Part of the new iTunes 10 software, announced and launched yesterday, is a significant new social networking feature for iTunes called Ping. It allows you to comment on music, 'like' it a la Facebook, or rate it. Ping is also very similar to Twitter, in that you can 'follow' people and music stars. All of this happens inside of the iTunes application, either on your computer, iPhone or iPod Touch.

We took the new feature for a spin and came away intrigued, despite some initial flaws. We do however wonder at the overly commercial focus of Ping. Is this really about social networking, or mostly for Apple and artists to sell more music?

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How to Get Ping

To access Ping, you first need to download iTunes 10 onto your computer. You'll need to also download 300+ MB worth of iPhone Software Update, to get it on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

On the computer, once you've downloaded iTunes 10 click the iTunes Store link in the sidebar. You'll see a "Get Started" link in the top right of that page (also 'Ping' appears as a menu option in the sidebar). You'll need to turn on the Ping feature and agree to Apple's privacy policy. After that, create a profile.

Note that you may encounter issues with uploading a profile photo and connecting to Facebook. If you wait for about 10 minutes, eventually your photo will upload. However Facebook Connect appears to be broken at this stage. We assume these are technical teething issues.

Once you have your profile set up, you're invited to follow other people and also stars like Lady Gaga and U2. This is very similar to how Twitter works, except that it's all happening inside of iTunes (on your computer or on your iPhone or iPod Touch).

Social Networking, or Prodding You to The Cash Register?

Ping isn't entirely intuitive. It took some head scratching to figure out that to actually post content, you need to be in the iTunes Store. You can't create new content from within Ping itself, although you can comment on what others have added.

To add new content to your Ping stream, go to the iTunes Store and either comment on an album, 'like' it or give it a star rating.

The fact that you need to be inside the iTunes Store to create new content or like something, seems a rather cynical move to encourage people to buy more music. Why not let users search inside Ping for a song or album? Or, even better, let them right-click and comment, like or rate music from within the iTunes player?

Follow The Stars

To track - and optionally comment on - what others are doing, click on the Recent Activity feed in Ping.

Ping places more focus on feature accounts than Twitter, inviting you to "set your inner groupie free by following your favorite artists on Ping." The service comes pre-loaded with accounts for some leading pop, rock and other music acts.

These accounts don't offer much more than what the stars can already do on Facebook and Twitter. The main difference is that it's within an application where people can buy the music.

I'll Follow You (If You Share My Music Tastes)

Overall, I can see Ping being useful for following friends who have similar tastes in music to me. In those cases, if they 'like' a new album then it's a great recommendation - and yes, I'm more likely to buy it. Also the ability to see which concerts they plan to go to is a useful feature.

However, Ping is probably not going to be very useful for following friends who don't share my music tastes. That could be most of them. You may be a mate of mine on Facebook, but if you listen to electronica then sorry I'm not very interested in the content you're liking (you probably feel the same way about the alternative music I tend to favor).

Have you tested out Ping yet? Let us know your verdict in the comments!

Discuss

Samsung has finally spilled the details about its long-awaited tablet computer, the Galaxy Tab, during a press conference at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin.

Samsung calls its tablet a “smart media device,” and Galaxy Tab definitely has the specifications to back it up: Android 2.2 support, a Cortex A8 1 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM and 16/32 GB of internal memory with the possibility of upgrading through microSD memory cards.

Furthermore, there’s a 7 inch TFT-LCD display with 1024×600 pixel resolution, a 3 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED Flash plus an additional fron 1.3 megapixel camera for video chats (that’s got to hurt iPad owners at least a little bit) as well as WiFi and 3G connectivity. The dimensions of the device are 190.09 x 120.45 x 11.98mm, with 380 grams of weight, and the battery should last through 7 hours of movie playback.

In other words, the iPad got a worthy competitor, not only because of the capable hardware the Tab is sporting, but also because it has the latest and greatest version of Android. Although it’s smaller than the iPad, whose screen measures 9.7 inches, Galaxy Tab does a lot of things the iPad cannot do: it has two cameras, it supports Flash and a wide variety of multimedia formats, including DivX, XviD, MPEG4, H.263, and H.264.

Samsung has partnered with Vodafone for the launch, and the Galaxy Tab will start selling in October in the majority of Vodafone’s European markets and later this year in the U.S and other markets.

More About: android, samsung, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Tablet

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[Updated at 2:14 p.m.] For continuing coverage of the incident involving a production platform on fire in the Gulf read the full story here.

[Updated at 2:08 p.m.] U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Elizabeth Bordelon tells CNN there is a sheen at the site of the production platform that measures approximately 1 mile by 100 feet. This information comes after Gov. Bobby Jindal who said there were reports of a mile-long sheen.

[Updated at 1:03 p.m.] Mariner Energy, owner of the production platform, said in a press release that no hydrocarbon spill has been reported after an initial flyover of the incident.

"Mariner has notified and is working with regulatory authorities in response to this incident," the statement said. "The cause is not known, and an investigation will be undertaken. During the last week of August 2010, production from this facility averaged approximately 9.2 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and 1,400 barrels of oil and condensate."

The company also said no injuries have been reported.

[Updated at 12:48 p.m.] David Reed, a paramedic on board the Rowan Gorilla II oil rig located 14 miles from the platform that exploded told submitted an iReport saying he saw all thirteen workers rescued from the water.

“We were up here in the radio room and all of sudden we saw a whole bunch of smoke coming from the platform," Reed said. "Shortly after all the radios started lighting up like a Christmas tree. They called any helicopters in the area, any boats in the area to respond, they were saying there were people in the water. There were multiple people in the water.”

See Reed's iReport of what he witnessed

WWL: Coast Guard reporting production platform incident

WDSU: Production platform explodes in Gulf

iReport: Did you see the explosion? Share images

[Updated at 12:32 p.m.] White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that the federal government has "assets ready" to respond to any environmental problems resulting from the explosion of an oil platform off the coast of Louisiana.

[Updated at 12:31 p.m.] All thirteen people aboard a production platform that exploded in the Gulf are accounted for and safely on a commercial vessel according to initial information, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement.

"We continue to gather information as we respond with full force, and have oil spill response assets ready for immediate deployment should we receive any reports of pollution," the statement said.

[Updated at 11:53 a.m.] U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Colclough tells CNN that 12 people from the production platform are in water immersion suits as they await rescue.

Colclough told CNN there are reports the production platform, which is for both oil and natural gas, is still on fire.

"We don't know what caused the rig to catch on fire," he told CNN, noting the incident is under investigation.

Asked about concerns regarding oil leaks or pollution, Colclough said "there are reports the rig was not actively producing any product, so we don't know if there's any risk of pollution."

Mariner Energy is a leading independent oil and gas exploration and production company in the Gulf of Mexico. About 85 percent of the company's production comes from offshore assets, with a growing share of that coming from deepwater developments.

The explosion comes nearly five months after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded April 20, killing 11 people and causing oil to gush into
the Gulf of Mexico, leading to one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.

[Updated at 11:43 a.m.] U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Colclough tells CNN that all 13 workers involved in the production platform explosion are accounted for, but one person is injured.

Coast Guard Choppers are on the way to the site 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay.

[Posted at 11:33 a.m.] An oil production platform has exploded 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana, with 12 people overboard and one missing, the Coast Guard said Thursday morning.

Rescue attempts are under way for at least 12 people, Coast Guard spokesman John Edwards told CNN. 13 people were on board the production platform total, Edwards said, noting 12 have been accounted for, but one person was missing.

The accident took place 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana on the Vermilion Oil production platform 380, which is owned by Houston-based Mariner Energy.

The Coast Guard has multiple helicopters, an airplane and several Coast Guard cutters en route. It's unknown if there are any injuries.

Apple made a lot of announcements today, from the new Apple TV to the Ping social network for music built into iTunes 10.

Because Apple is entering some new market segments (or, in the case of Ping, some new markets, period) Apple is now a direct competitor to a number of other companies already in the social music and streaming content space.

Boxee, Rdio and Roku have all issued statements in response to Apple’s latest moves and what, if anything, it means for the future of those startups.

Apple is describing Ping as a social network for music. It takes a very Facebook and Twitter approach to following friends and artists and is designed to make discovering and sharing new music super simple.

Rdio, a startup created by the founders of Skype, also lists music discovery as one of its core strengths and missions. Of course, unlike iTunes, Rdio is a subscription service that allows users to enjoy on-demand streaming music for $4.99 or $9.99 a month.

This is the statement Rdio sent us in response to Apple’s latest social music plans:

“Today’s announcement from Apple completely validates Rdio’s social approach to discovering music through people,” said Carter Adamson, COO, Rdio. “But in our view, sharing a short clip doesn’t amount to sharing music and people are still restricted by Apple’s pay-per-tune platform.”

Rdio also notes that it has apps for the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry.

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Roku and Boxee Respond

---

When the first Apple TV was introduced back in January 2007, the market for connected video devices essentially started and ended with TiVo (at least on the commercial level). Almost four years later, the landscape is very different.

Steve Jobs highlighted some of the reasons Apple though the Apple TV didn’t really take off and many of the changes to the new Apple TV are designed to address those issues. Some of the changes, including a lower price, a focus on streaming, rather than storing content, and subscription access to Netflix, are familiar to fans of the connected device space.

Roku, a company that introduced the first Netflix Watch Instantly set-top box back in 2008, shares many of the same features and is also similarly priced to the new Apple TV.

Roku provided us with this statement:

Roku created the category for streaming players over two years ago with the original Netflix player for $99. Since then the category has continued to grow rapidly with large hardware entrants like Xbox, PS3, Wii, blu-ray players, and now AppleTV adding streaming capabilities. … During this time Roku sales have continued to accelerate as the overall streaming market grows, and customers enjoy our simple interface, low cost and large selection of services. Our customers are using the box more and more. Two years ago the average Roku customer used our product 11 hours a month, but now it’s 43 hours a month.

Beyond Netflix we have introduced over 50 additional content partners on our open platform that offer customers access to over 100,000 movies and TV shows, live sports, music, photo and video sharing, and more — all while continuing to reduce the cost of our products. Today, a customer can get a Roku player for as low as $59.99 and an HD-capable model for as low as $69.99, plus a 1080p model for $99.99. By selling direct to customers (on roku.com) we can offer more while maintaining lower prices.

Roku is completely confident that our strategy of offering more features and lower cost than competitors continues to be the right plan.

The core difference, as we see it, between what Roku offers and what Apple TV offers is that Roku is a streaming player that connects to bigger content networks. You can browse videos from Vimeo and blip.tv, you can watch UFC Pay-per-view content and you can watch premium titles from Netflix or Amazon VOD.

However, Roku doesn’t have a connection to a users networked content on the Mac, PC or mobile device. Roku has more content options for users but offers less content to a users personal local library.

For Boxee, the situation is a bit more complex. Boxee started as software that could be run on the Mac or Apple TV. Many original Apple TV owners (myself included) only bought the Apple TV because of Boxee. Boxee added the third-party content options that the original Apple TV lacked.

Meanwhile, the Boxee Box promised to be a streaming media device to both your local network and to sources like Netflix, Crackle.com MUBI.

On the Boxee Blog, founder Avner Ronen had this to say:

Most of us at Boxee are Apple fanboys. If it is silver and it has the Apple logo on it, we pre-order it. If there’s a line around the block, chances are we’re in it. And everything stops at Boxee HQ while we unbox the latest gadget to come out of Cupertino. We were incredibly excited when a couple of developers in the community made it possible to run Boxee on Apple TV (as hundreds of thousands of users have done) and the Boxee Remote for iPhone remains one of the most popular interfaces people use to interact with Boxee. Plenty has happened since then. …
We all watched the Apple announcement. We walked away feeling strongly confident about the space it left for Boxee to compete. We have a different view of what users want in their living rooms. We are taking different paths to get there. The Boxee Box is going to be $100 more expensive than the Apple TV, but will give you the freedom to watch what you want.

The new Apple TV features, especially the addition of AirPlay, really go to the heart of what Boxee offers: A simple way to access local and online content directly from the TV.

While lacking a direct link to the iTunes ecosystem, Boxee does have a layer of extensibility that the new Apple TV still doesn’t really seem to embrace.

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Make No Mistake, Apple IS Competition

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The position that all three companies are taking is that Apple’s entry into their respective fields reaffirms their business plans. The secondary position is that the value proposition offered by each service is enough to differentiate them from Apple’s offerings.

This is true and false at the same time. While existing music networks and connected devices can surely still compete against Apple, make no mistake, this is a competition.

Apple is gunning not just for Boxee and Roku, but for Google TV, TiVo Premiere and video game consoles that tout the ability to stream content.

Mashable’s Ben Parr has already opined on the potential impact Ping will have on MySpace and other music networks like Last.fm and MOG should also be aware of the new competition.

Apple still has to sell itself to consumers in the living room, and the new Apple TV just makes that sales pitch more attractive. Where Apple doesn’t have to sell itself is with music. iTunes is the largest music store in the world and the go-to place for finding and buying music. Adding in social components to that is going to upset other sharing and discovery services.

This doesn’t mean that competing against Apple is going to be impossible, but music networks and connected device makers do need continue to keep an eye on Cupertino. Apple’s here to play.

What impact do you think Apple TV and Ping will have on its competitors? Let us know!

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Reviews: Android, Boxee, Crackle, Facebook, Netflix Watch Instantly, Ping, Skype, Twitter, Vimeo

More About: apple, Apple TV, boxee, connected devices, itunes 10, Ping, rdio, roku

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(Jean-Pierre Major) – C’est honteux de voir que le gouvernement du Québec organise et attribue des fonds pour demander au CRÉ et MRC de mettre sur papier des plans d’avenir en matière de ressources naturelles, alors que de l’autre côté le même gouvernement a déjà attribué des centaines de permis ou « claims » dans le but d’explorer le sous-sol québécois et éventuellement de l’exploiter.

Les MRC, villes et citoyens n’ont rien à dire. Les Conférences régionales des élus (CRÉ) sont invités à faire des forums et débattre afin de créer des Plans régionaux de développement intégré des ressources naturelles et du territoire (PRDIRT). Les PRDIRT doivent établir les bases pour les 40 prochaines années.

Pour voir concrètement la carte du Québec « vendu » et qui détient les permis, jeter un coup d’œil attentif à ce document de Ressources naturelles et Faune Québec datant du 2e trimestre de 2010.

Il y a beaucoup de compagnies étrangères et canadiennes. De plus, si vous faites des recherches poussées, vous constaterez que souvent des étrangers détiennent des actions importantes des entreprises canadiennes ou québécoises.

Autre fait, on a attribué à Raymond Savoie et ses firmes Gastem et  Ditem plusieurs permis d’exploration.

Raymond Savoie est un ancien ministre libéral (ministre délégué aux Mines de 1985-89), Ministre du Revenu (1990-1994) et a été membre de l’exécutif national du Parti Libéral du Québec. Avec Ditem, Raymond Savoie  est impliqué dans le dossier controversé de l’exploitation d’uranium. En ce qui a trait au gaz de schiste, son entreprise Gastem est la firme qui a le plus de « claims »  sur le territoire du Suroît dont le puits d’exploration à Dundee dans le Haut St-Laurent.

S’il y avait exploitation éventuellement, aucune redevance n’est prévue actuellement pour les municipalités, villes ou MRC ou citoyens. Au plus, le gouvernement du Québec recevra entre 5 et 15%.

On nous tient volontairement dans l’ignorance dans ce dossier, pas seulement les citoyens, mais aussi les maires, les MRC et les CRÉ.  Au cours des derniers jours  comme moi, vous avez dû entendre parler de gaz de schiste.  J’ai entendu à la radio André Caillé porte-parole de l’Association pétrolière et gazière du Québec (APGQ), ex-PDG d’Hydro-Québec et membre du conseil d’administration de Junex Inc., une firme détentrice de permis d’exploration. Il a parlé de retombées d’emploi.

La réalité est que l’industrie des fraises au Québec génère et génèrera plus d’emploi!

La réalité, qui provient même de membres de l’Association pétrolière et gazière du Québec est que l’industrie n’engage pas au Québec et n’investit pas chez nous. C’est ce que rapportait Antonin Lavigne dans un article récent du Journal D’Affaires du Sud-Ouest. Il citait Daniel Vincent le directeur des Relations avec les investisseurs chez Gastem. « Nous sommes contraints de sous-contracter la main-d’œuvre à des entreprises de l’ouest puisque la main d’œuvre dans ce domaine est inexistante ici. »  L’exploration gazière ne produit qu’un minimum de retombées principalement dû à la spécialisation et au peu de frais encourus par ce type de travail.  Monsieur Vincent  d’ajouter « Nous encourageons fortement les compagnies sous-traitantes à consommer dans la localité, jusqu’à demander de faire le plein d’essence à l’intérieur de la région quand cela est possible. »  WOW

Ces entreprises n’ont même pas la décence de parler de formation en prévision d’engager des québécois!

L’exploration est tellement avancée au Québec qu’en fouillant sur le site des entreprises détentrice de « claims » on apprend que dans le Suroît, le puits Dundee #1  est en exploration particulièrement depuis 2004. Lors des explorations,  l’entreprise peut faire des levées sismiques de près de 20 km à partir d’un puits.

D’ailleurs Gastem parle de sa propriété de Dundee-Soulanges  ayant une superficie de 92 700 hectares!

Hé Ho quelqu’un, êtes-vous au courant qu’il y a aussi des gens qui habitent ce territoire! Sachez que dans la région de la Montérgie-Ouest qu’on appelle la Vallée-du-Haut-St-Laurent on retrouve les meilleurs sols de la province et la plus forte concentration d’exploitation agricoles recensées sur le territoire québécois, soit 1.6 ferme/km².

Nous avons un devoir de citoyen, soit celui de nous informer. Cela vise autant les médias, les élus et que monsieur et madame Tout le monde. Les élus, peu importe leur allégeance politique et leur palier de gouvernement, doivent aller chercher de l’information neutre rapidement. Ils doivent parler en connaissance de cause.

Des questions il y en a beaucoup :

1. Pourquoi les élus municipaux sont-ils aussi surpris que nous, de voir débarquer de nuit des équipes de forages et d’exploration sans aucun avis?
2. Pourquoi chercher autant de gaz naturel, alors que ce sont majoritairement des grandes industries qui utilisent cette ressource et non les citoyens?
3. Pourquoi les résidents de l’état de New York ont-ils obtenu un moratoire sur l’exploration le temps d’avoir une vision neutre sur les méthodes d’exploration qui  utilisent beaucoup d’eau potable et beaucoup de produits chimiques et qu’un même moratoire est impossible au Québec?
4. Pourquoi a-t-on eu des problèmes importants récemment  lors de l’exploration en Pennsylvanie et pourquoi cela est impossible au Québec ?
5. Pourquoi le gouvernement créé-t-il des audiences du BAPE au lieu de répondre à la demande de moratoire?
6. Pourquoi est-ce si urgent de s’occuper du gaz de schiste alors qu’il y a cinq ans personne n’en avait entendu parler?
7. Que changera un délai causé par un moratoire si tout est beau est conforme?
8. Pourquoi que plusieurs des entreprises québécoises qui ont reçu des permis ou « claims » ont-t-ils des actionnaires qui étaient, ou sont encore proche des libéraux ?
9. Pourquoi tenir des rencontres avec les gens de l’industrie dans 3 secteurs du Québec, alors que les « claims » ou permis ont été attribués sur la grande majorité de la province?
10. Y-a-t-il des citoyens qui ne méritent pas d’être informé, ou y-a-t-il des choses à cacher ?
11. Pourquoi dire que le Québec peut être un précurseur et doit se positionner dans ce domaine, alors que la majorité des entreprises détentrices de permis ici explorent, ou tentent d’explorer ailleurs dans le monde?
12. Si tout le monde a du gaz de schiste, quel sera sa valeur réelle sur le marché à long terme?

Pour notre avenir et celui de nos enfants, même si cela ne nous tente pas, il faut s’informer! C’est notre devoir que l’on soit un élu, un représentant de médias ou un simple citoyen. On est en 2010 et il semble que quelqu’un tente de nous ramener à l’époque de Duplessis. Qu’est-ce que cela cache et pourquoi être si pressé?

Si Jean Charest et Nathalie Normandeau sont si convaincus du bien fondé de tout cela, accepteraient-ils d’être redevables à la société québécoise?

Après avoir posé la question à plusieurs personnes de mon entourage, j’ai confirmé le constat général qui existe autour du réseau social Twitter en France : Kesseséça ?? (=  sentiment d’incompréhension générale). D’où vient donc ce mépris du grand public français à utiliser cet outil dont les médias prônent une évolution constante du nombre d’utilisateurs à travers le monde ? Pourquoi considère-t-on que Twitter est adapté uniquement aux professionnels mais surtout, comment utiliser ce réseau social ?

Tout d’abord, la question que l’on peut se poser est : Pourquoi les français ont-ils autant de mal à intégrer ce réseau à leurs pratiques comme ça a été si facilement le cas avec Myspace et Facebook ?

La première raison qui vient à l’esprit de chacun est ce lexique en apparence trop compliqué, voire inaccessible pour certains, qui demande un investissement de temps pour démarrer que les internautes ne comprennent pas.

La seconde raison est qu’à l’origine Twitter n’existait qu’en anglais et la version francophone n’a vu le jour que très récemment (fin 2009) en comparaison à sa date de création en 2006. On connait l’intérêt des français pour la langue de Shakespeare…

De plus, le site est perçu comme une interface davantage adaptée aux professionnels et aux médias qu’aux utilisateurs qui désirent simplement renouer les contacts avec leur entourage.

Par ailleurs, il n’est pas aussi aisé d’être suivi sur Twitter que sur Facebook car il faut que les tweets publiés soient intéressants pour susciter de l’intérêt auprès des potentiels suiveurs.

Et enfin, cette nécessité de synthétiser ce dont on souhaite parler en 140 caractères pose problème aux habitués des réseaux sans restriction.

Étant moi-même une fervente utilisatrice du réseau social Facebook à des fins aussi bien relationnelles que professionnelles, j’ai également été très peu attirée par le concept au premier abord mais mes orientations professionnelles ont clairement revalorisé mon opinion sur l’utilisation de Twitter. En effet, cette restriction de caractères permet d’accéder à beaucoup plus d’informations réellement intéressantes, ce qui n’est pas toujours le cas sur Facebook. Et le site ne se résume qu’à de l’information, sans les multiples applications, jeux et groupes considérés comme obsolètes. On peut choisir quel type d’informations on souhaite voir apparaitre :  entreprises, célébrités ou personnes, la liste des Twitters que l’on peut suivre est longue. L’engagement est moins important vis-à-vis des personnes que l’on suit sur Twitter que les contacts sur Facebook car on peut décider à tout moment d’arrêter de suivre les tweets qui ne nous conviennent plus. Cette simple éventualité contraint les émetteurs de tweets à produire du contenu le plus intéressant possible.

En ce qui concerne le fonctionnement du réseau social, on a tort de penser qu’il est impénétrable, c’est pourquoi j’aimerai reprendre les 10 tweets de présentation de Twitter issu du petit livret de Tim Collins « Twitter ; Le guide pour s’y mettre (enfin) et tout comprendre ». Je les ai trouvés plutôt concis et résumant assez bien le concept :

1.  Leguidetwitter : Twitter est un site de réseau social qui vous permet d’enregistrer vos pensées sous forme de tweets, des messages de 140 caractères.

2.  Leguidetwitter : Créez votre compte sur Twitter.com. Vous pouvez ajouter votre photo, poster une courte biographie et changer l’arrière plan de votre page.

3.  Leguidetwitter : Vous pouvez utiliser Twitter pour communiquer avec ceux que vous connaissez, trouver des gens intéressants ou les deux.

4.  Leguidetwitter : Utilisez l’option « Trouver des gens » (« Find people » dans la version anglophone) pour rechercher des profils intéressants puis cliquez sur « suivre » (follow).

5.  Leguidetwitter : Pour répondre à un tweet (message), tapez @ suivi du pseudonyme de la personne ou cliquez sur la flèche qui apparait lorsque vous passez la souris sur le message. Exemple: @Paflechien : Un jour j’irai vivre en Théorie parce qu’en Théorie tout se passe bien…

6.  Leguidetwitter : Si quelqu’un a posté une mise à jour (update) ou un lien que vous souhaitez partager, tapez RT (retweet), @ suivi du pseudonyme, puis copiez et collez. Exemple: RT @ninja : Fuir c’est bon pour les robinets !

7.  Leguidetwitter : Les applications comme TweetDeck vous aideront à tirer le meilleur parti de Tweeter. Cette fonctionnalité permet de mieux gérer Twitter.

8.  Leguidetwitter : Twitter rend encore plus accro depuis votre téléphone. Vous pouvez tweeter via la connexion 3G ou WiFi de votre téléphone.

9.  Leguidetwitter : Différentes sortes d’outils rendent Twitter encore plus intéressant, comme Twitpic, qui vous permet de partager des photos dans vos tweets.

10. Leguidetwitter : Vos tweets doivent rester intéressants, envoyez beaucoup de réponses @ et bientôt vous serez plus populaire que le bébé panda qui éternue.

Pour ce qu’il est du vocabulaire de Twitter, un excellent article du site twoutils.com met en avant le lexique de base pour comprendre ce que beaucoup considèrent comme proche du galimatias. [Lexique disponible ici] On y trouvera également une multitude d’outils pour débuter avec Twitter pour ceux qui sont réellement intrigués par ce curieux oiseau.

Pour savoir quels tweeteurs peuvent correspondre à vos centres d’intérêt, Quitwitte.fr propose un ensemble de tweeteurs francophones au cœur de l’actualité. Le site se présente comme une sorte d’annuaire.

Enfin, pour répondre à la fameuse question puisque j’ai Facebook à quoi me sert Twitter ? Tout est relatif, déjà l’utilisation de l’un n’empêche pas l’autre et peut même être complémentaire (avec l‘application Twitter sur Facebook), mais il m’apparait clairement et indiscutablement que Facebook est plus adapté au grand public. Les professionnels mettront en avant l’aspect synthétique des informations sur Twitter quand le grand public valorisera, lui, l’aspect relationnel. Twitter met en avant une navigation simple alors que Facebook demande une certain temps pour une bonne prise en main (surtout en matière de confidentialité des informations). Facebook facilite la matérialisation d’un graphe social sur le réseau alors que sur Twitter, tout le monde peut suivre tout le monde. Tout dépend donc des préférences de chacun…

Vous pensez encore être un Tweeternoob (nouveau venu paumé sur Twitter) ?  Alors testez-vos connaissances sur Twitter grâce à ce test en ligne.

En espérant que cet humble article aura apporté des réponses aux plus réfractaires d’entre vous, vous pourrez également suivre mes futurs tweets sur Twitter: http://twitter.com/mervetbenrabah !

Pourquoi l’Apple TV pourrait faire un tabac? D’abord le prix De l’appareil 99$US et des locations 0,99$US plutôt que 2.99$. Pour en arriver à ce prix, l’approche est agressive : pas de stockage sur l’appareil. Ce n’est donc pas un iPod géant.  Les futurs acheteurs ont la plupart déjà un iPad, un iPhone ou un iPod Touch et personne [...]

Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. We’re keeping our eyes on three particular stories of interest today.

iTunes 10 and Ping Are Now Live

Apple’s latest version of iTunes and it’s new music-centric social network, Ping, went live late Wednesday evening, some eight hours after the product was announced at the company’s press conference in San Francisco. Mashable’s Christina Warren contends that Ping has a long way to go if it’s going to become a better alternative to MySpace.

Samsung Unveils Galaxy Tab

Samsung has revealed its long-awaited tablet, the Galaxy Tab, at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin.

The tablet sports a 7-inch TFT-LCD display with 1024×600-pixel resolution, Android 2.2 support, a Cortex A8 1 GHz processor, 512 of RAM and 16/32 GB of internal memory with upgrade options. It also comes with a 3-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED Flash, plus a second 1.3-megapixel camera for video chats, as well as Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. The battery, Samsung claims, can last up to seven hours of movie playback.

Samsung, it appears, has created a real competitor for Apple’s iPad, which lacks the Galaxy Tab’s cameras and support for popular multimedia formats such as Flash.

Samsung has partnered with Vodafone for the launch, which is scheduled for October in Vodaphone’s European markets, and later this year in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Twitter Releases Official iPad App

Twitter has released its official iPad app, available now in Apple’s App Store [iTunes link] for free. The app allows for seamless navigation between tweets, photos, web pages, videos and other content, enabling users to load videos while they’re browsing their timelines, for instance, as well as view them in-line with other content and expand them to full-screen size.

Further News

• Starbucks is rolling out its Starbucks Card Mobile App for BlackBerry today, enabling users to manage their payment and rewards cards, and even pay for their purchases at 16 stores in Seattle and the Silicon Valley region, as well as 1,000 Target stores nationwide.
• Google will remain AOL’s exclusive search partner through 2015, both companies announced this morning. The deal has been expanded to include mobile search and to bring AOL’s content to YouTube [via PaidContent].
• Competitors Boxee, Rdio and Roku have all issued responses to Apple’s latest TV and music offerings.
• Microsoft announced Wednesday that it has completed the development of its forthcoming Windows Phone 7. The mobile OS has reached the release to manufacturing (RTM) stage.

Disclosure: Samsung, BlackBerry and Microsoft are Mashable sponsors.

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Series supported by HTC EVO 4G

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This series is brought to you by HTC EVO 4G, America’s first 4G phone. Only from Sprint. The “First to Know” series keeps you in the know on what’s happening now in the world of social media and technology.

More About: apple, first to know series, galaxy tab, ipad, ipad app, itunes 10, Ping, samsung, Tablet, twitter

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Récemment, je suis tombée sur une vidéo inspirante de TED portant sur ce qui nous motive à participer aux réseaux sociaux et en quoi les interactions dans les réseaux sociaux influencent nos comportements. Connaître l’essence des interactions humaines et savoir en quoi celles-ci peuvent avoir une influence sur nos comportements est, selon moi, un savoir [...]

Voici 15 conseils pour améliorer votre référencement local. Découvrez les meilleurs conseils pour booster votre referencement local sur Google, Yahoo et Bing [...]

Articles complémentaires:

1. Conseil Référencement: 5 Astuces pour Optimiser son Référencement sur Google
2. 6 Conseils pour Augmenter votre Visibilité Internet avec la Recherche en Temps Réel!
3. Plugin All In One SEO: Réussir Le Référencement De Votre Blog Wordpress! – 2ème partie

A study of 1,089 official and unofficial law enforcement Twitter accounts shows about 21 percent don't tweet, nine percent tweet personal opinions about crime or criminal justice, and three percent have tweeted in a way that could be interpreted as racist or sexist.

Furthermore, the vast majority of agencies did not include legal disclaimers or refer to a social media policy on their Twitter accounts.

Sponsor

The official Twitter page for the Portland Police Bureau, @PortlandPolice.

The study covered accounts in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, and concluded that there is no consensus for how police should conduct themselves on Twitter. It was conducted by the Canadian Association of Police on Social Media, a group of police, academics and citizens that advocates the use of social media by police (check out this guest post by co-founder Laura Madison, The Dark Figure Of Social Media: What Can Twitter Teach Criminologists?).

"The lack of legal disclaimers (e.g. "The opinions expressed here do not reflect those of my employer" or "This account is not monitored 24/7; please do not use it to report crimes") and social media policy (which may include disclaimers as well as purpose and other information) is of concern," the study's authors conclude.

A disclaimer seems especially wise for police accounts given that a recent Red Cross report showed half of social media users believe emergency responders are monitoring social media (see our coverage: 74% of Social Media Users Expect Cries for Help to Be Answered Within an Hour).

Just one account had a link to a social media policy from Twitter - The New Scotland Yard, Metropolitan Police in London, @metpoliceuk. The policy tells users to expect updates on the latest news stories from New Scotland Yard, alerts about items posted to Flickr and YouTube and "in the event of a major incident," information from the agency's website. It also explains who is behind the account, when it is monitored and even its followback policy. However, the account has yet to tweet.

Alarmingly, the study also found that 15 police accounts tweeted sensitive legal information, such as clues that could identify suspects of victims of crimes. That's less than one percent, but police officers should know not to publicly broadcast information that could compromise ongoing investigations, inaccurately implicate someone who has not been proven guilty of a crime, or lead an at-large criminal to a victim.

Police tweeted mostly about missing persons, wanted suspects, traffic and safety, arrests and other on-duty activity. But agencies and officers seemed to have no strategy for Twitter use, the study concludes.

CAPSM recommends that police agencies use Twitter more and experiment with third-party and mobile applications. It also recommends that agencies clarify the way they plan to use Twitter and train their officers accordingly.

The group also encourages police agencies to use Twitter to preempt brand hijacking via fake accounts, such as this one in Portland:

"That more police are using Twitter to connect with their communities is encouraging. However, they should take care not to use it only because it is popular or because the neighboring agency signed on. Instead, they must recognize it in the context of public communication at large: who uses it, how they use it, and where it can fit into various types of police operations," the study concludes.

UPDATE: CAPSM contacted us to say that its main takeaway was that police are "doing quite well and learning a few things." There are agencies on Twitter who are using the medium effectively to communicate with the community and enhance their policing - the Portland Police Bureau, referenced above, is a good example - and we didn't mean to suggest otherwise. Rather, our takeaway was that the wide variation in the ways police use Twitter, the fact that some are not using it at all, the absence of clearly denoted social media policies, and the instances of misuse added up to an uncertainty about using the medium - which CAPSM's recommendations for a "best practices" approach would likely remedy.

Discuss

Of all topics, this is one of the perennials. People want more traffic, more attention, more awareness to their blog. It’s fair. We work hard on our blogs. We want more attention and traffic. If your business depends on volume, this is especially important (for instance, if you’re using ads). Getting traffic is a tricky business, and it requires a lot of experimentation. I’ll tell you what’s worked for me, so far, and I’ll tell you what you might try. Maybe others will educate us both in the comments on their best methods.

Great Titles Help

The first few seconds of someone’s attention are the hardest to pass. If you have a lame blog post title, no one’s going to want to read the post. For whatever reason, we react to “how to,” we react to “7 great,” we react to all kinds of things. Not sure where to look? I stole this advice from Brian Clark years ago: go to the grocery store, buy some ladies’ magazines like Cosmopolitan, and learn how THEY write headlines on the front page.

Graphics Don’t Hurt

This entire series (and most of my blog posts) use graphics to catch your eye. It’s an easy way to get one’s attention. Screen captures help. Video helps. There are tons of ways to get people into a receptive space with your material, and graphics are just the easiest one.

Now that we’ve got a decent title, decent graphics, let’s be quick about your content.

Brevity Is the Game

Keep your posts brief (unless you want tons and tons of bookmarks). People don’t have all day to read. If you can keep your posts between 250-500 words, that’s in alignment with most people’s attention spans. Hey, you’re welcome to write whatever length you want. You asked me how to grow traffic to your blog. I can only give you results that I’ve tested. When I write a super long piece, I get much less involvement with it.

Share Your Blog

I’ve written about making shareability a priority. If you don’t have easy-to-share buttons on your blog, you’re missing the easiest way for people to see your stuff on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Twitter, and all the other sites where it would matter. Sharing out is a great way to make some more traffic happen. I also automatically push my posts into Facebook with their notes feature. I have an automated post into twitter via @broganmedia, but don’t do this same effect on my primary @chrisbrogan account.

Subscriptions or No?

In my case, subscriptions to my blog matter. I want people to subscribe, because I don’t necessarily survive on ad revenue. If you’re trying to monetize via ad revenue, and if your ads are in the header and the sidebar, a subscription really won’t help you get more traffic. If for whatever reason you want people to come to your website directly instead of via your RSS feed, you might want to obfuscate where you put your subscription information.

If you’re like me, you ask for the subscription all the time. In fact, I’ll ask now. You’re not yet subscribed? Enter your email (I respect your privacy):

Guest Posts

Over in the Third Tribe, we talk about guest posts quite often as a great traffic-builder to your blog. Find someone who has a very similar kind of blog topic to yours (not sure where to start? Check out Alltop), and offer a guest blog post. Oh, and then actually follow through. I have heard recently from my friends who accept guest posts that often, people ask for something, get approval, and then don’t take an action. That doesn’t sound like a good plan. Just FYI.

Consistency

This is one of those points where people disagree. I blog daily. Truth be told, I’m up to 2x a day most days. Why? Because the more I blog, the more people subscribe. I learned it from some of the larger blogger sites out there.

Lots of people justify once a week, or once every two weeks. That’s fine. But if you want to grow traffic to your blog, that’s a very long slow crawl towards that growth. That said, no matter which frequency you’ve chosen, stick to it. The moment you drop off the map, people who haven’t yet subscribed to you lose sight and move on.

Market Your Blog

You can always market your blog the good old fashioned way. I’ve had people hand me business cards at events that had a compelling question or interesting graphic, and then a URL to their blog. More often than not, I’ll at least check out the post. You might make postcards and bring them to the places where your prospective readers might congregate. For instance, if you write a restaurant blog, why not have a business card tray by the mints? Make an offer, just like you do with any other kind of marketing.

Often times, we sit around inside the fishbowl of social media and hope people from outside will find us. Here’s a hint, hero: the people you need are out there wondering what they can do to learn more about the thing you’re talking about. Go get ‘em, tiger.

How Do You Grow Traffic To Your Blog?

I’m a big fan of the basics: write about what they need, make sure they see that you wrote about it, make it easy to carry on the relationship, make it easy for them to promote you to others.

Seems like a simple formula, and yet, we go through all kinds of hoops to come up with trickier methods. Try this one first. What do you say?

One of the challenges of running a social commerce site these days is that there is just too much demand, from both local merchants wanting to give out deals and consumers who want to try them. There are only 365 days in a year, and the daily deal format limits each city to 365 deals a year.

Sites like GroupOn and LivingSocial are hitting those limits. GroupOn is expanding its inventory by “personalizing” deals, essentially showing different deals to different people. LivingSocial is handling the issue by going hyperlocal. It will now start offering deals by neighborhood and city districts.

LivingSocial will start bringing daily deals to the hood out in Washington, D.C. and New York City. In Washington, D.C., there will be deals for The District, Montgomery County and Northern Virginia (not exactly neighborhoods, but why get bogged down in details). In New York City, you can sign up for deals Uptown (soul food), Midtown (cupcakes), Downtown (facials) and in Brooklyn (dance lessons). Again, these aren’t really neighborhoods—Brooklyn on its own is bigger than most cities in America—but they do break up the city into more manageable zones and open up the site to more deals.

This is something, in fact, that Groupon does as well in a couple cities like Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. In fact, it breaks down Washington, D.C. the exact same way: the District, Montgomery County and Northern Virginia.

People are increasingly sharing different types of information on Twitter. For example, Tweets point to web pages, photos, videos, hashtags, people, check-ins, and more. Exploring Tweets is a great way to discover new and interesting information. And with devices of all shapes and sizes connecting to the Internet, we’re constantly looking for new ways to make this easier. To date, we’ve created applications for a variety of mobile phones, giving you instant access to Tweets and great content when you’re on the go.

Today we are bringing Tweets to a device that really lets content shine - the iPad. Twitter for iPad takes advantage of the iPad’s fluid touch interface, letting you move lots of information around smoothly and quickly – without needing to open and close windows or click buttons. There are a few things we want to point out that make this app a really fast and fun way to read real-time content.

Panes: Tapping on a Tweet opens a pane to the right. Depending on the content in that Tweet, you’ll see a video or photo, or maybe a news story, or perhaps another Tweet. You can continue tapping on Tweets, opening new panes, and getting new content as long as you’d like to. And, it’s really easy to move between panes by swiping to the right or left.


Media: When you tap a video link or open a web page with an embedded video, you can play that video inline. And, let’s be honest, video is great but sometimes it can take some time to load. The panes in Twitter for iPad let you look through your timeline while a video is loading, and then you can just swipe back to the video when it’s ready to play. You can also pinch on a video to watch it fullscreen.

Gestures: You can pinch on a Tweet to quickly view details about the author and to take actions on a Tweet, such as reply or retweet. Put two fingers together and pull down on a Tweet to peek at the replies, showing the entire conversation leading to that Tweet.

Google Blogs (via la homepage de Google.fr par exemple) vient d’ajouter une fonctionnalité intéressante dans son moteur de recherche : la possibilité de rechercher une liste de blogs dans un domaine particulier plutôt que jusqu’à présent juste bêtement faire des recherches parmi les actualités de ces mêmes blogs. (Autrement dit, vous obtiendrez une liste de racines de domaines et non des urls de ces domaines).

Ce nouvel outil intégré au moteur risque d’en attirer plus d’un qui travaille sur le SEO ou fait de la veille régulièrement.

Il vous retournera donc une liste complète de domaines. Par contre attention, dans le moment si vous allez directement sur blogsearch, l’option n’est pas en place.

Je vous conseille donc :

1. d’utiliser la page d’accueil de google.fr ou google.ca,
2. taper votre mot-clé,
3. puis de cliquer « Blogs » dans le menu de gauche,
4. puis « Pages d’accueil » pour avoir une liste de blogs (ou « Messages » pour les dernières actualités, ce qui ramène à l’ancien moteur).

Exemple: recherche sur le mot clé « referencement »

Suivez-moi sur Twitter | Voir ma page Facebook | Ceci est un article du Blog Marketing Web 2.0 sur Google Blogs pour trouver des blogs de niche

No more pencils, no more books, no more clunky desktop PCs or laptops either. Instead, a private school in Scotland has given sleek new iPads to every single one of its pupils to use in class and to even take home, nixing the excuse that the dog ate their homework.

It’s the brainchild of Fraser Speirs, the IT director of Cedars School of Excellence in Greenock, who wanted to solve the problem of the school’s computer lab, which had 12 desktops and 12 laptops, constantly being overbooked.

First he thought of giving everyone iPod Touches, but that wouldn’t have allowed them to do serious work like writing essays. Then the iPad was launched, and it now takes care of 99% of the work the students need to do.

Wrapped in a smart carry case, the students carry their iPads with them into math class, science, and art and the teachers download the appropriate apps that allow the kids to draw on the touch screen, look at graphs, or go online. As far as Speirs knows, no other school in the U.K. much less the world, is deploying iPads to all its students in this way.

It helps that Cedars School is small. With around 100 pupils in total, aged from 5 to 17, and 10 students per class, the teachers can make sure that no one is perusing Facebook when they should be doing their times tables.

Speirs is leasing the iPads from the school’s local Apple store in Glasgow, Scotland and paying £14 ($21) per pupil per month, or about £1,400 ($2,150) per month for the whole school. That works out at £504 ($780) after three years (the retail price of an 32GB iPad in Britain), and after that Speirs hopes to swap the iPads for upgraded models and continue the leasing arrangement. “I would hope by then to get a bit more of a discount,” he says.

You could argue that Cedars can afford this because it’s a private school. But Speirs points out that the total costs (around £58,000, or $89,400 over three years) are amortized across every class, and long term the school is saving money on photocopying, paper, pens and eventually, books.

“We’re hoping to be able to give kids text books on the iPad rather than have to carry 10 to 15 pounds of paper every single day,” says Speirs. They can’t claim to have forgotten a folder, either. “If you’ve got your iPad you’ve got all your folders in one place.”

Having launched on Aug. 23, the system is working relatively well. On the first day of school Speirs gave each class an intensive primer to the iPad owner’s guide, explaining that they absolutely could not go home and wipe its configuration by synching it with their own iTunes account. Around half the kids take the iPads home if their parents have signed a contract saying they’d take responsibility for any damage or loss.

Surprisingly, the school has chosen not to insure the devices, following its own risk assessment. As yet there hasn’t been any accidental damage apart from one iPad which spontaneously stopped working.

What’s been the reaction from kids? “Delight would be the word,” says Speirs. “There are a lot of kids who have the iPod Touch but not the iPad. And speaking to the head teacher she’s never seen such engagement with lessons since we deployed them. Boys of 13 are more engaged in things like vocabulary work, playing two-player Scrabble as a warm up to the class.”

There are drawbacks, of course. Not all the apps can use Flash, which is important for things like math class where the teacher wants to show the class a graph. And Apple hasn’t created tools that allow the bulk buying of apps on iTunes. The way Speirs gets around that is synching each home room class’s iPad to the iTunes account on one desktop Mac in the class. That meant total deployment took several days.

Speirs refutes criticisms that his school is trying to get rid of pen and paper for good. “We are not building a paperless school. Paper is often a temporary version of something that is digital,” he says. “I might still print out two pages from a PDF textbook for students to scribble on.”

Or he might just keep it digital. “Whereas the laptop would dominate a desk and create a barrier to teaching, the iPad sits flat on the desk with everyone gathered around, which is very important to education.”

Banksimple has just raised $2.9 million in a Series A round to fund their ambitious alternative online banking startup for full-service, fee-free banking. The round includes investments from First Round Capital, IA Ventures and Village Ventures, a collection of industry veterans with extensive startup portfolios.

Banksimple’s mission is to reinvent the way consumers bank, both online and off. In 2011, the startup will offer bankers an online-only banking solution designed to eliminate traditional service fees, provide stellar customer service, offer predictive money management and integrate social media into the system.

The funds will allow Banksimple to forge ahead with crucial banking partnerships that will form the financial backbone of the platform. The money will also help the company finance its initial test run of the service with friends and family before the end of the year.

“To get customer service right for banking, we need to build a technology company,” said CEO Joshua Reich in an interview with Mashable.

Banksimple had previously raised $190,000 from angel investors in a seed round. To date, the startup has raised nearly $3.1 million — money enough to last them through the end of 2011, according to Reich.

Image courtesy of Daniel Y. Go, Flickr

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Reviews: Flickr, Mashable

More About: banksimple, funding, series a

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La prédominance dans notre culture des réseaux sociaux, spécialement Facebook, mais pas seulement Facebook, intensifie largement le problème de la vie privée. Le PDG de Google, Eric Schmidt, pense que si vous ne voulez pas que Google sache tout de vous, c’est que vous avez peut-être quelque chose à cacher. Quant à lui, l’ineffable et [...]