WebProNews

Tag: Events

  • Google Celebrates Gay Pride Around the World

    Google is highlighting its Gay pride efforts in a post to the official company blog today.

    Google says about 300 of its employees marched in the 40th annual Pride parade in San Francisco, and more participated in various events in Boston, New York, Chicago, Tel Aviv, and Haifa. Googlers will also take part in EuroPride in Poland, parades in Tokyo and other cities, and will celebrate Pride season in Singapore.

    Google Celebrates Gay Pride

    Cynthia Yeung with Google’s Strategic Partner Development Team writes:

    This year, we have another reason to celebrate. Google will be
    grossing-up imputed taxes on health insurance benefits for all same-sex domestic partners in the United States, retroactive to January 1, 2010. Starting July 1, we’ll also be providing the equivalent of the Family and Medical Leave Act for all same-sex domestic partners. And we’ve worked with our carriers to update their definition of infertility—it’s now defined as the inability to conceive a child with no stipulations on trying for one year.

    Google supports its LGBT employees in many ways: raising its voice in matters of policy , taking a moment to remember the plight of transgender people around the world and going the extra mile to ensure that its employees are treated fairly.

    Google has a set of photos from various festivities available to the public in a Picasa account here.

  • Symantec Urges World Cup Fans to Use Caution on Facebook and Twitter

    Security firm Symantec has announced that during the World Cup it expects social media activity to spike dramatically, and predicts a concurrent rise in fraudulent activity on the web in general, and social networks in particular.

    "The 2010 Football World Cup may be the first to be held in Africa, but it is also considered by many to be the first time that millions of fans will be able to make significant use of social networks to boost their experience," a representative for Symantec tells WebProNews. "Social networks like Twitter and Facebook will play a major role in World Cup 2010 as football fans display videos and photographs, share anecdotes and, perhaps most importantly, showcase their football expertise in heated debate."

    Symantec's World Cup Site"Users are cautioned to resist the temptation to simply click on just anything, no matter how alluring it may appear," the company says. "Symantec research has shown that the majority of cybercrime attacks happen through legitimate websites that have been compromised by attackers the victims are unaware that while they are on a normal looking website, they are, in fact, exposed to malicious content."

    "Users should also beware of accepting new friends claiming to be likeminded football fans and be especially wary of new sites set up around teams or specific players," urges Symantec. "Traveling fans should not reveal details of their current whereabouts on the social networks. Criminals are known to monitor the sites and use this information to plan robberies."

    The firm actually has a site dedicated to information about World Cup-based security threats, which you may find helpful. The page comes with links to become a fan on Facebook and follow them on Twitter, which may also help keep you in the loop with any new related findings.

    Social networks have already been making a point of encouraging fans to engage around the World Cup. For example, we looked at a couple offerings from Facebook and MySpace. Google showed us what the search activity has been like.

  • MySpace Launches Global Events And Calendar Platform

    MySpace has introduced a global events and calendar offering users new tools to create, find, share and manage events across the site and multiple social networks.

    MySpace Events organizes a catalogue of pop culture events and recommends concerts, sports, nightlife and the arts, allowing users to purchase tickets to events.

    "Our users already post millions of events to MySpace each year and the events platform is the next step in enabling them to discover, create, and socialize around the events that are most relevant to them," said Jason Hirschhorn, co-president of MySpace.

    "MySpace Events allows users to find events of every size from a local concert to the next Lakers game to Jay-Z’s tour and then takes it a step further by providing the option to easily share the event and even purchase tickets."

    MySpace-Events

    Users events will show up in their MySpace calendar, including their Facebook events (via Social Plan’s previous Facebook Connect implementation). Users will also be able to share events on MySpace via the Stream, on Twitter, and tiny url.

    "Ultimately our goal is to create a destination that allows users to manage their entire social calendar online through MySpace," said Marcus Womack, Director of Events and Ticketing for MySpace.

    "Also, we’re providing artists with advanced tools to help connect with fans and promote their shows while conversely enabling fans to quickly and easily discover, share and purchase tickets to those shows."
     

     

  • PayPal Talks This Year’s Twestival Efforts

    Update: PayPal says this year, Twestival raised over $450,000 for Concern Worldwide.

    Original Article: If you’re an active part of the Twitter community, you’re probably well aware that the Twestival event is underway today. In some parts of the world it’s already over, but in others it’s just beginning. WebProNews talked to Judy Chang of PayPal’s non-profit team about the event, and the company’s role in it.

    If you’re unfamiliar with Twestival, this is its second year, and it is a global initiative to raise money for a cause that is selected by the community – last year it was about getting clean water to people that didn’t have it, and this year it’s about education around the world – the organization to benefit is Concern Worldwide.

    The event takes place online as well as off. People arrange parties and events in cities all over the world and see who can raise the most money. "The cities are somewhat competing," says Chang.

    Twestival - People can donate money through paypal

    She says that because of Twestival’s grassroots nature, the cities find their own sponsors for events. Some of them may feature celebrities (a lot of celebs are auctioning off memorabilia on eBay to support Twestival). Some of the events are streamed live through UStream.

    The events are the offline part though. PayPal comes in more on the online part. The comany offers a widget that any of its account holders worldwide can use to raise donations for the cause. That includes 190 countries and 24 currencies. That opens up room for a lot of potential donors.

    As far as the events themselves, the Twestival site will show you where they’re all being held. You can search for specific cities and see the details for the event on each one (like who’s attending and how much money that city has raised).

    Last year, Chang says Twestival raised $250,000 and got clean water to 17,000 people. Soon, we’ll find out how much the event is able to raise this year.

  • Social Media Changes Event Planning

    Social Media Changes Event Planning

    It used to be you spent five minutes registering for an event, and then showed up on the big day, went to a few workshops, drank two free Coronas, and went home.

    Social media changes all of that, enabling events and their planners to have long-term, nuanced, shifting interactions with attendees.

    I gave a speech last week in suburban Cincinnati to the Mid-American chapter of Meeting Planners International, titled “7 Ways to Use Social Media to Create Buzz-Worthy Events”.

    My recommendations are based on my work with MarketingProfs and ExactTarget to add social frosting to their already fabulous events, and my experiences speaking at several dozen conferences annually.

    There’s a total of 39 specific suggestions in the slides, but here are the highlights.

    1. Engage

    Get your potential attendees interacting with you early on by enabling some measure of feedback or crowd sourcing on the conference programming. South by Southwest has always led in this area, with its “panel picker” process that turns over 30% of the programming selection to potential attendees.

    An easier way to do this would be to utilize something like Crowd Campaign, which gives participants a way to suggest content, and for others to vote on it. Or, you could go even simpler, and use Tweetpoll or PollDaddy (As I did when I asked you for feedback on potential new designs for this blog).

    2. Intrigue

    Almost all events have an official Web site. But very few (except for the geek events) take full advantage of all the free event listing and event management opportunities. At a minimum, you should create event pages on:

    – Facebook Events
    Eventbrite (where you can also sell tickets, if you’re so inclined)
    Upcoming
    – Linkedin (if it’s a business event)

    Sure, its a bit of a hassle to oversee all of these event pages, but your attendees swim in different ponds. Plus, every conference has the same MVP attendee: some guy named Google. Why would you pass up a chance to double, triple, quadruple your search engine listings?

    3. Invigorate

    As the event draws closer, you have to pull potential attendees off of the fence with content hors d’ouerves

    Start a Twitter contest. Online Marketing Summit does this well, awarding free registration to the conference for people that can correctly answer marketing trivia via their Twitter feed.

    Get your speakers to produce teaser content. A simple video would be ideal. However, some speakers (either full of attitude or devoid of tech savvy) can’t handle the video creation process. In that case, set up a blog on Tumblr (for free, in about 10 minutes) and have your speakers call the toll-free number and leave a voicemail. It will be automatically transcribed, and posted to the official event blog.

    Speaking of blogs, consider setting up a Netvibes.com page for the event, and creating a centralized repository for all blog posts by speakers. Netvibes.com is free, and all you need to do is pick a layout, and then subscribe to the RSS feeds of each speaker’s blog.

    Use Pitchengine to create multi-media enabled press releases, and send the URL for the release to any and all “maybes” on your list.

    Gather social information from all registrants. Create a Twitter list of all attendees, and update it each time a new person registers.

    4. Integrate

    Now we’re talking about the on-site experience, which is where social media can really add impact and get people talking.

    Pick a hash tag for your event, so attendees and remote watchers can monitor on Twitter. Shorter the better, please. Then, start your conference with an unofficial Tweet-up. It gets your likely content creators motivated and excited.

    I’m not a big fan of the geek conference staple of having a live, streaming Twitter wall behind speakers while they speak. Too distracting. But, I love having a big Twitter wall in a central conference location. This requires very little effort now, using something like Tweetwally.

    Create an event within the event by running contests on Twitter during the conference. My friend Dawn DeVirgilio at ExactTarget is great at this, with multiple small prizes per day.

    In this one, she hid gift cards around the conference, and took pictures of the locations. Whomever found it first, won.

    Here, she drove people to the Expo Hall, and awarding an unexpected, memorable prize – an upgrade to a hotel suite.

    5. Inform

    I’m a big fan of voting via text message, and I’d like to see more events more toward session evaluations through that same interface. Do we really need to be killing trees for written speaker evaluation forms, not to mention the environmental impact of hundreds of golf pencils.

    I also believe QR codes have huge potential at events, and SXSW put them on every name tag this year. Alas, until standards are adopted and the software is built in to smartphones, we won’t see widespread adoption. But, it will happen by 2012 for certain.

    6. Propagate

    Create your own media during the event.

    Via Ustream (and its amazing iphone app) you can stream live video of your event for free. Why wouldn’t you?

    Set up an official Flickr gallery for the event, and encourage attendees to take photos and upload them. Give prizes for Photo of the Day.

    Make a daily post-show podcast, interviewing speakers, sponsors, and attendees. Or, atomize that audio even more, and create tweets with sound using Twaud.io

    7. Aggregate

    Take the conference content and spread it as widely as possible. Your goal is to get the doubters that didn’t come this year to view that content and decide to go the next year.

    Take every conference presentation, and instead of just putting them on your Web site or emailing links to attendees, release them on SlideShare (one per day for maximum impact)

    Provide Twitter transcripts to attendees, and also post it to your various event pages. Backupify has a super cool new, free service called Session Tweets where you can automatically make a PDF of all tweets using your event hashtag.

    Reward good content. MarketingProfs’ Ann Handley staged a contest last year for their B2B Forum where attendees that created blog posts, video posts, photo galleries, etc and submitted them to the MarketingProfs blog were entered to win a prize – a free registration to next year’s event.

    Why couldn’t you do that? Why can’t you do all of this?

    Comments

     

  • eBay Launches Series of Seller Events

    eBay Launches Series of Seller Events

    eBay is starting a new series of events to help small businesses and part-time eBay sellers "accelerate their businesses" on eBay, which has 90 million active users. The series is called eBay: On Location, and has dates set for Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, and San Jose.

    "eBay sellers are creative entrepreneurs who understand that eBay’s global reach and dynamic marketplace offer the ideal setting to start and build a business online," says eBay Marketplaces President Lorrie Norrington. "We invite our sellers to eBay: On Location to connect with each other and to take the next step in making their eBay businesses even more successful."

    eBay On LocationThe goal of the series of events appears to be to let sellers network with one another and share ideas for maintaining a successful eBay business. There are also courses on "top seller secrets", productivity to boost sales and reduce costs, and utilizing social media to drive sales.

    "eBay sellers have become savvier about how to use eBay in ingenious ways," says Jim Griffith, eBay senior manager, Seller Strategy and Dean of Education. "eBay: On Location is a great way for the seller community to come together and share those strategies—and learn something new from experts."

    They are only letting in 500 people per event, and registration is offered on a first-come, first-served basis. It costs $45 to get in.

    Related Articles:

    > eBay to Make Changes to Seller Fees

    > eBay Fined $2.6 Million Over LVMH Sales

    > eBay Previews Possible Geotargeting Feature For Sellers

  • A Glimpse of This Year’s Upcoming Gadgets

    A Glimpse of This Year’s Upcoming Gadgets

    As you are probably aware, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has been going on this week, and will continue to do so through Sunday January, 10. WebProNews is in attendance, and will be periodically posting exclusive video interviews and looks at new products, continuing after the show is over.

    What are your favorite releases from CES? Tell us in the comments.

    As one would imagine, there have been quite a few announcements made up to this point. Due to the incredible amount of companies presenting products at the event (find the entire 400 page directory here), it would be near impossible to cover everything, but let us reflect upon some of the highlights.

    Microsoft has had quite a few things to talk about at CES. The company unveiled a new HP Windows 7 slate device, as well as some other new Windows 7 devices from Sony and Lenovo. Microsoft and HP are teaming up ohn search and portal experiences, which will see Bing as the default search engine, and MSN the default homepage on HP PCs in 42 countries.

    Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the upcoming exclusive availability of the HTC HD2 in partnership with T-Mobile and HTC. Microsoft announced Mediaroom 2.0, the next version of its IP TV solution for service providers. The company also announced a handful of big-name video games coming to the XBox (like the new Halo), Game Room on XBox Live, and Project Natal, the controller-free gaming experience.

    Intel launched a whole new family of processors. HP unveiled a new touch notebook and some new minis. Palm announced a couple of new handsets, updates to the webOS platform, and a deal with Verizon.

    Internet-ready television and video in general have been frequent themes throughout the event. Netflix announced deals with five new partners to create Netflix-ready TVs and Blu-ray players. DivX showed off a new online TV platform. Yahoo made multiple strides on the connected TV front, and introduced new hardware partnerships.

    Cisco unveiled some big plans it has in the way of video. The company announced new customers, features, and professional service options for the Cisco Eos social entertainment platform, and that it is providing a medianet to NBC during the network’s coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. The company also announced some impressive data for Flip Video during the holiday season.

    Boxee is also showing off the details of its Boxee Box and Boxee Beta became available for general downloading. Opera released some new software development kits and a new browser. Research in Motion (RIM)unveiled the BlackBerry presenter, which is a way to show PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, etc. right from your BlackBerry device.

    BlackBerry Presenter

    Samsung is one company that has had a lot of announcements at CES. They announced their first e-readers, a new "eco-friendly" external hard drive family, a new slim external DVD writer for laptop and netbook markets, a new app store for TVs, Blu-Ray players, home theater systems and mobile phones, a new series of Plasma HDTVs, a new series of LED HDTVs, a new series of LCD TVs, new Blu-ray players, home theater systems, standalone AV receivers, and a four-door refrigerator. The company also teamed with DreamWorks Animation and Technicolor to form a global strategic alliance for 3D home entertainment.

    HD Radio is involved with a lot of exhibits at CES. There are 25 new HD Radio products being introduced and 15 auto brands will be producing over 80 vehicle types this year, with 36 of them including HD Radio technology.

    There are hundreds of car-related electronics exhibits at CES, but the most attention has been given to Ford and its Internet-ready vehicles.

    The Open Internet has been heavily promoted throughout CES, thanks to the Open Internet Coalition, who has distributing buttons and laptop stickers throughout the CES event, with a quick response code. When captured by a reader on a mobile device, the QR code will launch a webpage, which allows users to add their names to a petition supporting the FCC’s proposed rules for maintaining an open Internet.

    CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro announced that the consumer electronics industry is set to generate over $165 billion in U.S. shipment revenues this year.

    The things discussed in this article really only scratch the surface of the things being showed off at CES. Stay tuned to WebProNews and the WebProNews Video Blog in particular for exclusive looks at a lot of the products from the event.

    How do you rate this CES compared to years past? Share your thoughts. Talk about some of the other products from CES in the comments.

  • Samsung Unveils First E-Readers at CES

    At the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, Samsung introduced its first e-book reading devices. They’re called the E6 and the E101, coming in six and ten-inch screen sizes. 

    "We’ve used our expertise to create a high-quality e-book with today’s on-the-go consumer in mind," said Young Bae, director of display marketing, Samsung Information Technology Division. "Samsung is addressing a common frustration that users experience with many of today’s digital readers with a stylus that allows them to annotate their favorite works or take notes. Coupled with wireless functionality that enables sharing of content, this is a truly multi-faceted device."

    The E6 and E101 enable handwriting directly onto the display, letting users annotate their reading selections, calendars and to-do lists with a built-in electromagnetic resonance (EMR) stylus pen. Samsung says the pen prevents mistypes caused by hands and other objects that graze the screen’s surface. It comes with a variety of pen and eraser thicknesses.

    Samsung Ereaders

    According to the company, the Samsung e-book displays reflect light naturally and deliver an appearance similar to that of printed paper, allowing people to read more naturally than they would with other backlit electronic paper devices.

    "The E101 boasts a ten-inch screen, while the E6, is the more portable sibling at six inches," says Samsung. "Because Samsung’s e-book is not backlit, the power consumption is lower than that of other portable display devices. Only four hours of charging prepares the battery for up to two weeks of use, depending on the extent of daily use."

    Samsung the devices will be available early this year with the E^ priced at $399 and the E101 priced at $699.

    Watch for more WebProNews coverage of CES, with exclusive video interviews coming soon.
     

    Related Articles:

    > CES: Opera Releases New SDKs and New Browser

    > Cisco Leaving a Big Mark on Consumer Electronics Show

    > HP Unveils New Touch Notebook and Some New Minis at CES

  • HD Radio Tech a Big Theme Throughout CES

    At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, there will be a total of 25 new HD Radio products introduced, making for this technology’s broadest product category coverage ever. This year, 15 automotive brands will produce over 80 vehicle types, and 36 of them will include HD Radio Technology, according to iBiquity Digital.

    Brands include:

    – Audi
    – BMW
    – Ford
     – Hyundai
    – Jaguar
    – Kia
    – Land Rover
    – Lincoln
    – Mercedes Benz
    – Mercury
    – MINI USA
    – Rolls Royce
    – Scion
    – Volkswagen
    – Volvo

    At least three new vehicles are on display at the event at the HD Radio booth – the Ford 2011 Taurus SHO, Volkswagen 2010 MY Golf TDI, and 2010 Scion xB. The first ever factory installed implementation of HD Radio enabled iTunes Tagging will occur at CES and will be showcased by Ford. A number of after-market solutions from various brands are being displayed as well.

    HD Radio "New low-cost, low power IC solutions were introduced at CES 2009," says iBiquity Digital. "Since that technical breakthrough, many new portable products have been committed for launch into the consumer market, several of which are currently available, with additional new models on display at CES 2010."

    These include Microsoft Zune HD, Insignia ND-HD01, Cydle T43H (PND w/ Real Time Traffic), Cydle P15, Gigaware 12-645 and 12-646, Sangean DT 600HD and Sangean DT 800HD. iBiquity itself is developing a Software Development Kit (SDK) for receiver partners to aid feature integration, which is planned for later in 2010.

    Over 2,000 stations in the US use HD Radio Technology. The technology allows for a richer multimedia experience than traditional radio giving users access to album art and other features.

    Watch for more WebProNews coverage of CES, with exclusive video interviews coming soon.
     

    Related Articles:

    > CES: Opera Releases New SDKs and New Browser

    > Cisco Leaving a Big Mark on Consumer Electronics Show

    > HP Unveils New Touch Notebook and Some New Minis at CES

     

  • CES About to Kick Off the Year in Technology

    The Consumer Electronics Association is hosting the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week, and WebProNews will be there to provide coverage. Last year we came away with about 25 video interviews and product demos. This year, our entire video crew will be out there, so expect a lot of good stuff.

    Look for a lot of new innovations in mobile, television, cars, and apps. There will no doubt be a lot of cool things unveiled.

    Consumer Electronics Show - 2010As usual, there will be quite a few celebrities in attendance at the event. This year, a guest might bump into Stan Lee, Drew Carey, James Worthy, Chris Mullin, or Methods of Mayhem’s Tommy Lee. A full list is here.

    Keynotes will be delivered by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro, Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally, Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini, Nokia President and CEO  Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Qualcomm Chairman and CEO Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, and Hisense Chairman Zhou Houjian.

    There will be many, many exhibitors such as Adobe, AMD, Cisco, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Ford Motor Company, Garmin, Intel, Kia Motors, Kodak, LG Electronics, Marvel, Microsoft, Monster, MOtorola, Opera, Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, Sanyo, Sprint, Taser, and lots more.

    The nearly 400-page directory for the event gives you a pretty good idea about the breadth of information and technology that will be covered at this enormous event.  

    You can find some of our past CES coverage here (articles). Our video coverage can be found here.

    Related Articles:

    > Scoble on TV Experience and CES

    > The Truth About CES

    > Looking Back on CES