social media news: juillet 2014

jeudi 31 juillet 2014

Proud Dad Jack Vale's iPhone Video of Daughter Singing Goes Viral

Like any proud parent, comedian Jack Vale is instinctively inclined to photograph his daughter's every impressive moment. So in mid-July, the YouTube prankster whipped out his iPhone camera and captured 12-year old Madysyn Rose singing Naughty Boy and Sam Smith's hit song "La La La."

Now the video has reached a massive 17.5 million Facebook News Feeds since July 18.

"It's very exciting, overwhelming and amazing," Madysyn told Mashable. "Singing is what I want to do for the rest of my life, and knowing that millions of people have heard me sing is awesome. It encourages me to keep doing what I love." Read more...

More about Entertainment and Music

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1s81Axj

Series of Gas Explosions Kill 15, Injure 228 in Taiwan

At least 15 people are dead and 228 injured following a series of gas explosions on the streets of a southern Taiwanese city late Thursday night.

Locals had reported gas leaks in the city of Kaohsiung beginning around 9 p.m. local time, Focus Taiwan reported on its Facebook page, and explosions followed three hours later. Some witnesses had reported seeing a "white fog" in the area, while another thought the mysterious substance was "poisonous gas."

A driver's dashcam video apparently captured the sudden blasts, which caught nighttime commuters off guard as they were traveling the city's streets. As the driver behind the camera navigates the city, spouts of flame pop up through the sewage vents as explosions are heard in the distance. Read more...

More about Us World, World, and Taiwan

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1lh1dLJ

San Francisco Airport Testing Beacons to Guide Blind Travelers

San Francisco International Airport is rolling out a pilot program later this year that could help blind travelers navigate within a terminal with the guidance of beacon technology

Tiny sensors called beacons will be tested in one of the airport's newest terminals (Terminal 2, home to American Airlines and Virgin Atlantic Airlines) and potentially expand to other terminals in the future. The initiative is expected to launch this fall

Public areas are introducing beacons to buildings as a way to bring indoor mapping and real-time interactive navigation to the mainstreamAlthough GPS is reliable for routing you to target destinations, the same can't be said for the great indoors. Read more...

More about Travel, Airports, Tech, Apps Software, and Mobile

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1xH1MUT

Facebook Updates Slingshot With Unlimited Reactions

Facebook's photo messaging app Slingshot was updated Thursday with new features for the first time since it launched last month

Users can now react to reaction messages — somewhat of a departure from Slingshot's signature "shot-for-shot" dynamic.

Previously, a single reaction was the only way users could view a message without having to send one of their own first. While this still applies to regular messages (users are still required to "unlock" new slings with replies), users can now exchange an unlimited number of reaction messages. Read more...

More about Facebook, Social Media, Tech, Apps Software, and Apps And Software

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1s7U8SJ

6 Mistakes Many Marketers Make Daily

It used to be that "multi-channel marketing" meant ensuring that your print, TV and radio ads looked and sounded the same. Now, consumers have more channels than ever to interact with your brand, so creating an integrated marketing experience means getting everything right, from social to search, automation to analytics, and lead nurturing to LinkedIn

Simply put, you can no longer afford to focus on one element of your marketing and put the rest out to pasture. Your prospects, customers and leads expect a fully integrated experience with your brand, and if your company doesn't provide one, your competitors will. Below are six mistakes most marketers make daily, and some suggestions on how to address them. Read more...

More about Marketing, Business, Contributors, and Swot Team

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1tzGWc7

Report: Drone Industry Could Soar to $11 Billion by 2024

Love them or hate them, drones are here to stay — at least for the foreseeable future. A new report detailing the growth of the drone industry finds that over the next 10 years, the amount of money spent annually on drones and their accompanying technologies will likely double worldwide.

An estimated $6.4 billion is currently being spent each year on developing drone technology around the world, according to a report published earlier this month by the Teal Group Corp., an aerospace and defense market research firm headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia. That number is expected to nearly double in future years, bringing the total amount spent on drones for both military and commercial applications to $11.5 billion annually by 2024. Read more...

More about Industry, Us World, Us, World, and Drones

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1n8liDy

'Game of Thrones' Actress Had the Best Reaction to Being Recast

Anyone in the market for a Princess?

Former Game of Thrones actress, Aimee Richardson, who played Myrcella Baratheon, has been recast for season 5 of the hit HBO show. But Richardson dealt with the blow the best way possible — a little social media humor.

(We would've set our dragons on HBO, but this works too.)

Fans of the series will remember Myrcella as the second child of Cersei (and Jamie) Lannister, who was shipped off to Dorne to be betrothed to Trystane Martell. While Myrcella's character has a large role in the upcoming fifth season of GoT, Richardson has been replaced by actress Nell Tiger Free Read more...

More about Tv, Vine, Hbo, Game Of Thrones, and Watercooler

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1tzGSsY

Apple Confirms it Will Lay Off 200 Beats Employees

Apple confirmed Thursday that it will gradually lay off 200 Beats employees, or nearly 29% of the 700 people currently working for the headphones company.

The news comes as Apple's acquisition of Beats becomes official. While 700 Beats employees will begin working at Apple after the deal closes, only 500 of them will keep their jobs longer than a few months, according to told the Wall Street Journal.

Apple released a statement to 9to5Mac to address earlier rumors of layoffs.

"We’re excited to have the Beats team join Apple, and we have extended job offers to every Beats employee," the statement read. "Because of some overlap in our operations, some offers are for a limited period and we’ll work hard during this time to find as many of these Beats employees as we can another permanent job within Apple." Read more...

More about Layoffs, Apple, Beats, Tech, and Gadgets

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1qu9VZV

South Korea Sent 10,000 Choco Pies Over to North Korea in Balloons

North Korea got a sweet surprise from its neighbor to the south on Wednesday

In South Korea, about 200 people — South Koreans along with North Korean defectors — packed 770 pounds of Choco Pies into plastic bags, which they attached to 50 giant balloons and released across the border into North Korea. It was an act of rebellion against the alleged North Korean ban on the chocolate confections.

The pies, which are produced in South Korea, are wildly popular in North Korea. Fearful that the treats would encourage an uprising, Kim Jong-un reportedly banned Choco Pies from the country earlier this month. The pies, which have become something of a political statement, are viewed as a symbol of capitalism and represent a taste of the world outside North Korea. Read more...

More about North Korea, South Korea, Chocolate, Us World, and World

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1kpceQd

Survey: Most Americans Would Consider Buying Self-Driving Cars

The United States is warming up to the idea of self-driving cars

Most Americans would consider purchasing a self-driving car, according to a study by Insurance.com. The survey polled 2,000 licensed drivers, divided evenly between men and women, and found that 75% of are more apt to embrace driverless cars, in part because of the gradual increase in hands-free technology being added, such as Bluetooth-enabled voice control

"People are aware that they already drive cars controlled partly by computers," Des Toups, Insurance.com's managing editor, wrote in a statement. "Now, they see features like collision avoidance on new models and hear about Google cars hitting the roads in a couple of yearsAn autonomous car is not science fiction anymore." Read more...

More about Google, Self Driving Car, Tech, Gadgets, and Us

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1pJt8Fw

'Lord of the Rings' Producers Introduce Our New Nerdy Obsession: 'The Quest'

Everealm, the fictional setting of ABC's new fantasy-meets-reality TV experiment The Quest, is a land under siege. But a prophecy predicts the kingdom will find salvation in one True Hero, to be picked from a lot of 12 strangers from another land.

The actual identity of said hero is to be determined — and it's also the whole point of the show.

"We took a typical challenge-challenge-elimination reality show format and plopped it down in the middle of a movie," Oscar-winning executive producer Mark Ordesky, known for his work on The Lord of the Rings, tells Mashable. "We said, 'How do we merge these two?'" Read more...

More about Tv, Television, Entertainment, and The Quest

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1oS6tu9

Stephen Colbert Buys 'TheSarahPalinChannel.com'

Stephen Colbert wants in on Sarah Palin's new pay-to-watch channel.

The former governor of Alaska recently launched her online subscription channel, which will cover "the ideas Washington doesn't want you to hear." Colbert, in his signature satirical way, poked fun at the idea on The Colbert Report .

Colbert mocked the Palin channel's $9.95 per month subscription cost, comparing it with Netflix's cheaper subscription model, adding, "It's just as good as House of Cards, with even more threatening monologues into camera."

After calling the Palin's online venture, "a safe space where like-minded folks can hear something they already agree with from someone whose opinion they already know," Colbert revealed his own new subscription channel, "Stephen Colbert's Angry Echo Chamber." Read more...

More about Videos, Comedy, Sarah Palin, Stephen Colbert, and Politics

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1tzhqUu

LinkedIn's New Tool for Salespeople Tries to Cut Down on Cold Calls

LinkedIn is best known as a tool for job seekers and recruiters, but it's also a burgeoning platform for "social selling," a business it hopes to boost with a new entity called Sales Navigator.

Sales Navigator, which is designed for salespeople, leverages LinkedIn's network of 316 million-plus members to expose sales leads. If you work in a company with 500 employees, for instance, LinkedIn will let you know if one of those employees is connected with someone at one of your target companies. This reduces cold calling and leads to more sales, according to LinkedIn; a February survey from the company found that "social sellers" were 51% more likely to beat their quota than traditional sellers. Read more...

More about Linkedin and Business

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1nOEX0q

Media Overload: The Problem With Infinite Choice

The average American spends 13.6 hours consuming media every day from dozens of different sources. By 2015, analysts predict we'll watch close to 15.5 hours of media on a daily basis

In short: Our culture has reached media over-saturation. And it’s affecting the way we consume and appreciate content.

Several scientific studies even show that more options actually make us less satisfied. Researchers from Hope College and Yale University studied several thousand subjects and found those who compare and deliberate on their choices more frequently experienced much higher levels of unhappiness — even depression. Read more...

More about Media, Entertainment, Videos, Tv, and Movies

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1pu3qYc

Rapper Warren G Reads President Harding's Sexy Love Letters

Behold, the champion of the "sex letter": the 23rd president of the United States, Warren G. Harding.

Back in the early 1900s, when sexting was off the table, you'd have to physically mail a letter to express your thoughts. And let's just say, President Harding was no stranger to the practice

This week, the Library of Congress opened the love-letter floodgates when it released a string of seductive correspondences between Harding and his then-mistress

It's a good thing Jimmy Kimmel invited rapper Warren G on the show Wednesday to read some of these treasures because these earnest pieces of erotica were waiting for a comedy revival Read more...

More about Video, Viral Videos, Humor, Jimmy Kimmel, and Tv

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1oRXmd0

Twerking Ice Cream Cone Stars in Katy Perry's 'This Is How We Do' Video

A Crazy Amount of People Tweeted About 'Sharknado 2'

As a quick look at your Twitter timeline on Wednesday night indicated, a ton of people Tweeted about Sharknado 2. But now we have solid proof that they took a bite out of the competition.

The TV movie — about a tornado of sharks, in case you weren't familiar — generated an estimated 67 million Twitter impressions in the period three hours before and after its airing, according to social numbers from Nielsen. That's really big — and ahead of the night's second most social show, America's Got Talent, by about 65 million impressions.

More about Television, Entertainment, Tv, Sharknado 2, and Sharknado 2 The Second One

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1pu3mb5

You Can Watch the 'Doctor Who' Premiere in Theaters

What could make a season premiere of Doctor Who even better? Popcorn and a few hundred friends

BBC America is teaming up with Fathom Events to host midnight screenings of the Doctor Who season premiere Aug. 23 in 12 cities, the network announced on Thursday. Additionally, more than 550 theaters nationwide will host two screenings on Aug. 25. Tickets for the latter are available now and all screenings will also include 15 minutes of cinema exclusive bonus content.

The premiere episode, titled "Deep Breath," marks the long-awaited debut of Peter Capaldi in the role of the beloved time traveler Read more...

More about Television, Doctor Who, Entertainment, and Tv

via Mashable http://ift.tt/1oRXeKy