell stressed that creating a targeted campaign on Twitter, instead of targeting a wider audience, gave appbackr the most bang for its buck. “LSATMax lends itself to a targeted campaign. We were able to focus on people on Twitter searching for relevant keywords — LSAT, law school, etc. — to let them know this app was available as a study tool.”
Success Metrics: In six weeks, appbackr has increased its follower count by 140% (from 880 to 2,114) and increased traffic to its site from Twitter by 94%. Furthermore, traffic from Twitter as a percentage of appbackr’s total site traffic rose from 2.6% to 4.4%. And of its Twitter from traffic, the percentage of new visits rose from 51% to 65%.
Lesson: Appbackr’s campaign with Promoted Tweets and Accounts enabled it to reach a highly targeted audience on Twitter, resulting in an increase in Twitter followers and site traffic.
The Social Marketing Series is supported by Campaigner®. Campaigner®’s Smart Email Builder makes it easier than ever to create professional looking email marketing campaigns and affords multiple ways to grow and manage lists, integrate with CRM, and utilize campaign metrics and reports to increase results. For more information, please visit www.campaigner.com or watch a product demo today.
- 9 Lessons From Successful Brands on Twitter
– 16 Food Trucks Serving Up Tweetable Eats
– 7 Tips for Better Twitter Chats
– 5 Proven Twitter Marketing Strategies
– The Voice: How a TV Show Became a 24/7 Social Media Conversation
More About: business, MARKETING, online marketing, Social Marketing Series, social media, social media marketing, twitter
For more Business & Marketing coverage:
Mashable, 92Y and the UN Foundation are thrilled to announce that the second annual Social Good Summit will take place September 19-22 at the 92Y in New York City. Held during UN Week, the Social Good Summit is where big ideas meet new media to create innovative solutions. Last year’s Social Good Summit was a huge success with great presentations and we’re excited for the conversations that will happen this year.
The Social Good Summit unites a dynamic community of global leaders to discuss a big idea: the power of innovative thinking and technology to solve our greatest challenges. For four days, about 3,000 individuals will attend the event in person and thousands more around the world will tune in via Livestream. Tickets are on sale now at the summit’s Eventbrite page and you can RSVP for the livestream if you’re unable to join us in person.
The most innovative technologists, influential minds and passionate activists will come together around the shared goal of unlocking the potential of new media and technology to make the world a better place.
Confirmed Speakers:
Further details and speakers will be announced soon on Mashable.
On Thursday, September 22 we’ll host the inaugural Startups for Good Challenge. Eight Startups in the social good space will be selected from an online application. The eight companies selected will present their project to a panel of judges at the Social Good Summit. The winner will receive a cash prize. We will be opening up the application process and sharing more details soon so stay tuned for that announcement.
Livestream: Unable to join us in person? RSVP for the Livestream to join us online.
Press: Press credentials will be given to press and bloggers from around the world for all Social Good Summit sessions and the Digital Media Lounge (DML). The DML is a fully wired work space at 92Y to report out of, network with fellow members of the media, and self-organize interviews and exclusive content from Social Good Summit sessions. The DML will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., September 19-22. To apply, please fill in the form at http://mashable.com/sgs/bloggers.
Sponsorships: We have premium sponsorship opportunities available. For more info, please email sponsorship@mashable.com.
The UN Foundation connects people, ideas and resources to help the United Nations solve global problems. The Foundation was created in 1998 as a public charity with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner’s historic $1 billion gift to support UN causes and activities. We are an advocate for the UN and its lifesaving work around the globe. We help the UN take its best work and ideas to scale through advocacy, partnerships, constituency building and fundraising:
More About: mashable, mashable events, non-profits, social good, social good summit, social media, startups
For more Social Good coverage:
U.S. President Barack Obama will be holding the first Twitter Town Hall, where he will answer questions about the economy and jobs via Twitter, Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET.
Mashable wants to help your voice be heard. We’re going to send @BarackObama a question from our @Mashable account, and we want you to have a say in what we ask. Vote on which tech-related tweet we should submit:
Be a part of the Mashable Community voice. What question do you think Barack Obama should answer about tech and the economy? Let us know in the poll, or vote on our Facebook page.
If you have an alternate idea, let us know in the comments. Every suggestion will be taken into account.
More About: barack obama, community, obama, Town Hall
For more Social Media coverage:
