The Foursquare platform currently caters to consumers and offers businesses the ability to provide specials. Today, however, we’re learning more information about a business dashboard — complete with checkin analytics — that’s being gradually rolled out to business owners.While the dashboard is still an alpha product, it’s already able to make the distinction between staff and customers, and tracks checkins on a daily, weekly, 30/60/90-day or all-time basis.Data includes total checkins, unique visitors, male-to-female ratio, social media-sharing (i.e. showing how many users are sending their checkins to Twitter), top visitors and checkin time breakdown. Users can opt-out of sharing their checkin data via settings section of the website.According to The New York Times’ Bits blog, “Business owners will also be able to offer instant promotions to try to engage new customers and keep current ones,” and, “there will also be a Staff page available to each business that will allow employees to interact directly with customers using social networks.”When we followed up with Tristan Walker of Foursquare we also learned that as of right now 30 venue owners have access to the new tool, which the company has been testing for a week. In the coming weeks, Foursquare plans to introduce the insightful utility to all businesses running specials with the company — close to 1,000 businesses.Real-World Meets CheckinThis is just the beginning of the business dashboard, as Walker tells us that the company has plans to continue to innovate and integrate real-world phenomena with its valuable checkin data. For example, Walker tells us that Foursquare is “thinking about … correlating checkins with weather patterns,” so “for a merchant offering incentives there may be a way for them to offer better incentives on rainy days.”But that’s just scratching the service. Remember Tasti D-Lite’s re-imagining of the customer loyalty program? The new TreatCard uses Foursquare’s API to automatically check customers into venues and tie purchase information with rewards. Tasti D-Lite’s Foursquare checkin/purchase setup sets the stage for the day when the business dashboard will include purchase information, to which Walker says, “Once we can add purchase information on top of checkins things can get pretty interesting.”This is all fine and dandy for the neighborhood coffee shop or local bar, and very much supersedes what Yelp provides or Google offers businesses via Place Pages, but what about the Starbucks of the world? Clearly this type of analysis — if it could scale — would be killer for big businesses interested in tracking their trending venues and discerning what works by location.Walker admits that the company will need to make adjustments to allow for aggregation, but that the dashboard will be for everyone. And while he wouldn’t give us any names, he did say, “We’ve been talking with quite a few [large corporations] who are excited about the potential for this.”At the end of the day, the business features further contribute to Foursquare changing the world as we know it. In a previous post on the subject matter, I wrote that Foursquare was redefining what it meant to be a regular and pioneering a deeper connection between place and patron. Given that businesses using Foursquare will soon be able to interact with their checked-in customers, those two assertions are now more true than ever.Just as businesses see a huge advantage to interacting with potential and existing customers (and naysayers) on Twitter, so too will they experience the same advantages on Foursquare, but with even more incentives and a plethora of data at their fingertips.[img credits: MariSheibely, Bits]Reviews: Foursquare, Google, Twitter, YelpTags: business dashboard, foursquare, MARKETING, social media
Publ.Date : Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:55:37 +0000
Facebook’s move into location has seemed inevitable for some time, and it now appears that the company will officially reveal its plans at next month’s Facebook developer conference –- f8.According to The New York Times, the social network will incorporate location in two ways: (1) its own features for sharing location and (2) APIs to let other apps — like Foursquare and Gowalla –- offer location services to Facebook users.Presumably, Facebook will make sure to address privacy issues with its location features — for example, perhaps with settings that allow you to share your location only with a select group of friends. The Times’ report doesn’t detail the specifics of such features, though it notes that the social network updated its privacy policy late last year in preparation for a location launch.Facebook will be rolling out its location features to an enormous user base — there are now more than 400 million users of the social network in total, 100 million of which access the site via mobile regularly. The company also has its own native apps for all of the major mobile platforms. All of this gives Facebook’s location features an enormous edge over the competition.The Times’ report suggests that the competition isn’t the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla, however, but rather Google and its huge base of local small business advertisers. Of course, the startups aren’t ignoring this opportunity either — earlier today, Foursquare shared details of upcoming features it plans to release to help local businesses utilize checkin data.With Facebook entering the space, though, the other players will need to look to create value in ways beyond checkins and knowing where your friends are located at any given point in time. That’s why Foursquare seems to be so focused on partnerships and gaming, while Gowalla is making moves (as recently as last night) in virtual goods.In any event, location remains the huge trend so far in 2010, and literally each day seems to bring new indications of which way it will all play out.Tags: facebook, foursquare, social networking, trending
Publ.Date : Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:03:57 +0000
Retweet.com, which put itself up for sale last month, has sold for $250,000 in an online auction on Flippa. The auction saw a fair amount of interest with 45 bids in total, but it appears that the winning party came in with a “buy it now” offer for $48,000 more than the current bid to take ownership of the Tweetmeme competitor.Like Tweetmeme, the site aggregates the most popular links on Twitter, and also provides third-party websites with buttons that lets their visitors easily retweet articles. Although the service isn’t as popular as Tweetmeme, it has been able to accumulate respectable traffic, and it’s ideal name give it significant branding power. According to the company’s listing on Flippa, there is not yet any revenue.At this point, we don’t know who the buyer is, though we heard rumblings last month that a major social news site was interested. We’re looking for more information and have contacted the team behind Retweet.com for details. We’ll update if we learn more.[thanks Matt Binder for the tip]Tags: retweet, tweetmeme, twitter
Publ.Date : Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:33:35 +0000
Sony Computer Entertainment is proudly shouting “FIRST” (YouTube commenter-style) with an announcement that claims the PlayStation Network is the first online service to sell high-definition movies from all the major movie studios: Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Walt Disney, Warner Bros and, of course, Sony Pictures.Some of the content has been around for a while — for example, NBC Universal videos debuted on the PlayStation Network one year ago tomorrow — but PlayStation owners have access to a few new movies today.They include Up, G-Force, Earth, Star Trek, Paranormal Activity, Zoolander, This Is It, 2012, District 9, Zombieland, Inglourious Basterds, Couples Retreat, Public Enemies, The Hangover, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and The Wizard of Oz.All the studios but Fox are represented there; Fox’s new contributions (Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, Jennifer’s Body and Fantastic Mr. Fox) will debut on the PSN this Saturday, March 13.PSN competitors like Apple’s iTunes Store and Apple TV set-top box and Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace and Xbox 360 console offer formidable libraries of on-demand video from the major movie studios, but Sony is boasting that it’s the only one to offer HD content from all of them.In a time when the market is terribly fragmented between so many different formats and services, posting HD content from every major studio is actually a notable feat. Sony will have more firsts on the horizon, too; the PlayStation 3 is going 3D soon.Apple and Microsoft have had their own opportunities to say “first,” though. The Xbox 360 streamed Netflix movies first, and both Apple’s iTunes Store and the Xbox 360 offered movie downloads and rentals before the PlayStation Network did.Tags: 20th century fox, Film, hd, Movies, nbc universal, paramount pictures, playstation 3, playstation network, playstation portable, PS3, PSP, sony, Sony Pictures, sony playstation 3, Sony PSP, video games, walt disney pictures, warner bros
Publ.Date : Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:03:15 +0000
This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: ShiftPlanning Quick Pitch: ShiftPlanning Provides free employee scheduling tools to businesses of all sizes. Genius Idea: ShiftPlanning is a web-based tool for companies that want a way to easily and efficiently manage work schedules and availability.Schedule management, especially for companies or individuals who work remotely, can be difficult. Sure, you can use stuff like Google Docs and Basecamp for setting company-wide events, but once you have more than a handful of employees, keeping track of all that information can be tough.ShiftPlanning is a suite of shift and scheduling tools that both employers and employees can use. You can use the system to set up multiple schedules, trade shifts, handle vacation days and requests, and to create a record of availability.We like that ShiftPlanning doesn’t keep your data behind its walled garden; you can print or export files, access the site from your mobile phone and even integrate the system into your own website.ShiftPlanning is free and worth checking out if you have problems managing schedules and employee shifts in your business or organization. What tools do you use to manage schedules? Let us know!Sponsored by Microsoft BizSparkBizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”Reviews: Basecamp, Google Docs, PHP, ShiftPlanningTags: business, scheduling, shiftplanning, web apps
Publ.Date : Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:55:38 +0000
New Academy Award-winner Jeff Bridges reprises his role as arcade regular and computer programming genius Flynn in the trailer for Tron Legacy, which just made its official web debut today. The film is a long-anticipated sequel to the 1980s geek classic Tron, and this is the first full-length trailer.The film (or at least the trailer) focuses on Flynn’s son, who goes looking for his father in the now-abandoned arcade that was the launching point for the first movie, only to find him in a more technologically advanced version of the fantastic and dangerous virtual world introduced in the first film (which won much acclaim for special effects).Since the franchise has always been about the latest in filmmaking technology, Tron Legacy will be presented in 3D. A 3D trailer actually premiered before select showings of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Tron fans traveled from distant cities to see it. The movie is also trending on Twitter right now, so we think this has the makings of a hit.Disney plans to release Tron Legacy on December 17, believing that it will draw a big audience during the lucrative holiday season.We know many Mashable readers are going to be interested in seeing this film, but does it have any chance of living up to the iconic original? Watch the trailer and leave a comment letting us and other readers know what you think.Watch the TrailerReviews: MashableTags: 3D, disney, Film, jeff bridges, Movies, trailer, tron legacy, video
Publ.Date : Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:15:25 +0000
Cisco has announced a new routing system that it says is going to speed up the Internet in a big way. According to the company, Cisco CRS-3 — currently being tested by AT&T — is three times faster than its predecessor, which was introduced in 2004.The company offers a few intriguing sound bites about the CRS-3 and what it enables:- the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress to be downloaded in just over one second- every man, woman and child in China to make a video call, simultaneously- every motion picture ever created to be streamed in less than four minutes.Of course, that’s not for end users, but ultimately allows the telecom companies (Cisco’s customers) to route traffic around the Internet faster. Speaking to the reasoning behind the new speed push, Cisco CEO John Chambers says in the video below that he expects Internet traffic to grow at “200-500 percent per year” as bandwidth-intensive activities like downloading and streaming video continue to explode.At the same time, Google has its own ideas for speeding up the Internet, and is currently looking to test its own fiber network to deliver 1 gigabit per second Internet connections (and Topeka, Kansas wants in!). One way or another, it looks like the Internet is only going to continue to get faster.Here’s Chambers’s video and another with more of the nitty-gritty details of CRS-3:Reviews: GoogleTags: cisco, crs-3
Publ.Date : Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:37:10 +0000
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