While Loren Brichter may be hard at work on Tweetie Two for the Mac, he hasn’t given on his baby: Tweetie 2 for the iPhone. While the app hasn’t been updated since late November, a new build is due shortly with one big addition: native Foursquare support.

What this means is that anytime someone in your tweet stream sends out a tweet from Foursquare (which, to the annoyance of some users, happens automatically at times), that Foursquare link (shown as a 4sq.com URL) will be able to be opened in Tweetie in a way that displays the location information in a nice format. When a tweet is eligible for this feature, you’ll see a purple square logo in the upper right hand corner of the tweet in Tweetie.

When you click on a Foursquare link, you’ll be taken to a page that shows the venue’s address and phone number as well as the Foursquare mayor of the place. If you click on the address you’ll load a Google Map showing you exactly where it is. If you click on the phone number, you’ll be able to call the place right from the iPhone. Below all of that, there is a button to open the venue in Foursquare, which launches the Foursquare iPhone app.

A couple other new features in Tweetie 2 include Vodpod video uploads and the ability to attach messages along with your TwitPics to that service.

Look for this Tweetie 2 update soon in the App Store (it will be version 2.1.1). Meanwhile, Tweetie Two for Mac should be released in a private beta in about a month, according to new info shared on MacHeist today. Tweetie for Mac will soon be added to the nanoBundle 2, and in anticipation, they’ve added this message:

As a MacHeist customer, you’re not only receiving a free upgrade to the upcoming, highly anticipated Tweetie 2 – we’ve also arranged exclusive access to the pre-public beta for you guys!

Have fun using the best Mac Twitter client for now… and stay tuned for an email from us in about a month with your invite to the future of Mac tweeting.

SV Angel, the angel fund founded by super-angel Ron Conway, is losing one of its general partners to a portfolio company. Brian Pokorny is now the CEO of fast-growing Silicon Valley-based Dailybooth.

Dailybooth, the runner up in the “best social app” and winner of the “time sink” categories at this year’s Crunchies Awards, is “your life in pictures.” Some 6 million monthly visitors share pictures and status updates with eachother. “It’s a community for self expression,” says Pokorny.

A typical interaction: a users posts a photo, taken with their webcam, showing what they’re eating, what they’re feeling, or perhaps with friends in the background. Other user then respond via text or photos. Some strings go on for hundreds of responses. Here’s an example.

The company, originally incubated by Y Combinator, has raised just under $1 million from notable investosr such as Sequoia Capital, SV Angel, Betaworks, Kevin Rose, Caterina Fake, Chris Sacca, Joshua Schachter, Gary Vaynerchuk and Aydin Senkut.

Founders Jon Wheatley and Ryan Amos will remain in their current roles at Dailybooth.

Pokorny has worked with Conway on his various investments since 2006, and has racked up quite an angel portfolio of his own. He owns stakes in Twitter, Square, Milo, Blippy, Bump, Tweetdeck, OMGPOP and others.

He’s staying close to SV Angel, too. In addition to his new role as CEO of Dailybooth, Pokorny will remain as a Strategic Partner with SV Angel where he will continue to provide key insights into sourcing and evaluating investment opportunities in social media and other sectors.

“I’m excited to have Brian join one of our hottest portfolio startups and lead it to the next level,” said Ron Conway via email. “He will remain part of the core team at SV Angel as a strategic partner, and I look forward to working with him in this new role.”

SV Angel has also been in the new recently – they are reportedly closing a new $10 million fund, the first time the fund will take outside investors to participate in their startup investments.

Back in October we wrote about Appboy, a social network for mobile app developers and users. Since launching, Appboy has continued to evolve into a community for both developers and users to find and rate apps, as well as submit ideas for new mobile applications. Appboy has just rolled out a big update to its site which improves the design, adds stronger integration with Facebook and Twitter, and makes it easy to keep up with what your favorite app developers are doing. The site has also launched a new companion iPhone application and started a new partnership with Best Buy Mobile.

The Appboy Profile pages have been given a total facelift. Now, in addition to displaying your user activity and favorite apps, users can link their Twitter accounts with Appboy and auto-publish any #appboy tweets directly to their Appboy page.

For users, this feature might not get a ton of play, but for app developers it becomes a pretty handy way of keeping your Appboy profile up-to-date with little fuss.

Users can also now login with either Twitter or Facebook Connect. We really like that Appboy has embraced other social networks instead of trying to force users to keep everything in the Appboy garden.

You can also now follow other users, which is especially helpful when you want to keep up with what’s happening with your favorite app or app idea.

The App Pages have also received a new coat of paint, with an easy way to vote “Love It” or “Hate It” on an app’s page. Comments and reviews can now be viewed separately, which is nice when you just want to distill one group or the other. Plus, users can now add related links, videos and reviews to an app page which can help provide better context.

User reviews are also now ratable — Digg style — which allows the most helpful reviews to appear higher on the list.

In addition to a new website design, Appboy now has its own iPhone app. The free app gives users all the functionality of the website right on the iPhone. That’s really nice, especially when you are looking for a new app or want to leave a review for something you just purchased. Sure, the App Store works for that too, but what is nice about Appboy is that it is a community.

Check out these screenshots to see the app in action. As you can see, the interface matches the website and it’s very easy to get around and rate or learn about apps and app ideas.

One of the most unique features of Appboy is that it isn’t focused on just one platform; it’s focused on mobile apps in general. So whether you have an Android device, an iPhone, a BlackBerry or a Palm Pre, you can find, rate and suggest ideas for new apps.

Best Buy just launched a new mobile site, Best Buy Mobile, and Appboy powers the Apps section for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. The top 10 apps from each platform are fed into Best Buy’s site and those apps come directly from the Appboy community.

This is a pretty big step, considering the relative age of the site, and we think it’s because Appboy has shown itself as being committed to the mobile community as a whole.

Appboy continues to be a great resource for developers and users wanting to connect and share what’s cool and what sucks in the mobile app space. The new iPhone app is a really nice addition to the site and we hope that the Best Buy partnership will bring even more users into the community.

How do you find out about new mobile applications? Let us know!

Tags: android, appboy, apple, apps, iphone, iphone apps, mobile apps

New location-based social search tool FourWhere shows Foursquare tips and comments using Google Maps so you can search and discover what everyone is saying about nearby places.

Users simply input a location or address into FourWhere, right-click (control click) on the map and select display preferences. The map can display all comments nearby, all venues in the vicinity and/or remove venues without tips.

It’s a simple app with a powerful purpose. For those of us preparing to journey out to Austin for SXSW, FourWhere’s release couldn’t have come at a better time. A search around the downtown area yields comments with insightful information about restaurants and bars. Essentially the application offers a map-based search experience for socialites looking to plan a fun night out.

FourWhere currently only pulls in data from Foursquare, but Sysomos, the company behind the app, has plans to integrate more social data in the future.

Tags: foursquare, fourwhere, location-based, sysomos

When I wrote that location would be this year’s Twitter at SXSW, I also meant that Twitter’s geolocation would be this year’s Twitter at SXSW. The service has just turned on geolocation on its website today for the first time.

While Twitter’s geolocation feature has been live through its API since last November, there was no sign of integration into the main twitter.com site until now. As you can see in the screenshot above, for tweets tagged with location, right next to the source of the tweet there is a location placemarker. When you hover over it, it turns blue, and clicking on it brings up a little Google map showing the location that tweet was sent from.

You can see these maps as overlays both on individual tweet pages, and on tweets in your main stream. In some cases, depending on how Twitter geolocation API is being used, it looks like place names are even passed through to Twitter. For example, here’s a tweet sent from Foursquare that also says where the tweet is being sent from.

The timing of this move by Twitter is significant. Earlier today, the New York Times reported that Facebook would unveil its answer to location next month at its f8 conference. Twitter’s first-ever Chirp conference takes place just one week before f8. Google, meanwhile, is in the game with Latitude and to some extent Buzz (but could have been in it a lot more). And of course, every app and their mother appears to be launching with some sort of location functionality at the SXSW in Austin, Texas, which begins on Friday. Many of those apps use Twitter’s geolocation API to pass the data back to Twitter, so it makes sense that this would be a good time to turn the functionality on for the website.

Update: It looks like Twitter has just turned off the location functionality after having it on for a bit. Look for it to come back shortly — certainly some time before SXSW.

[thanks Chad]

Twitter has just announced that it is launching a new anti-phishing feature that allows Twitter’s Trust and Safety team to monitor all links submitted through the service for potentially malicious attacks. Part of the new feature will involve the use of Twitter’s link shortener twt.tl, which may now start popping up in some of your emails and direct messages.

At this point, it’s not really clear which links are being converted to Twitter’s twt.tl shortened links. We just ran a test at the TC office with two different links: one for an article on GigaOm, and another for a bit.ly link that pointed to a page on Google Buzz. The links I received on my Twitter client were both unchanged, but both were converted to twt.tl links in our Email notifications (obviously neither of them had malicious content).

From the Twitter blog:

Today, we’re launching a new service to protect users that strikes a major blow against phishing and other deceitful attacks. By routing all links submitted to Twitter through this new service, we can detect, intercept, and prevent the spread of bad links across all of Twitter. Even if a bad link is already sent out in an email notification and somebody clicks on it, we’ll be able keep that user safe.

Since these attacks occur primarily on Direct Messages and email notifications about Direct Messages, this is where we have focused our initial efforts. For the most part, you will not notice this feature because it works behind the scenes but you may notice links shortened to twt.tl in Direct Messages and email notifications.

Image via ToastyKen

Spam and phishing have been ongoing problems at Twitter for some time, and tonight the company announced that it is stepping up its efforts to stop them with some new features, described as being able to “detect, intercept, and prevent the spread of bad links.”

In a blog post, Twitter writes that the protection works by “routing all links submitted to Twitter through this new service … even if a bad link is already sent out in an email notification and somebody clicks on it, we’ll be able keep that user safe.”

How exactly they do that, we’re not sure, but Twitter notes that you’ll start seeing short links using its own “twt.tl” URL shortener in direct messages and email notifications. As users who have been victimized by phishing scams (and those annoyed by the constant barrage of dodgy DMs) can likely attest, it’s a feature whose time has most certainly come.

Tags: phishing, security, twitter

Tweetie for Mac is the newest bonus edition to the MacHeist nanoBundle 2, which gives Mac users an opportunity to buy a variety of software for a discounted price. Additionally, buyers will also get early access to the pre-public beta for Tweetie 2 for Mac, plus a free upgrade to Tweetie 2 once it is released.

When Loren “Atebits” Brichter released Tweetie 2 for the iPhone last fall, one of the biggest new features in the app was that it was completely rewritten in such a way that the desktop version of Tweetie for Mac and the iPhone version could share the same codebase. From a development standpoint, that means that adding new features to both apps would be easier and more streamlined.

Tweetie for Mac is still a great Twitter client — especially for users like me who like to avoid Adobe AIR whenever possible — but it has grown a bit long-in-the-tooth, when compared with either its iPhone counterpart or some other newer Mac alternatives. That’s why getting early access to Tweetie 2 for Mac is so compelling. It’s a nice rejoinder to fans who have wanted to get updates on the status of Tweetie for Mac, while also offering up some promotion for the new version in the process.

One note about how MacHeist works: Users get licenses for most apps immediately upon purchase, but some apps have an “unlock” number that needs to be reached before serials are given out. Now, this is largely a marketing technique (I’ve never seen any MacHeist that didn’t end with all apps being unlocked for all buyers), but you might not get your Tweetie for Mac license until tomorrow afternoon (or whenever the “magic” number of sales hits).

MacHeist is $19.95 for eight apps (including Tweetie for Mac), plus you can get three other apps for free by taking part in a MacHeist “Tweetblast.” The sale runs through tomorrow night and the Tweetie 2 alpha preview is expected to start sometime next month.

What is your favorite Twitter client for Mac?

Tags: apple, mac apps, mac software, macheist, software, tweetie, tweetie 2 for mac, tweetie for mac

A ReadWriteWeb Guide

OMG! Kevin Rose just touched my shirt!

Don't lie - we know you get butterflies at the thought of bumping into iJustine or Robert Scoble at a tech conference. We've pulled together a nice little cheat sheet just for you, friends. Whether you want a simple handshake, and autograph on your iPhone or a chance to pitch your idea for the Next Big Web App, here's ten places, panels and parties where you can track down the Internet famous at SXSW 2010. Don't forget to leave your tips in the comments!

Sponsor

This is part of a series of ReadWriteWeb guides to SXSW Interactive 2010. If this guide isn't your cup of tea, be sure to check back for more information soon!

Justine Ezarik, a.k.a. iJustine

Longtime lifestreaming queen iJustine is famously an Apple fangirl, but it's Intel that's giving you the key to tracking her down at SXSW. She's and Intel Insider, and she might be stopping by some of the Intel Insider events, like Frank Gruber's Johnny Cash party or Chris Heuer's Social Media Clubhouse. We don't have hard and fast details on Ezarik's whereabouts, but wherever she is, she'll probably be tweeting, so keep an eye on her Twitter accounts.

Christopher Poole

Pool may not be a household name in and of himself, but there's nary an Internet user who hasn't been in some way effected by the fun and foul play on 4chan. "4chan - often referred to as a 'meme factory' - has been responsible for the creation of countless Internet memes but is perhaps best known for its exploits. In this conversation, we'll explore the game mechanics of online communities. What fosters creativity in an online community? What design elements can we incorporate to increase interaction? How is the game played?"

Baratunde Thurston

In "How to Be Black," The Onion web editor and star of Popular Science's Future Of series Baratunde Thurston will "touch on the black online experience (if there is such a thing) included memes, statistics on usage patterns, popular destinations and issues of representation. For example, are black people as represented among the creators, developers and builders of our future or are we more consumer oriented than average?"

Violet Blue

Our favorite sex blogger will be kicking off SXSW with a presentation on "How to Not Be a Douchebag at SXSW[...] Aimed at both first-time and long-time attendees to SXSW Interactive, this biting and humorous, yet useful panel takes a look at the common actions and behaviors to avoid if you don't want to be described as 'doing it wrong.'"

Kevin Rose

This year, the Digg founder returns to host Diggnation Live at Stubb's. The Bigg Digg Shindigg was certainly one of the largest events at SXSW 2009, with fans crowding around the large outdoor stage to take pictures and watch Rose shoot the Diggnation episode. But don't expect to meet the man himself unless you've got VIP status for the party.

Chris Messina

In his talk, "ActivityStrea.ms: Is It Getting Streamy In Here?," Messina will explore the nuances of the real-time web. "From Facebook's newsfeed to Twitter's relentless real-time updates, the metaphor of the 'stream' has taken social networking beyond blog posts and on to rich social activities. Learn about ActivityStrea.ms - the open format adopted by Facebook, MySpace, and Windows Live - and how it's fundamentally changing the social web."

Leah Culver

This young developer and successful entrepreneur will be hosting the Web Framework Battle Royale. "Which web framework will rule them all? As an audience member you pick the winner! We will present an introduction to a variety of web frameworks including Rails, Django, Catalyst and Sinatra. You can vote for the best web framework in categories such as URL handling, database integration, forms, HTML templating, documentation, testing and deployment."

Gary Vaynerchuk

The WineLibraryTV founder is a true Web guru and an inspiration to entrepreneurs and content creators around the globe. He'll be giving one of his signature, unforgettable presentations again this year as part of the Interactive Speakers Series.

Three years after his web app hit it big at SXSW 2007, Twitter co-founder Ev Williams takes the main stage to be interviewed by Havas Media Lab director Umair Haque in front of a live audience . All we have to say is that you'd better get there early if you don't want to get stuck watching a simulcast in an adjacent room!

Molly Wood

A last-minute stand-in for Natali Del Conte, Wood has a fanbase of her own. "CNET's Buzz Out Loud will broadcast live from SXSW. While discussing the day's tech news, hosts Tom Merritt, Jason Howell, Molly Wood and others will chat with the audience and invite special guests to talk about what's happening at the show and beyond."

Bonus Round! If you stalk him on Twitter, Foursquare, Plancast and Gowalla, you might get to bump into Robert Scoble, as well. Or, you can catch him at the Rackspace party Monday evening. And of course, while we don't consider ourselves celebrities, the RWW crew will be present and accounted for at the PBS/NPR/RWW party Sunday night!

Those are our SXSW Interaction recommendations for web celeb stalkers of all stripes. If you've got suggestions or feedback, let us know in the comments! See you in Austin, folks!

If your Foursquare check-ins could be limited to backyard outings and trips to the mailbox, you may be interested in a new mobile application called Miso. With this service, a startup from Bazaar Labs, also the makers of a social network called Flixup! for movie chatter, you can perform Foursquare-like "check-ins" when watching a particular TV show or movie. Homebodies, this app is for you.

Sponsor

With Miso, instead of checking in to locations outside of your home, like bars, restaurants and events as you do with popular mobile applications like Foursquare, Brightkite, Loopt and Gowalla, the Miso app takes the "check-in" model and uses it to connect people enjoying TV shows and movies. Although you could check-in when watching a movie at a local theater, the app is just as useful to those who tend to stay at home.

For those with the heyday of youth behind them, social outings to bars and restaurants and other "fun" events are slowly replaced with more boring trips to the grocery store, playgroup meetups and other errands unworthy of sharing with a mobile social network. In addition, tighter household budgets forced upon families by the down economy has many trading weekly evenings out for low-cost movie nights at home, cuddled up with the latest Netflix DVD - or even just good ol' fashioned cable TV.

Thanks to Miso, even homebodies like this can participate in the check-in craze. Although you can still share what you see at the theater, if desired, the beauty of this app is that you don't need a social life to socialize via your mobile. Instead, you can just chat it up with other fans of home entertainment, where you discuss the latest episode of "Lost" or the newest HBO original movie, for example.

To use the app, you "check in" by sharing what you're watching. And as with Foursquare, you can unlock badges the more use participate on the network. (At last - couch potatoes can have badges too!) These badges help you show off your interests to other Miso users so you can connect with similarly like-minded folks.

According to news from MobileBeat, a new version of the app is set to go live this week during the South by Southwest conference. In the updated release, you'll have the ability to add location along with your check-in - in case you ever make it out to the local cinemaplex after all. You can grab your copy of Miso from here (iTunes link).

Retweet.com, which put itself up for sale last month, has sold for $250,000 in an online auction on Flippa. The auction saw a fair amount of interest with 45 bids in total, but it appears that the winning party came in with a “buy it now” offer for $48,000 more than the current bid to take ownership of the Tweetmeme competitor.

Like Tweetmeme, the site aggregates the most popular links on Twitter, and also provides third-party websites with buttons that lets their visitors easily retweet articles. Although the service isn’t as popular as Tweetmeme, it has been able to accumulate respectable traffic, and it’s ideal name give it significant branding power. According to the company’s listing on Flippa, there is not yet any revenue.

At this point, we don’t know who the buyer is, though we heard rumblings last month that a major social news site was interested. We’re looking for more information and have contacted the team behind Retweet.com for details. We’ll update if we learn more.

[thanks Matt Binder for the tip]

Tags: retweet, tweetmeme, twitter

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

Report: The Future of the Netbook

Infographic by Column Five Media

Despite CEO drama, plummeting traffic and even declining mobile website usage, MySpace Mobile for Android is the most popular social app in the Android Market and the third most popular downloaded application overall.

While Facebook might dominate social networking apps on the iPhone, Facebook for Android leaves much to be desired. It’s not as bad as it was six months ago, but it still pales in comparison to the offerings for BlackBerry — let alone the iPhone.

MySpace Mobile for Android on the other hand, integrates itself extremely well within the Google ecosystem and the Android platform. You can even update your status via voice, using a widget available in the MySpace app.

AndroidStats, a site that tracks the rankings in the Android Market, shows that MySpace Mobile for Android has consistently been a big winner for the platform. We think the great integration with the platform has something to do with that.

Let’s throw the question to Android users: What app do you prefer, Facebook or MySpace on your Android phone? Does strong mobile integration make a social network more appealing? Let us know!

Tags: android, myspace

Facebook’s move into location has seemed inevitable for some time, and it now appears that the company will officially reveal its plans at next month’s Facebook developer conference – f8.

According to The New York Times, the social network will incorporate location in two ways: (1) its own features for sharing location and (2) APIs to let other apps – like Foursquare and Gowalla – offer location services to Facebook users.

Presumably, Facebook will make sure to address privacy issues with its location features — for example, perhaps with settings that allow you to share your location only with a select group of friends. The Times’ report doesn’t detail the specifics of such features, though it notes that the social network updated its privacy policy late last year in preparation for a location launch.

Facebook will be rolling out its location features to an enormous user base — there are now more than 400 million users of the social network in total, 100 million of which access the site via mobile regularly. The company also has its own native apps for all of the major mobile platforms. All of this gives Facebook’s location features an enormous edge over the competition.

The Times’ report suggests that the competition isn’t the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla, however, but rather Google and its huge base of local small business advertisers. Of course, the startups aren’t ignoring this opportunity either — earlier today, Foursquare shared details of upcoming features it plans to release to help local businesses utilize checkin data.

With Facebook entering the space though, the other players will need to look to create value in ways beyond check-ins and knowing where your friends are located at any given point in time. That’s why Foursquare seems to be so focused on partnerships and gaming, while Gowalla is making moves (as recently as last night) in virtual goods.

In any event, location remains the huge trend so far in 2010, and literally each day seems to bring new indications of which way it will all play out.

Tags: facebook, foursquare, social networking, trending

Google’s call for medium-sized cities to pilot its high-speed broadband network has attracted the marketing wit of another locale: Greenville, South Carolina.

Citizens of Greenville have launched the “We Are Feeling Lucky” campaign –- an obvious play on Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button — an effort that will culminate in citizens trying to form “the world’s first and longest human Google chain.” Glowsticks will apparently be involved in the event, scheduled to take place on the evening of March 20.

The site makes heavy use of Google products and services — likely not a coincidence — in getting its message across. There’s also a social media component, with “We Are Feeling Lucky” having a YouTube channel featuring citizen videos, a Facebook event for the “Google on Main” event and a Twitter hashtag: #LuckyGVL. Here’s one of the YouTube clips featuring a variety of Greenville residents:

While citizens work to spread the message and draw Google’s attention, a formal proposal from the city is in the works to be submitted to Google by the March 26 deadline.

Greenville joins a growing list of cities that are getting creative in hopes of landing Google’s fiber. Topeka, Kansas, drew headlines when it unofficially renamed itself Google, Kansas. Duluth, Minnesota, went viral (to the degree a video about a public infrastructure proposal can) with a YouTube video. Columbia, Missouri, has 5,000+ fans of a Facebook Page supporting Google Fiber in their town.

When Google announced its plan to launch the fiber network test, the company made it clear to us that it has no plans to become an ISP. Nonetheless, it appears that lots of cities would be more than happy to serve as the test bed for its vision of a faster Internet, which its claims will have speeds of up to 100x typical connections.

Which campaign for Google Fiber has been your favorite so far? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: Google, google fiber

The Foursquare platform currently caters to consumers and offers businesses the ability to provide specials. Today, however, we’re learning more information about a business dashboard — complete with checkin analytics — that’s being gradually rolled out to business owners.

While the dashboard is still an alpha product, it’s already able to make the distinction between staff and customers, and tracks checkins on a daily, weekly, 30/60/90-day or all-time basis.

Data includes total checkins, unique visitors, male-to-female ratio, social media-sharing (i.e. showing how many users are sending their checkins to Twitter), top visitors and checkin time breakdown. Users can opt-out of sharing their checkin data via settings section of the website.

According to The New York Times’ Bits blog, “Business owners will also be able to offer instant promotions to try to engage new customers and keep current ones,” and, “there will also be a Staff page available to each business that will allow employees to interact directly with customers using social networks.”

When we followed up with Tristan Walker of Foursquare we also learned that as of right now 30 venue owners have access to the new tool, which the company has been testing for a week. In the coming weeks, Foursquare plans to introduce the insightful utility to all businesses running specials with the company — close to 1,000 businesses.

This is just the beginning of the business dashboard, as Walker tells us that the company has plans to continue to innovate and integrate real-world phenomena with its valuable checkin data. For example, Walker tells us that Foursquare is “thinking about … correlating checkins with weather patterns,” so “for a merchant offering incentives there may be a way for them to offer better incentives on rainy days.”

But that’s just scratching the service. Remember Tasti D-Lite’s re-imagining of the customer loyalty program? The new TreatCard uses Foursquare’s API to automatically check customers into venues and tie purchase information with rewards. Tasti D-Lite’s Foursquare checkin/purchase setup sets the stage for the day when the business dashboard will include purchase information, to which Walker says, “Once we can add purchase information on top of checkins things can get pretty interesting.”

This is all fine and dandy for the neighborhood coffee shop or local bar, and very much supersedes what Yelp provides or Google offers businesses via Place Pages, but what about the Starbucks of the world? Clearly this type of analysis — if it could scale — would be killer for big businesses interested in tracking their trending venues and discerning what works by location.

Walker admits that the company will need to make adjustments to allow for aggregation, but that the dashboard will be for everyone. And while he wouldn’t give us any names, he did say, “We’ve been talking with quite a few [large corporations] who are excited about the potential for this.”

At the end of the day, the business features further contribute to Foursquare changing the world as we know it. In a previous post on the subject matter, I wrote that Foursquare was redefining what it meant to be a regular and pioneering a deeper connection between place and patron. Given that businesses using Foursquare will soon be able to interact with their checked-in customers, those two assertions are now more true than ever.

Just as businesses see a huge advantage to interacting with potential and existing customers (and naysayers) on Twitter, so too will they experience the same advantages on Foursquare, but with even more incentives and a plethora of data at their fingertips.

[img credits: MariSheibely, Bits]

Tags: business dashboard, foursquare, MARKETING, social media

Rebecca Zook is an online female math tutor who has been helping students get math into their brains for seven years. She blogs about learning at Triangle Suitcase.

Over half a million votes were cast to decide Barbie’s newest career. But even though Computer Engineer Barbie was developed in consultation with the Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering, the new doll’s appearance has sparked controversy.

While some have embraced coder Barbie, others have attacked the concept, saying that her pink laptop, sparkly leggings, and trendy glasses are “too feminine” to be realistic.

The critics imply that real coders aren’t feminine, and feminine coders aren’t real. But women shouldn’t feel like they have to stop being feminine to work in technology.

That’s right. The first coder was a lady. Ada Lovelace, over a century ahead of her time, is widely considered to be the first computer programmer. She was the first person to conceptualize and articulate what computers were capable of doing, and the first to foresee that computers could create artificial intelligence, generate graphics, and create music.

So, is Barbie’s outfit really that unrealistic? If the very first person to conceptualize a computer did so while wearing a girly up-do and a frilly gown, why can’t someone write great code while wearing pink platform crocs and a t-shirt that spells “BARBIE” in binary?

This false dichotomy — that you have to choose between being feminine and “looking the part” of a mathematician or scientist — might be part of what turns girls off from math and science in the first place.

Or maybe girls don’t aim for careers in math and science because they don’t see role models. Even Ada Lovelace had role models. Her mom, the “Princess of Parallelograms,” loved math and gave Lovelace a very intensive math education. And Lovelace was also mentored by legendary female science writer and polymath Mary Somerville.

Or maybe girls are afraid of being the only woman in their technology courses or workplaces. If that’s the case, their concerns are certainly warranted. Not only are fewer women entering the information technology field, but more women are leaving the field mid-career.

A recent Harvard Business Review report, The Athena Factor, notes that “52% of highly qualified females working for SET [science, engineering, and technology] companies quit their jobs, driven out by hostile work environments and extreme job pressures.” These women report that they lack mentors and feel intense isolation in the workplace.

In 2010, maybe Computer Engineer Barbie would feel uncomfortable writing code on a pink laptop that matched her glasses in a workplace where she was outnumbered by men 25-to-1. But perhaps we should aspire to create a world where Computer Engineer Barbie and her gloriously pink accessories could realistically exist. Allowing a vision of an ultra-feminine computer engineer might, even subconsciously, open girls — and the rest of society — up to the possibility.

As a female math tutor, I used to feel the need to “tone down” my feminine style. I’d wear black slacks when working with my students for fear of appearing “unprofessional.” But then I decided to show my true fashion colors and wear my homemade dresses and sparkly barrettes when tutoring.

Since then, some kids have been openly relieved when they met me and found I didn’t look like their stereotype of a math tutor. The “math geek” stereotype in their brains was more intimidating and less fun than the real-life tutor wearing fuzzy pink boots.

You don’t have to choose between looking feminine and being good at math, science, and engineering. We need all kinds of people, all kinds of minds, and all kinds of geeks to solve our technology problems.

- 10 Essential Chrome Extensions for Web Developers
- 10 Popular Firefox Add-ons for Web Developers
- 5 Must-Have Geek Collectibles

Tags: barbie, careers, coder, computer engineer, girls, Kids, mathematics, programming, Science, tech, trending, women

Mollie Vandor is the Product Manager for Ranker.com and Media Director for Girls in Tech LA. You can find her on Twitter and on her blog, where she writes about the web, the world and what it’s like to be a geek chic chick.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes — lately, it seems like there’s a new natural disaster wreaking havoc on poor planet Earth every week. From our television sets to our Twitter streams, it’s impossible to ignore the devastation these disasters leave behind. And, no matter where you’re watching from, it’s hard not to feel just a little bit helpless in the face of such colossal catastrophes.

But when it comes to natural disasters, modern technology is making it easier than ever to take control by creating your own emergency response system — no high pitched beeping required. There are tons of tools to help you create emergency preparedness plans, keep in touch during a disaster, and get your life back after one strikes. Nothing will keep you safer or saner during a natural disaster than having a good plan in advance.

According to FEMA, the best way to avoid significant damage during a disaster is to prepare an emergency response plan in advance. The FEMA website is a great place to get that process started. In fact, they offer an easy checklist of items you should consider when putting together your plan: Escape routes, family communications, utility shut-off and safety, insurance and vital records, special needs, caring for animals, and safety skills. It seems like a lot, but fortunately, there are plenty of resources to help make all that planning much easier.

Figuring out your escape route is probably the top priority when it comes to emergency preparedness. And, making sure that your loved ones know where to go and how to meet up could help keep your family together when everything else is falling apart. That’s where Google’s MyMaps service comes in handy. MyMaps lets you plan a route using landmarks, lines, and shapes, and lets you easily share that route or access it on your mobile browser. Of course, the most reliable option in a disaster is still the lo-fi hard copy of that escape route. MyMaps lets you print perfect copies so you can laminate them and stick them everywhere from the fridge door to the kids’ backpacks.

And while you’re throwing things in those backpacks, also think about including an ID card, in case your child is separated from their caretaker during a disaster. You can easily order ID cards online at places like Life360, a site that offers multiple mobile and web-based emergency planning services, including ID cards for your kids and a messaging system that contacts your entire network of family and friends during a disaster.

Of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of emergency preparedness apps. From the ICE app for iPhone and Android, which stores your emergency contacts and medical information, to the self-explanatory Emergency Preparedness Checklist (iPhone), there are plenty of quick, easy and mobile options to help you get a jump on your emergency planning.

Plus, if you share my proclivity for destroying any home improvement project you come within five feet of, there’s also an easy online guide to help you shut off your utilities, from the Washington state Department of Health. And, the only technical knowledge required is the ability to print the super-simple instructions and tape them up near your door.

One of the scariest parts of any emergency is not being able to reach the people you love — and knowing that the people you love might not be able to reach you. And, of course, you want to stay abreast of all the breaking news about whatever it is that’s going on. Fortunately, one of the best advantages of our constantly-connected world is that there are multiple channels for communication. When one channel goes down during a disaster, you might still be able to get through on another one.

The first thing to do is make sure you have a backup plan for keeping all your gadgets in good working order during a disaster. Now might be a good time to invest in a solar charger for your iPhone or Blackberry, for example — not to mention a hand-cranked emergency radio, flashlight and flares. Or, you could just hit up the Red Cross Store for a gadget that does all of the above, and charges your MP3 player too. If you’d rather just upgrade your existing gadgets, check out the Emergency Radio app, which turns your iPhone into a supercharged scanner for police, fire, NOAA and other emergency radio frequencies.

Even without any extra apps, your 3G-enabled phone will likely help you stay connected in case of an emergency. Even though phone lines may be down or jammed, the 3G network won’t necessarily be out as well. This is how Twitter status updates helped locate a missing person during the recent Chile earthquake. So, having an app for Twitter, Instant Messenger, or even Facebook on your mobile device might help you keep in touch with loved ones who can’t get through to you via more traditional means of communication. And, a quick status update telling everyone where you are and how you’re doing could help give loved ones peace of mind in the middle of the chaos that comes with a catastrophe.

Speaking of peace of mind, FEMA will actually e-mail you disaster updates in real-time, so you can stay up to date on the latest breaking disaster news. Most college campuses have similar services, so students — and their parents — can receive regular text messages and e-mails during an emergency. The FCC actually maintains a pretty good list of these services. And, of course, you should always know the right resources for specific information about the particular types of catastrophes that are common to your neck of the woods. For example, during the recent Hawaii tsunami warnings, residents could receive up-to-the-minute reports from a variety of sources, including NOAA.

So, bookmark your local emergency services sites, or add them to an RSS feed or special start page. Create a Twitter list of the people you trust for breaking news about your area, or set up an old fashioned phone tree using e-mail over 3G as a backup in case the phone lines go down. No matter what you decide to do, make sure you have plans in place for staying in touch across multiple means of communication. You never know what will work and what won’t if a disaster really does strike.

Once the immediate threat of a natural disaster has passed, you may find yourself facing an awful lot of cleanup, not to mention plenty of paperwork, as you try to recover your assets. This is why it’s important to catalog your stuff before that happens. This will make the process of an insurance claim much easier.

The first step in setting up a cataloging system is to get yourself organized. There are plenty of apps for that, and options for Blackberry users as well. Once you’re organized, you can start scanning all of your important possessions and papers into a web-based app, which will store them in the cloud. So, no matter what you lose in a disaster, you won’t lose your records too.

Use Home Inventory for iPhone or Star Home Inventory for Blackberry to track all of your stuff from the comfort of your mobile device. If you have a Mac, you can also use DeliciousMonster to scan all of your books, movies and more into your computer by their bar codes. Or, just hook up a standard barcode scanner directly to your laptop. Publish your stuff to the web to make sure your data is safe in case your desktop is destroyed. And, to really be on the safe side, create a Google Docs account, and back up your important insurance papers directly from your desktop.

Despite how far modern technology has come, we still haven’t figured out a perfect way to prevent natural disasters. Preparation is still the best defense. Proper planning means that if a disaster does strike, you’ll know what to do, where to go, and how to recover — which is some pretty powerful stuff indeed, even in the face of the forces of nature.

- 5 Ways to Use Twitter to Avoid a Backchannel Disaster
- How Companies Are Using Your Social Media Data
- The Science of Building Trust With Social Media
- How Twitter in the Classroom is Boosting Student Engagement
- 3 Ways Educators Are Embracing Social Technology

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, BradenGunem

Tags: disaster, emergency, how to, List, Lists, social media