i3m Blog

Facebook pages for artists now include ‘listen’ button

interface, Internet News 235 Responses »

Apr 182012

Facebook has implemented a “listen” button on artists’ fan pages that lets users instantly stream songs from an artist’s catalog.

The button, which sits between options to Like and message the page below an artist’s cover photo, plays music using whichever Facebook-connected streaming service a person uses most frequently. Users can play and pause a song with the button, but they have to visit the streaming service to skip to the next song or fast forward through a track.

The feature will help users sample music when they visit an artist page for the first time and could help make Facebook a go-to option for people looking for new music, similar to how many people used MySpace in its heyday. Streaming services will benefit from the traffic and artists will appreciate Facebook linking to legally licensed versions of their work. Page tab application companies like ReverbNation and BandPage could suffer, since one of the key features they offer is music players for artists’ Facebook pages.

SOURCE: Facebook pages for artists now include ‘listen’ button.

Facebook Rolls Out Bigger Profile Images, Days After Google+

interface, Internet News 497 Responses »

Apr 162012

Facebook Rolls Out Bigger Profile Images, Days After Google+: “Over the course of the last week, Facebook has started to roll out a small improvement to Facebook profiles, increasing the size of a user’s profile picture on their Timeline, a move that comes just days after Google updated Google+ profiles to sport a larger photo.

Previously, a Timeline photo measured 130 x 125 pixels, overlaying a user’s Timeline Cover image. The image is a smaller version of a user’s profile image, which can be displayed in full when a visitor clicks it.

However, as Emanuele Bartolomucci and a number of Twitter users have noticed, Facebook’s profile images now measure 166 x 160 pixels.

SOURCE: Online Marketing Trends: Facebook Rolls Out Bigger Profile Images, Days After Google+.

YouTube Opens Partner Program to Everyone

Internet News, Your Brand 255 Responses »

Apr 132012

YouTube‘s Partner Program, previously opened only to producers of very popular content, is now open to all content creators from the 20 countries where the program is available.

To become a YouTube Partner, you need to enable your YouTube account and successfully monetize at least one of your videos.

YouTube’s guidelines for successful monetization are here, but in a nutshell, your best bet is to create original content while owning all the rights to commercially use all the visuals and audio in your video.

via YouTube Opens Partner Program to Everyone.

We’re ’99 percent sure’ we discovered life on Mars in 1976

Tech News 247 Responses »

Apr 132012

New analysis of an experiment performed by the Viking landers suggests that evidence of microbial life in the Martian soil may have been detected 36 years ago. As one of the authors of this new paper puts it: “on the basis of what we’ve done so far, I’d say I’m 99 percent sure there’s life there.” Whoa.

The experiment that the researchers looked at has been a controversial one for a very long time. It was called the Labeled Release (LR) experiment, and it was one of a set of four different tests that the Viking landers carried to try to detect life on Mars. In the LR experiment, the lander scooped up a sample of Martian soil and dumped it into a chamber which was then sealed up. A drop of a slightly radioactive nutrient solution was added, and then the air above the soil sample was monitored so see if there was anything alive in the soil metabolizing those nutrients.

To the surprise of everyone, the LR experiment detected a steady stream of radioactivity coming out of the soil after the nutrient solution was added. Something was definitely going on. However, the other three experiments didn’t come up with anything at all, and the consensus back in 1976 was that the LR result was just some chemical reaction caused by rocks as opposed to any sign of microbial life.

New research published last month in the International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences has taken a fresh look at the Viking LR experiment results, and the authors of this paper seem confident that the best way to explain the data is through the existence of microbial life after all.

MIT scientists explain when we’ll have fusion power

Tech News 211 Responses »

Apr 132012

Back in March, we posted about how this could be the year where the National Ignition Facility breaks even with laser fusion, reaching the point where as much power is generated as is input. This doesn’t mean we’ve got a fusion power plant around the corner, though, and researchers have come clean about what the hold-up is.

Fusion power is what you get when you take two lightweight atomic nuclei and fuse them together into one heavier atomic nucleus, releasing energy in the process. It’s far cleaner and far more efficient than fission power, and the only reason that we’re not taking advantage of it right now is that it requires temperatures and pressures on the order of what you’d experience at the center of the sun to get it to work.

At MIT, they’ve been working on getting fusion to happen inside a Tokamak (called the Alcator C-Mod, pictured above), which is a piece of equipment that uses intense magnetic fields to confine and heat plasma to the point that fusion can be initiated, which is something on the order of tens to hundreds of million of degrees.

Monetary Value Of Yelp Reviews, Tweets And Status Updates Examined In New Study | INFOGRAPHIC

Internet News, Marketing, Your Brand 266 Responses »

Apr 122012

You could argue that your clever Facebook status updates and Frank Bruni-esque Yelp reviews are priceless, but the user data you generate can be converted into actual dollars and cents, thanks to the folks over at Backupify. But before anyone goes out looking to cash in on their status updates, it should be noted that the study points only to theoretical values.

As it turns out, Yelp reviews are valued at $9.13, while individual tweets translate to a paltry $0.001. A Foursquare check-in? $0.40. Updates on Path came in slightly higher at $0.50 each.

As for why there are such vast discrepancies, Rob May of Backupify explained to Business Week that, “The reason that Yelp reviews are valued so highly is that every review creates lot of value for other users,” he said. “You can’t create a lot of value for a lot of Path users because by its nature, it’s limited.”

via Monetary Value Of Yelp Reviews, Tweets And Status Updates Examined In New Study INFOGRAPHIC.

Google+ updates its user interface, refines navigation and photos

interface, Internet News, Web Design 235 Responses »

Apr 112012

Google announced today a major redesign and a set of new features for users of its Google+ service. Navigation and several user interface features on Google+ pages have gotten a design makeover, and several new features aim to attract more users to share photos and promote more interactions with each other.

Google has overhauled navigation by making things simpler than its previous design. Pages now feature a cleaner, more minimalist look to match some of Googles more recent updates to other applications like Gmail. A new “ribbon” of icons for home, profile, pages, and photos simplifies access to some of its major features. These icons can now be customized to users individual preferences. The end result is that now pages have a very clean, streamlined look made up of app-like icons.

Google+s new look and features also emphasize photos now more than ever before. Photos are now displayed prominently, using more space on the browsers screen. The new layouts are larger and more elegant, and they resemble the photo displays on sites like Tumblr or Flickr.

Why YouTube’s original programming changes the game

Internet News, Meme 367 Responses »

Apr 102012

YouTube is investing big money (to the tune of $100 million) and partnering with major personalities like Ashton Kutcher, Amy Poehler, and Shaquille O’Neal to produce original video content. Here’s why digital marketers can’t ignore the shift.

The game just changed. YouTube is investing an unconfirmed $100 million in original programming.

Talent includes names like Rainn Wilson, Deepak Chopra, Justin Lin, Anthony Zuiker, Amy Poehler, Ashton Kutcher, Shaquille O’Neal, and Tony Hawk. Studios, such as Maker Studios in Culver City, are focused on production. (Maker is reportedly producing 300 YouTube videos each month at the cost of $1000 each.) And the Wall Street Journal reports that Google is making the deal attractive to the content creators, with a reported 55 percent of ad revenues going to the program makers.

via Why YouTube’s original programming changes the game – iMediaConnection.com.

Facebook ads have higher clickthrough rates on weekends, study finds

Marketing, Your Brand 233 Responses »

Apr 102012

Average Facebook ad clickthrough rates are highest on weekends and lowest on Monday, according to new research by TBG Digital.

Specifically, Saturday’s average CTR is 12 percent higher than average CTR on Monday. Advertisers can use this information to understand their own campaign performance and perhaps adjust their Facebook ad strategies.

Facebook ad clickthrough rate is closely tied to cost per click and cost per impression. Ads with higher CTR are generally served more frequently. When ads have lower CTR, advertisers typically have to increase their bid price to get the same number of impressions. Facebook advertisers who want to maximize the CTR of their ads might decide to shift campaigns to the weekend when the averages seem to be in their favor.

Google’s new Chrome OS is like a hybrid between Windows and OS X

interface, Tech News 96 Responses »

Apr 102012

The master plan for Chrome OS was to move everybody into the cloud — away from file systems and desktops — and towards the Web browser as the operating system. Having failed to build much momentum, Google’s giving the OS a more traditional desktop experience — one that takes cues from Windows and OS X.

Google Operating System reports that the latest developer channel release of Chrome OS brings a “desktop, taskbar, apps on the desktop, wallpapers and overlapping windows” to the We browser-based Chrome OS.

Dubbed “Aura,” the new interface is a “hardware-accelerated user interface framework that offers rich visuals, large-scale animated transitions and effects.” It’s available for Samsung and Acer Chromebooks, but not Google’s own Cr-48 genericbook.

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