Shared by Max
It is time for location -based services, finally! It was 2001 when I first start hearing and discussing about the potential of location-based advertising. The hard part of the job has always been the positioning of the user and the collection of the information, plus, of course, the motivation for people to use the service giving to the world its position.
Now that Facebook has introduced features similar to the one of foursquare, all the hard part are overcome.... let's see what will happen

Version 3.2 of the Facebook iPhone app has arrived in the app store, and while it comes with several new features and bug fixes, it’s the arrival of Facebook Places that make this update one to remember.

Revealed earlier today at a press event at Facebook’s headquarters, Facebook Places is the company’s attempt at geolocation. Similar to Foursquare, Places allows you to see where your friends are or to check in to nearby locations.

The updated app prominently puts Places front-and-center when you first open up the new app. “See where your friends are and share where you are” is the message that greets users when they first open up Facebook for iPhone. Tapping on the Places icon takes you to a menu where you can either scan where your friends have recently checked in or check in to a location yourself.

The checking-in process is still a bit buggy though (I can’t refresh the page with all of my friends’ check-ins), (Read more...)

Shared by Max
A clever way of promoting a movie using a service loved by the target. Chatroulette is a pursuit for teenagers that, as you can see in the video, get an "unexpected preview" of the scary "bu bu sette" effect of the orror movie..

We won’t spoil it for you: check out the video below (be advised, it contains strong words and unpleasant imagery) to see the best reactions of Chatroulette users.

Interestingly, this is not the first viral video campaign for the movie; a couple of weeks ago a website called Church of Saint Marks appeared, bringing “information” on exorcism, when in fact the man featured on the site, Reverend Cotton Marcus, is one of the main characters from the movie. The Last Exorcism is slated to hit the theaters on August 27.

[Thanks, Boris]

More About: chatroulette, The last exorcism, viral videos

For more Social Media coverage:

• Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Social Media channel
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Shared by Max
Per un momento di pausa e di sperimentazione di come i nostri sensi si possono ingannare facilmente. Siamo sicuri di tutto quello che percepiamo? ;-)

Using nothing more than our eyes’ and brain’s perceptive weaknesses, these clever videos will trick your gray matter and leave you amazed. Or, if you’re really hard to impress, you’ll at least be mildly taken aback.

Assuming you don’t have a medical condition that would make it unwise to stare at these brain busters, hop on through our gallery below. We pinky-swear there are no trick videos.

Optical Illusion #1

This one works best if you stare really hard at the spiral ... as hard as your little eyes can...

Optical Illusion #2

This video is sure to give you a "whoa" moment if ever an illusion could. It's so good, we had to pause the vid at the crucial moment to make sure it was not a trick.

Optical Illusion #3

The suggestion of movement creates clever optical trickery in this video.

Optical Illusion #4

This example uses receptor fatigue to work. And yes, we did have to look that up.

Optical Illusion #5

We've saved the best for last here. Stare at the cross in the middle as the video is playing. Guess (Read more...)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The art and science of persuasion is often discussed as though changing people's minds is about using the right arguments, the right tone of voice or the right negotiation tactic. But effective influence and persuasion isn't just about patter, body language or other techniques, it's also about understanding people's motivations.

In the scrabble to explain technique, it's easy to forget that there are certain universal goals of which, at least some of the time, we are barely aware. Influence and persuasion attempts must tap into these to really gain traction.

Techniques of persuasion

To illustrate these universal goals, let's have a look at six common techniques of influence that you'll have come across either explicitly or implicitly (from Cialdini, 2001):

1. Liking: It's much easier to influence someone who likes you. Successful influencers try to flatter and uncover similarities in order to build attraction.
2. Social proof. People like to follow one another, so influencers imply the herd is moving the same way.
3. Consistency. Most people prefer to keep their word. If people make a commitment, particularly if it's out loud or in writing, they are much more likely to keep it. Influencers should try to gain verbal or written commitments.
4. Scarcity. Even when companies have warehouses full of a product, they still advertise using time-limited offers that emphasise scarcity. People want what they can't have, or at least what (Read more...)

Bottled water is healthy water -- or so marketers would have us believe. Just look at the bottled water labels or ads: deep, pristine pools of spring water; majestic alpine peaks ... In reality, bottled water is just water; however, that fact isn't stopping people from buying a lot of it.

Here are some solid reasons to kick the bottled water habit from our friends at Term Life Insurance.

Source: Term Life Insurance

EMBED THE IMAGE ABOVE ON YOUR SITE

Via: Term Life Insurance

Ben Parr / Mashable!:
Twitter to Show Photos and Videos in the Stream [UPDATED]  —  A new Twitter setting called “Tweet Media” has rolled out to some of Twitter's users, strongly suggesting that the company will soon embed videos and photos in the stream.  —  Tweet Media, which the Mashable team and others …

Shared by Max
Pagati per interagire con un'azienda, il "consumatore" finalmente viene remunerato per la sua attenzione

Since January 2010, I’ve been working with Out There Media, a leading mobile ad agency that is taking Asia by storm.  This trailblazing company brings with them some innovative, proven strategies where ads not only build awareness -but also create long-term engagements between customers and brands. This mode of dialogue driven advertising allows them, over-time to build more insightful, detailed customer behavior profiles that go well beyond age, sex, salary and geographic location.

M-advertising isn’t a new in Asia. In fact mobile campaigns were pioneered in this region long before teenage girls in the US ever new what texting was. Interesting enough, today’s regional brand marketing still use mobile advertising like any other traditional media; either as a one-way message blasted out to subscribers (opted in or not) or as a back-channel for customers to “get more info” by sending a text to an SMS short code.

OTM’s new strategy consists of a social reward combined with an engagement variable. What’s that mean? Well, in emerging economies post-paid mobile phone plans are not the norm. In this parallel world, the prepaid mobile SIMs are what the majority of the population uses. Simply put – Once a consumer opts-in to allow for mobile ads to be sent to their phone, they are rewarded for their participation via free calls/sms/mms credits. These mobile campaigns use clever ways to incite participation while simultaneously extracting personal (Read more...)

Over the last few years we’ve seen many sites try to merge social networks and shopping, but nobody has really cracked the nut yet. Today sees the launch of a new startup called Mertado that’s taking a different route than most online retailers: rather than try to integrate social features into a retail site, it’s offering a store that’s actually built on Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect, and it’s looking to use the social graph to its advantage. Mertado was part of the most recent batch of Y Combinator companies, and drew interest from investors even before Demo Day, closing a round of over $1 million led by Redpoint Ventures, Blumberg Capital, and Stubhub founder Jeff Fluhr

Mertado offers both a Facebook application and a standalone website that uses Facebook Connect. Once you’ve signed up, the service will regularly suggest new deals to you, using information gleaned from your Facebook profile to identify exactly which deals will be most appealing (on any given day it might have ten deals, but it will only suggest the ones it thinks you’ll like). Mertado’s founders say that most deals are at least 50% off of the MSRP. Some deals will continue to drop in price as more people purchase them (and everyone who participates pays the lowest price), though there’s never a cutoff for a deal to become ‘activated’ the way there is on Groupon.

The service’s viral features are based on suggestions: if you suggest a deal to your friend and they (Read more...)