Acuma spuneţi şi voi ce aţi fi făcut în locul meu când aţi fi văzut poza asta de mai jos, cu frumuseţea asta de grătar şi când vi s-ar fi propus să faceţi un concurs pe blog cu un astfel de premiu? :D Normal ca am zis da, bucurându-mă, pe de o parte de galacticul trafic pe care un astfel de concurs o să mi-l aducă :D şi, pe de altă parte, de gândul că unul dintre voi va gratărăgi (sau cum o fi verbul :D) de acum înainte cu o astfel de sculă, dacă îmi permiteţi :D

Aşadar, dau drumul la concursul “Cel mai grataragiu dintre bloggeri“. Îmi cer scuze, corectitudinea politică mă obligă, domnişoarelor şi doamnelor că am folosit masculinul aici, dar am făcut-o din considerente pur practice :) Aşa că, of course, sunteţi mai mult decât binevenite să participaţi (între noi fie vorba, tare m-ar coafa ca o bloggeriţă să câştige :D).

Regulament, pe scurt, ca să nu ne plictisim:

Art. 1. Scrieţi pe blogul vostru o povestioară legată de o întâmplare “de grătar”, de o partidă de “grătărela” pe care o consideraţi susceptibilă de a face o figură frumoasă :)) sau postaţi o poză de la o astfel de întâmplare, care să rupă gura juriului :D

Art. 2. Precizaţi OBLIGATORIU în postul de pe blogul vostru următoarul aspect: “Acest blog va câştiga grătarul de Camping Grill“, şi neapărat să băgaţi un link către www. campinggrill.ro, că aşa e frumos, să mănâncă şi statistica sponsorului un link şi să arătam că suntem bloggeri de treabă :D

Art. 3. Înscrierea la concurs se face prin trackback la această postare (dar să verificaţi, vă rog, dacă a intrat trackbackul) sau, la alegere, prin trimiterea unui mail cu linkul unde aţi postat pe cristi.china pe gmail.

Art. 4. Juriul este format din subsemnatul, fireşte, alături de minunaţii mei tovarăşi din DreamTeamRO, Vlad Dulea, Ştefan Murgeanu, Claudiu Ciobanu, Marius Matache şi Nicu info-delta.ro :D
Juriul va puncta fiecare post/poză cu note de la 1 la 5 pe fix următoarele 2 criterii:
- Ineditul situaţiei prezentate
- Calitatea scriiturii/fotografiei

Art. 5. Data limită a concursului este 15 septembrie 2010. Ca să mai apuce câştigătorul nişte zile însorite să facă grătar :))

Mai jos aveţi poza cu premiul, care se intitulează oficial Gratar Utah, precum şi nişte ustensile de foarte mare ajutor ca să nu ne pârlim cele, cele când facem grătarul :D Click pe foto ca să le puteţi vedea mai omeneşte :))

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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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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):

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.

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.

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.

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?

N-am pretentia ca sunt vreun bucatar. Dimpotriva! Dar scriu acest text si pun aceste poze la bataie pentru Cel mai grataragiu dintre bloggeri.

Specialitatea casei, pe care o infaptuiesc dupa o reteta proprie, se numeste “tocanita misterioasa”. E simplu de realizat. Totul e sa nu pleci dupa un calcul, sau verun plan, bine ticluit.
Adica te apuci sa pui in tigaie, sau in oala, (depinde ce ai gasit curat si folosibil in materie de oale, cratiti si tigai, in locul tainic unde le tine nevasta ascunse).
Si te apuci sa pui: ulei si musai ceapa, ca asa incepe orice mancare romaneasca: ceapa si usturoi, sa fii sigur ca destinatarul mancarii va duhni post masa. Restul e de la sine inteles: adaugi cam tot ce-ti pica in mana: sare, piper, dovlecei, rosii, ardei gras, carne, sau daca n-ai, pui oua si totul se transforma intr-o omleta misterioasa.

Dar, pe de alta parte ma duc la fel de fel de show-uri culinare, pentru ca din cand in cand mai prestez activitati jurnalistice si pentru site-ul culinar.ro.

Asa am avut ocazia sa il cunoasc si pe bloggerul-bucatar, Adi Hadean, pe care, cu permisiunea sa, desigur, l-am imortalizat in timp ce ostenea niste frigarui cu lerul. Acu’ daca nu stiti ce-i ala ler, nu cautati musai in textele lui Hrusca, presupun ca nici ala nu stie ce-i, da’ canta despre el. Asta-i lerul, iata si actiunea sa asupra carnii, pe un gratar indoor, caci afara era prea frig.

Iata deci, cateva poze, sugestive, cred, si destul de bine realizate, (tot eu cred asta), despre cum se proceseaza si cum arata la final, frigaruile ostenite ale lui Adi. Marturisesc ca au un gust cel putin la fel de bun precum arata.
Si de asemenea, marturisesc ca am intrat in acesc concurs din simpla curiozitate, si pentru a impartasi lumii cate ceva despre mine. Ca pe Adi Hadean il stie toata lumea. Faptul ca eu particip la show-uri culinare (asa l-am cunoscut si pe Chinezu, slavit fie-i numele in vecii vecilor, ca mare om si mare caracter mai e!), este insa  o latura de-a mea, ceva mai pitita.

Spor la gratareala!

Ahh, si nici blogger in adevaratul sens al cuvantului, nu-s. Ma joc de-a bloggingu’ asa, de amorul artei, deci ar trebui sa fiu descalificat din start! Iar daca nu, “Acest blog va castiga gratarul de Camping Grill” organizat de www. campinggrill.ro.

Despre care am aflat, evident, de pe saitul Chinezului de rigoare.

Related posts:

1. Din ciclul mari realizari buftene (9)- STARAZILE PE CARE SAU EFECTUAT LUCRARILE
2. Niste precizari…
3. Parcul, cainii, comunitarii si o laba trista- UPDATE

Dupa o pauza binemeritata , in urma presiunilor facute de catre twitteristii amatori de fotbal am luat decizia de a reveni cu #fotbaltweetmeet editia a XII-ea .

#fotbaltweetmeet XII va avea loc luni 06 septembrie incepand cu ora 20:00 (e bine sa ajungeti de la ora 19:30) pe terenul Club Cara strand Titan.

Orice twitterist activ (cont mai vechi de o luna si cel putin 20 de twituri)  care se inscrie pe lista printr-un comentariu la acest articol, in care sa-si anunte prezenta si contul de twitter.

Daca vreti sa jucati portar, anuntati asta in comentariu.

Avem la dispozitie 20 de locuri + 5 rezerve.

Ne vom imparti in 4 echipe a cate 5 oameni fiecare si vom juca sistem campionat.

Dupa ce vom avea lista completa de jucatori, acestia vor fi impartiti in 4 urne valorice a cate 5 jucatori 

pe baza evolutiei lor la editiile precedente .

Capitanii de echipa vor fi cei din grupa 1 valorica si impreuna cu restul coechipierilor vor trebui sa anunte numele echipei pana duminica la ora inceperii meciurilor.

Daca unul sau mai multi jucatori dintr-o echipa nu ajung la timp la teren, vor intra rezervele, in ordinea in care s-au inscris pe site. Intarziatii vor ramane rezerve.

De asemenea, cei care confirma iar apoi infirma participarea la #fotbaltweetmeet 11, dupa data limita de inscrieri, vor fi suspendati pentru editia viitoare.

Vor fi suspendati si cei care intra urat si nu sunt fair-play.

Atentie : fiecare participant va plati suma modica de 10 lei pentru a acoperi costul terenului (terenul costa 100 lei pe ora , 200 lei pentru cele 2 ore ).

Asteptam un numar mare de suporteri, pentru ca este destul loc in Club Cara , pentru toata lumea.

Lista participanti :

1.CezarV

2.Pandutzu

3.Robert Fotbal Amator

4.MihaiTeo

5.Lucian_Marin

6.Bogdan_Marin

7.IonutPopV

8.Rekin00

9.Adi_Zabava

10.Auras Mihai

11.Andrei Cismaru

12.Justf0rfun

13.Birkof

14.Andrei Bicky

15.Toma Nicolau

16.Mircea Mester

17.Laurentiu Buica

18.Ionut Bunescu

19.Cart00n

20.Marius Matache

Rezerve :

• FotbalAmator.ro este un proiect ce promoveaza sportul in general si fotbalul in special

• Este o platforma interactiva dedicata echipelor de fotbalisti amatori care sunt in cautarea unor adversari pe masura lor

• Este o competitie intre persoane care au aceeasi pasiune, fotbalul

• Este un spatiu unde bazele sportive din intreaga tara isi pot prezenta terenurile si serviciile si unde pot organiza competitii

• FotbalAmator.ro este o mare competitie. Arata-le tuturor ca echipa ta este cea mai buna.

• Provoaca-ti adversarii la meciuri directe sau participa alaturi de acestia la competitiile organizate local de bazele sportive din orasul tau. Vei castiga astfel puncte bonus care te vor ajuta sa urci in clasamentul general.

We would love for you to join us, so we’re giving away passes to BlogWorld. To enter, answer the following question — “What is the future of blogging?” — in the comments below. Readers with the best answers will win one of five “full access” tickets to BlogWorld, which includes MashBash. Winners are invited to attend this industry celebration where the online world comes together to meet, relax and make important business networking connections.

Date: Friday, October 15
Time: 8:00 p.m.-10 p.m.
Location:Haze at Aria. 3730 Las Vegas Boulevard, Las Vegas, NV.
Tickets: Must have BlogWorld Badge to enter.

• Simply click the “Like” button on our Facebook Page (below).
• Respond to the question: “What is the future of blogging?” by noon ET on Monday, September 6, in the comments section of this post.

Please use your real identity so that we may contact you via e-mail, Twitter or Facebook to let you know that you’ve won and how to redeem your prize.

BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas on October 15-16: “Join us at the World’s Largest New Media event and learn about Content Creation, Distribution and Monetization strategies, step-by-step techniques and bleeding-edge tools from the most successful Bloggers, Podcasters, Social Media Pro’s, Internet TV and Radio Content Generators and New Media Marketing Pro’s! From the premier educational sessions at the Social Media Business Summit and BlogWorld Conference, to the resource-rich New Media Expo, to Amazing Networking events…it’s One economical trip, One weekend, One Big Show you can’t afford to miss!”

More About: blogging, BLOGS, blogworld, contest, Events, las vegas, MashBash, new media expo, Tickets

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• Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
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• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Infographics at their best are more than just pictures — they can provide new understandings, succinct summaries, or just plain old fun.

In that respect, reading newspaper archives isn’t the only way to get a deeper understanding of current events. Infographics can help us get a better grasp on what’s going on.

Check out these 10 visualizations to learn more about the news with a quick look.

Last month alone, Google acquired social-search service Angstro, visual shopping search engine like.com, and social currency company Jambool. Google has been on an acquisition binge for some time, and it’s getting tricky to keep track of its appetite.

This graphic shows a timeline of Google’s activity in three categories: “Building Revenue Streams,” “Cutting Competition,” or “A Little of Both.”

The campaign for gay marriage has passed a multitude of milestones over the last decade. Unfortunately for those trying to keep track of them, the victories and setbacks vary drastically by state. Decisions are reversed and in some cases overturned by higher courts, which makes progress hard to track.

This map from the LA Times shows the status of gay marriage in each state by month. Click on a state for its most recent ruling or watch the country change from being legally similar in its treatment of same-sex couples in 2000 to sharply divided in 2010.

The frequency and fatality of IEDs (homemade bombs) in Afghanistan was highlighted when WikiLeaks published more than 90,000 secret documents about the Afghan war. Anti-war activists published this illustrative video that includes all of the incidents reported in these leaked documents.

On April 20, an explosion on a BP drilling rig started what has become the largest accidental oil spill in history. Despite numerous strategies that were deployed to plug the leak, it wasn’t capped until July 15.

This video graphic by New Orleans online newspaper NOLA wraps timeline, graphic, and cumulative damage data into one easy-to-digest piece of media.

The CIA World Factbook has always been a great resource for putting news stories into the context of their geographic location. But now it’s also easy to get the information at a glance.

The World Factbook Dashboard allows you to color code the countries of the world by population, population growth, infant mortality, agricultural GDP, industry GDP, services GDP, total GDP, GDP/inhabitant, or inflation. Clicking on a country zooms in for more information.

This map from The New York Times illustrates not only which areas suffered the highest unemployment rate after the recession, but also offers the option to filter data by metropolitan areas, areas with housing bubbles, rural areas, and manufacturing centers.

The Wall Street Journal updates this map constantly with violent conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If you want to learn about the day-to-day details of the war or understand its scope, there’s no better visual resource.

Even if you read through every health care bill article, it could be hard to exactly pick out what the law would change about your insurance coverage and taxes. The Washington Post made it easy by providing this nifty tool. Input whether you have insurance coverage, your family size, your income, and your marital status, and it will tell you how health care reform will impact your life.

For the broader picture on healthcare reform, see this subway-style map from GOOD Magazine.

The government is still busy spending much of the $787 billion it allotted for the economic stimulus in February of last year. This infographic effectively illustrates how that huge chunk of change is being distributed.

This chilling interactive graphic from USA Today simply illustrates the deaths in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Information seekers can search deaths by personal factors like name, age, gender, race, or home town as well as by military service details, date, cause, or place.

CNN has a more elaborate version here.

- 5 Fab Twitter Follower Visualization Tools
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More About: afghanistan, bp, current events, gay rights, graphics, healthcare reform, infographics, iraq, News, oil-spill, stimulus, visualizations, wikileaks

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Excited about your new Facebook page but don’t know what’s next?  What does a truly advanced company look like in social business?  They can say yes to seven or more of these ten criteria.

We’ve been interviewing the most sophisticated brands in the world when it comes to social business for our upcoming report on “Enterprise Social Strategists Role”.  We’ve come to learn which companies are advanced and why.  Secondly, I meet a variety of companies who tell me they are “Very advanced, having done this for a few years, and have dozens of Facebook efforts” but when I ask them some specific questions on their sophistication, they often retract their statement.

How to tell if your Company is Advanced: 10 Criteria Of Social Business Maturity.
Corporations that have these and other following elements in place, may truly be sophisticated when it comes to social business:

1. Clear understanding of their customers socialgraphics. Clear understanding of how their customers use social media by knowing the socialgraphics of your customers.  Granular knowledge of where their customers are, which behaviors they use, who they trust for information, and how they influence their peers in the context of their own products.
   The true test? Your company can adjust budgets of your integrated social strategy based on data –not gut feel.
2. Your organization is in Hub and Spoke, Dandelion, or Holistic formation. Social technologies enable all employees that want to talk to customers to do so.  This means a massive change inside of your organization to get ready.  Your company is sophisticated if you’ve organized in the Hub and Spoke, Dandelion, or Holistic and all employees clearly know their role, process, and contact points.
   The true test? A product crises has emerged on YouTube on a Friday evening before a three day weekend and you can sleep peacefully.
3. Corporate website integration: Social sign on. When customers come to the corporate site, they can see which one of their friends uses which product, and what they think about it.  Common technologies would include OpenID, Facebook Connect, and other social sign on technologies.
   The true test? You can disable your corporate registration page and use social logins instead.
4. Personalized corporate website based on social data. When a prospect (someone who’s never logged into you website before) arrives to your corporate website, they receive a customized experience based on their social IDs.  This would be based on Social CRM infrastructure, social sign on technology and a large inventory of personalized content.
   The true test? The voices of the consumers real world friends emerge above that of the brand right on the corporate website, see Levi’s foray.
5. Thriving advocacy program: customers are actively selling on your behalf. The sophisticated marketing program isn’t really the company talking much at all, instead they’ve a thriving advocacy program and word of mouth program that encourages customers to recruit prospects for them –all unpaid.  Learn how to do this, by reading this piece on Forbes.
   The true test? most leads are coming in through existing customers –not your sales team.
6. A community of customers supports each other, reducing support center calls. A company that has a thriving branded community where customers are self-supporting each other with little aid from the brand or the support team is a sign of a sophisticated social support program.
   The true test? A majority of customer support issues are resolved by community faster, with greater satisfaction than your dedicated support team.
7. Anticipation of prospects and customers using Social CRM technology.  Brands can anticipate before a customer has a problem, or grab leads “right out of the air” by using brand monitoring software, intelligent keyword monitoring and responding to be faster than real time using Social CRM strategies.
   The true test? sales and marketing are getting leads before the consideration phase, and the support team reduces inbound calls by triggering the community to resolve a potential issue before it’s escalated.
8. Innovation of new products with customers using web collaboration.  Companies that use these same tools to glean input from customers (ethnographic data collection) or create private communities, or use collaboration and innovation tools like Ideastorm or Uservoice and build new products and services demonstrate true sophistication.
   The true test? faster time to market on products because consumers have dictated the specifications, and less inventory as the product is built on spec.
9. Supply chain is influenced by social data in real time. Social media isn’t just about marketing and support, but is very valuable in listening to customer signals then to anticipate which products, services, and teams should be when and where.
   The true test? Your company is sophisticated if you’re using social data to adjust your supply chain in real time based on customer signals from checkins, tweets, and plancasts.
10. Real time reporting of revenues, costs and efficiency:  I’ve met with some of the most advanced teams, and they have clear reporting and can measure the increased revenues (over the total cost of the program) to tell their executives the true ROI of their business program.
    The true test? Real time dashboard measures the health of all social channels revenues, CSAT, sentiment and overall program costs.

We’ve done research on the roadmap for companies to reach these 10 levels of nirvana, but have found few companies that have done a few, or even a majority of them. If you know of any companies that have achieved five out of ten of these criteria, we’d love to know, please leave a comment.

Ajutaţi-ne cu câteva răspunsuri. Mulţumim!

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.

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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Ca in fiecare an, Webstock, cea mai mare conferinta de social media din Romania, isi propune sa aduca ceva inedit in agenda sa. Pentru a fi in pas cu tendintele cresterii interesului fata de retelele sociale, cea de-a treia editie va gazdui pe 16 septembrie la Radisson Blu Hotel conferinta Connections.

Connections este o conferinta organizata sub umbrela Webstock 2010, cu sprijinul Avon Cosmetics Romania, ce aduce in prim plan importanta mediului online si ascensiunea retelelor sociale care isi diversifica platformele si castiga rapid tot mai multi adepti in randul utilizatorilor romani de internet.

Conceptul evenimentului pleaca de la ideea ca Internetul creeaza multiple conexiuni si ocazii de socializare, devenind un spatiu pentru interactiune si informare. Intelegand avantajele acestor platforme, multe branduri si companii au pasit in zona social media construind strategii creative de comunicare cu consumatorii.

Despre dezvoltarea retelelor sociale, oportunitatile oferite de acestea sau modul in care s-au schimbat tiparele comunicarii sub influenta lor vor vorbi in cadrul Connections invitati precum Bobby Voicu (blogger si antreprenor), Andreea Catu (Community Manager, Avon Cosmetics Romania), Cristina Bazavan (Editor-sef la revista Tabu), Radu Ionescu (Managing Director, Kinecto), Bogdana Butnar (Specialist new media) sau Andrei Rosca (antreprenor si fondator al BookBlog / TeaCup).

“Pe 20 august am lansat prima comunitate Avon on-line din lume, destinata femeilor care doresc sa se dezvolte personal si profesional. Comunitatea Avon Connects este locul in care poti construi relatii durabile cu oameni care impartasesc aceleasi valori si preocupari, este spatiul unde pui intrebari si primesti raspunsuri despre tot ce este important in viata, fie ca este vorba despre familie, cariera sau campaniile sociale preferate. Ne face o deosebita onoare sa putem rasplati loialitatea a milioane de femei care ne primesc de 13 ani in casele lor prin acest spatiu construit cu grija si fantezie, dedicat Ei – femeia.”, subliniaza Andreea Catu, Community Manager la Avon Cosmetics Romania.

Participarea la evenimentul Connections este gratuita si se face doar pe baza unei invitatii solicitate in prealabil pe site-ul www.webstock.ro/connections.

Webstock 2010 este un eveniment care va include o serie de conferinte si workshopuri interactive pe teme legate de zona digitala, social media, advertising si web, completate de informatii despre tehnologiile si aplicatiile de ultima ora din domeniu. Ca in fiecare an, evenimentul va gazdui si Gala Webstock Awards, competitia celor mai noi si mai creative proiecte de social media lansate in ultima vreme pe piata locala

Webstock este organizat de Evensys in colaborare cu Vodafone, partenerul principal al evenimentului, actuala editie bucurandu-se de sustinerea partenerilor LG si Avon si a sponsorului Petrom.

Detalii complete referitoare la Webstock 2010 si evenimentul Connections sunt disponibile pe www.webstock.ro.

Extra info:

Evensys organizeaza in acest moment o paleta larga de evenimente ce trateaza tematici actuale, relevante atat pentru comunitatea de afaceri locala. Astfel, Evensys dezvolta conferinte si seminarii proprii, ce acopera 5 arii de expertiza: Marketing & Comunicare, Internet & New Media, Financiar & Investitii, Real Estate si Retail.

Avon Cosmetics este cea mai mare companie de produse cosmetice in sistemul de vanzari directe. Avon este lider pe piata cosmeticelor din Romania incepand cu anul 2002, pastrandu-si aceasta pozitie de atunci si pana in prezent. In Romania, 7 din 10 femei folosesc produse Avon.

Sabina Ungureanu
PR Coordinator
Evensys
Sabina.ungureanu@evensys.ro

Viziteaza Re:Comunicat - Comunicate de presa online (media, new-media si IT&C)

• Evensys si Vodafone prezinta Webstock 2010
• Webstock 2010 ii invita pe pasionati sa vorbeasca despre social media
• Au inceput inscrierile la Webstock Awards 2010!

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.

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.

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!

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

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Tocmai ce am aflat ca masina alor mei a fost sparta. Tata zice ca erau doi. Unul dintre ei a iesit putin sifonat, in sensul ca a apucat tata la el chiar in timp ce cauta prin masina. Noaptea, la 1. Celalalt a reusit sa plece cu o sticla de vin cu Dracula, ce urma sa fie facuta cadou, si doua tricouri de munca. Deci nu foarte mare paguba. 

Nu erau ecuadorieni, nici marocani, nici spanioli, erau de-ai nostri, din neamul asta brav si corect, din tara in care cu vorba fiecare ar munci, ar face mai mult, insa sunt destul de putini cei care chiar o fac. Ne mananca degetele sa furam, sa inselam, sa-l pacalim pe sef, sa plecam mai devreme, asa suntem noi.

Cel prins a inceput pe spaniola, ca senor, ca perdon, dupa care, speriat si cu borsul pornit, zicea si pe romaneste. Dincolo ne furam unii pe altii, ne dam in cap, fratii nu-s mai frati, copiii isi fura parintii si de ultimul cent. Nu va mirati ca suntem huliti de peste tot din Europa – 9 din 10 tigani CHIAR FURA, 5 din 10 romani CHIAR FURA prin tarile alora. Asa ca mai lasati-ma cu poporul discriminat si cacaturi de astea.

P.S. Intotdeauna cand am fost pe dincolo cel mai frica mi-a fost de romani.

As he was boasting that Apple is activating 230,000 iOS devices a day at Apple’s San Francisco event yesterday, Steve Jobs took the opportunity to accuse competitors of boosting their numbers when it comes to device activations.

“We think some of our friends are counting upgrades in their numbers,” said Jobs, most probably referring to the recent figures from Google, whose Eric Schmidt claimed 200,000 activations daily in August 2010.

Google has quickly responded to Jobs’ allegations. In a response to an inquiry from Fortune, a Google spokesperson said: “The Android activation numbers do not include upgrades and are, in fact, only a portion of the Android devices in the market since we only include devices that have Google services.”

So there you have it: according to Google, it might even have more than 200,000 Android device activations every day. Who do you trust: Apple or Google?

More About: android, apple, Google, iOS, steve jobs

Sa facem miscare… !

Atat timp cat nu ne trezim cu ploaie si temperaturi sub 15 grade Celsius. Chinezu, Vlad si Echipa Bloggerilor Triathlon-isti ne invita la Mamaia.

[Triathlon challenge...]