Will EPA have to pay for polluting river?

Story highlights An EPA cleanup team accidentally caused a massive spill of pollutants into the Animas River Cevallos: The law gives government immunity from liability for the damages it causes, though there are ways around that That's right. EPA was there to help fix the water, and instead ended up contaminating a lot more water. Danny Cevallos Danny Cevallos Danny Cevallos Many are demanding that EPA be held liable for this environmental disaster, which has flooded our screens with images of mustard-colored streams. In the past, when companies like offshore oil-drilling company Transocean and oil company BP were deemed responsible for leaking millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, corporate heads rolled. Money settlement figures were in the billions, and employees were criminally prosecuted. So, will the EPA similarly be held accountable? Not likely. As Mel Brooks famously said: "It's good to be the King." And, as President Nixon infamously said: "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal." In modern times, for the EPA, it's good to be the government, especially when what it does is not illegal. Though the United States is no longer (technically) a monarchy, the government still enjoys today what is called "sovereign immunity" from civil and criminal liability. The sovereign immunity doctrine prevents any entity, governmental or private, from suing the federal government unless -- unless the government gives its permission -- to be sued. And, as you might expect, when the government decides when and if the government can be sued, well, they have a tendency to side with themselves. To be fair, the government does give its consent to be sued from time to time. Many of the environmental statutes, like the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, contain provisions that allow citizens to sue the EPA when the EPA fails to perform an act or duty. Just because the government consents to being sued doesn't mean that the government can't make it an unappetizing process. Citizen suit provisions -- against both federal and state agencies -- usually require extra obstacles, like formal notifications in advance of filing the lawsuit. Claims for civil wrongs against the government are barred unless presented in writing to the appropriate Federal agency within two years. The takeaway: Even when the government waives its immunity, it still partially cloaks itself in all manner of procedural defenses against a would-be plaintiff. It's interesting that the same behavior that will get a CEO indicted, or a company sued into bankruptcy, might not even be actionable against the government. Sovereign immunity isn't just a legal doctrine. It's a culture. Even if you don't work for or with the government, you and every other citizen has been exposed to the sediment of immunity. Don't believe me? Pick up the phone and call the 1-800 number for Chick-fil-A and ask a question about their spicy chicken sandwich deluxe. Then hang up and call your local government agency to find out about how to get the licenses and permits if you want to open your own Chick-fil-A. Odds are, the private corporation will burn more calories providing you services than the public entity. We've all wasted time on hold with government entities, where it's apparent there is zero quality control, and customer service just ain't a priority. Don't get me wrong: you can reach a helpful person at a courthouse or a probation department, but they are helpful because they choose to be -- not because the system incentivizes service. Private companies, on the other hand, offer 50 different ways to reach them: fax, e-mail, Twitter, online chats, are only a few. Good luck finding anything other than a main telephone number for municipal administration services. To be fair, if you told me tomorrow that my private practice was immune from all criminal, civil, or professional liability, and I'd get a pension when I retired, I'd probably stop answering the phone and sleep til noon. Heck, I'd probably start leaving work at three and taking three-month paid vacations in the summer. Of course, I'm kidding. Even government employees don't take three-month summer vacations -- oh wait -- well, some do, but that's not the question here. The question is whether sovereign immunity is good policy when the government does something really negligent. Hopefully the government will do the right thing and take care of those states and citizens who have been affected by the spill, without lawsuits and courts. Perhaps federal agencies will provide assistance and services to those damaged by the pollutants in the river. Then again, good-intentioned federal agencies trying to help is exactly why this happened in the first place. To be fair, the EPA has been sued in the past and will be sued again. And while suing the "King" is rarely easy, it can be done. But it's not so much the government's legal immunity, but the culture of immunity that is the problem. When private companies cause ecological disasters, we go after them in criminal and civil court. When the government does the same thing, it feels like the punishment is less severe. Maybe President Nixon was right. Maybe when the government, the executive, or the king does something illegal, it becomes legal simply because the government does it. When President Nixon said this in an interview, we were shocked. Maybe he wasn't that far off. Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion. Join us on Facebook.com/CNNOpinion. Read CNNOpinion's Flipboard magazine.

Ferguson to New York, Social Media Is the Organizer’s Biggest Megaphone

Within minutes of the grand jury’s decision Wednesday, Twitter and Facebook lit up with thousands of messages around hashtags such as #EricGarner, #ICantBreathe and #BlackLivesMatter. Facebook pages called for protests in cities around the country. Hundreds of people soon crowded in protest at New York’s Grand Central Station and Times Square. This was not serendipitous. The speed with which these demonstrations came together and grew reflected intense planning by organizers and activists and shows how social media has matured into a crucial tactic for coordinating activity, drawing people to the streets and trading tips. “This can happen offline, but online we can amplify it more, and it reaches people faster,” says New York-based feminist media activist Jamia Wilson. “This is why these on-the-ground demonstrations can happen so quickly.” A similar scenario played out last week around the grand jury’s decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. In that case, organizers had prepared ahead of time by using social media to organize demonstrations, setting up a website that mapped out potential places to protest and a Tumblr page to denote protests happening in places around the country. Organizers Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes, both in Chicago, for example, started a Facebook event page planning protests in their city. They tried to estimate when the Ferguson decision would be made, and updated the page accordingly. In part due to their planning, the protest unfolded very quickly. With the momentum of the success of the Michael Brown protests, activists were again able to set the stage, deciding on hashtags ahead of time and choosing locations to gather at after the New York verdict. Hayes was following conversations on Twitter Wednesday ahead of the Eric Garner decision, when she saw mention of a peace circle to be held in Rogers Park, Chicago, in memory of Garner. She arrived at 6 p.m., to find 40 others already there. After meticulous planning, once the demonstrations begin it’s the vivid photos and videos sent by people on the scene that ultimately spur throngs of others to join the protests, social-media experts say. “You can see that it’s not just five people standing in Times Square — it’s people marching throughout the city,” said Marcus Messner, associate professor of journalism at Virginia Commonwealth University who teaches social-media journalism. “The immediate visuals we’re seeing on Twitter and Instagram help people overcome that barrier to getting out and protesting.” Antonio French learned about unrest in Ferguson in a tweet from a traditional news outlet that used the term “mob” in it. The St. Louis alderman wanted to see for himself. When he arrived at the site of the protests, he found no media there, and no one capturing what the community was saying and feeling. “My role in those first few days was kind of like a reporter,” said the former journalist, whose Twitter following has climbed from about 4,000 before the Mike Brown protests to 120,000 today. His role has changed, he said, to peacekeeper, and then mediator between protesters and police. All of that has had a social media aspect to it, he said. “Had it not been for Twitter, I’m pretty sure that Ferguson would not have become what it has,” he said. “In fact, it’s now hard to talk about Ferguson without hashtag Ferguson.” He said he has watched as even the Ferguson police have joined the Twitter conversation. This isn’t the first time protests organized on social media have grown to such large proportions of course. In Egypt in 2010 and 2011, for example, people organized around the Facebook group “We Are All Khaled Said,” created in memory of a young man who was killed by the police after he had posted anti-police videos online from an Internet café. His murder sparked protests that ultimately led to the revolution that toppled long-time President Hosni Mubarak. One of the advantages activists have found to organizing on social media, both in Egypt as well as now in the U.S., is the ease with which they can trade ideas on the best ways to plan events. Shortly after Brown was killed, for example, New York-based activist ‘Feminista Jones’ called for people to volunteer to host local national moments of silence to mourn Brown on Aug. 14 under the hashtag #nmos14. People who had never launched a protest asked on Twitter: “What materials do we need?” “How do we get the word out?” Some activists recommended using “light boards” that can project messages on buildings to help get the attention of passersby and tell them where the protests are occurring and what the messages are. “Across different states, you see similar demonstration tactics being used because social media allows us to share,” Chicago-based activist Suey Park says. Hayes notes that social media has also made it more likely that mainstream media will notice an event, if not as it is unfolding, then later when reporters notice the trail of photos and comments on Twitter and Facebook. “Before we had Twitter and Facebook, the main chance for people to learn about our event was if the media covered it,” she said. “Now with social media, we cover our own story.” As organizers tell their story, many are keen to elevate the voices of the people most involved in local communities. “Yes, it’s important to retweet reporters, it’s important to retweet the news, but for this, many groups are advising their grassroots members to retweet people on the ground to elevate their stories,” Wilson says. But even as activists call on one another to retweet certain voices, no single face has emerged for this movement. “People are looking for an overarching leader, and I don’t think that we’re going to find that,” says Joseph Mayton, a blogger who reported in Cairo throughout the Arab Spring and now lives in California’s Bay Area. “There is no need for one leader—people can come together online and do their own thing, and head into the streets and make change.” Twitter’s data team put together a map showing the global conversation around the hashtags #BlackLivesMatter, #HandsUpDontShoot and #ICantBreathe. Note how the colors change as the news unfolds: –Jeff Elder contributed to this article

Top 10 Social Media Plugins for WordPress

Social media is a crucial component for any online marketing strategy. If you’re running your small business website on the WordPress platform, it’s incredibly easy to integrate social. There are hundreds of ready made social media plugins for WordPress to choose from. Your choice of social media plugins for your WordPress website will depend on which social platforms you use actively, what kind of content you offer on your site, and the best look and placement of social tools that complements your website design. From simple to richly featured, below are some of the best WordPress plugins for social media. Digg Digg This versatile plugin by Buffer comes with plenty of customization options and integrates with virtually any social media platform. With Digg Digg, you can create either a floating social media bar with left or right scrolling options, or sharing buttons that automatically populate at the top or bottom of each of your blog posts. Digg Digg can be used with Twitter, Facebook, Buffer, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr – just about any social channels you might use. Facebook options include both Like and Share, and “lazy loading” helps you cut down on load times for your website. Flare Simple and eye-catching, the Flare plugin not only gives you customizable share buttons, but also lets you create and display a Follow Me widget, so your visitors can one-click follow your social media channels right from your website. The plugin is compatible with major social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and more. You can customize the appearance of the buttons, and place the share bar at the top or bottom of posts, or to the left and right of your pages. The left and right options scroll down the page with viewers, and auto-hide when not in use. ShareThis With great customization, tons of features, and more than 120 supported social media platforms, ShareThis is one of the popular social media plugins for WordPress that’s been downloaded more than 1.5 million times. This plugin tool offers more than social buttons, which come in the form of a Hovering Bar that can be displayed on the right or left side of your pages, with counters and your choice of small or large buttons. In addition, ShareThis has built-in social analytics, a CopyNShare widget that helps you track shares when your content is copied and pasted, and more. Share Buttons by AddThis One of the most popular and recognizable social media plugins for WordPress, AddThis Share Buttons let you integrate with more than 330 social platforms and bookmarking sites, as well as email sharing. While there isn’t an option for a floating sidebar, the plugin gives you plenty of layout choices – and you can also get free analytics when you create an AddThis account. Floating Social Media Icon Highly rated and popular, the Floating Social Media Icon plugin gives you a customizable, configurable social bar that flies onto the screen and scrolls along with visitors. You can also disable floating and set up static icons with this plugin. Floating Social Media Icon gives you more than 20 different icon styles to choose from, so you can match the themes and styles of your website. It also supports multiple widgets, so you can display various social media buttons separately on your pages. Social Media Feather Lightweight yet powerful, Social Media Feather is a simple, high-performing social plugin that keeps speeds up and load times down by not using JavaScript. The buttons have a clean, modern look, and you can customize the appearance with social icons skins. This plugin supports shortcodes, and is currently the only social sharing plugin that supports Retina and high-resolution displays used by mobile devices like the iPad 5. Slick Social Sharing Buttons If you’re looking for a social media plugin for WordPress that’s easy to implement and comes with plenty of options, try Slick Social Sharing Buttons. This plugin lets you customize button types, specify which pages and posts to display social sharing on, and choose from either a floating or slide-out share bar. You can also customize location, direction, floating speed, animation speed and more. Slick Social Sharing Buttons supports shortcodes, and gives you a social analytics dashboard to help you track your sharing activity. Social Media Widget With a long list of supported social platforms, including email and RSS, and some fun and interesting customizations, Social Media Widget is an easy-to-use plugin that creates a sidebar widget for social sharing, with links that open a separate tab or window when clicked. Social Media Widget offers three icon sizes, four icon styles (Web 2.0, Sketch, Heart and Cutout), and four animation types to make your social media buttons stand out on the page. Shareaholic The feature-rich, powerful Shareaholic offers more than social sharing. With a stated aim to help you get readers to “actually discover and submit your articles to numerous social bookmarking sites,” this plugin supports Facebook (both Like and Send), Google+, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn and other major social platforms, with share counters for many of them. In addition, Shareaholic comes with Classic Bookmarks, a Recommendations & Related Content tool, built-in Social Analytics, and official support for Google’s URL shortener as well as Google Analytics. Share Buttons by AddToAny Offering support for more than 100 social sites in 19 languages, AddToAny Share Buttons is one of the most popular social media plugins for WordPress with almost 3 million downloads. It’s easy to customize and fully featured, and supports both shares and interactive clicks – including Facebook Likes, a Tweet button for Twitter, a “Pin It” button for Pinterest, a +1 button for Google+ and more. Bookmarking and email buttons integrate with the most popular email services (Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook / Hotmail, AOL, and nearly every Web-based or desktop email program). You can customize the appearance and position of the AddToAny share bar, and integrate with Google Analytics to make the most of your social marketing. BONUS: Microblog Poster A different kind of social plugin, Microblog Poster lets you automatically push your WordPress blog content to various social media platforms. This plugin currently supports Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Delicious and more. It also supports shortcodes and multiple accounts on the same platform. Social Media Photo via Shutterstock More in: WordPress

How Mormons Use The Internet To Spread The Good Word

We tend to think of religions as being conservative, stodgy, or lagging when it comes to anything that has to do with technology, and especially online technology. Therefore it may come as a bit of a surprise to find out that at least one religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members are commonly known by the abbreviation “LDS” or the nickname “Mormons,” is one of the most advanced large organizations in the world when it comes to SEO, content marketing, and the use of social media [Full disclosure, I am an active member of the LDS Church]. As a member of this religious community and someone who makes his living from consulting with businesses regarding digital marketing, I have been more than curious to learn from the campaigns the LDS Church has engaged in to get their message out. Here are some of the lessons entrepreneurs and businesses can take from the Mormon way of doing digital marketing. phone with blue background Search Engine Optimization (SEO) SEO, which stands for search engine optimization, includes all activities that influence the ranking of a website on a search engine for a given keyword search. The higher a website’s rankings, the more traffic it gets. Digital marketing consultant Justin Briggs analyzed the SEO efforts of the LDS Church in 2010 while working for SEO consultancy Distilled and published his results in a well-read blog post. Given the time that has passed, I decided to revisit a few of Briggs’ findings when it came to the LDS Church’s SEO tactics and results. First, I looked at rankings for non-branded, generic keywords. Although exact results may differ from one person’s computer to another, when I used the SEO software tool SEMRush to analyze Google rankings for the following keywords for desktop users in the United States, I found LDS.org rankings in the top five results for these searches: bible bible dictionary christ church music holy bible holy ghost jesus christ king james bible new testament old testament scriptures It is not easy to rank for these keywords. Using SEMRush’s competitive analysis tool, the only website that outperformed LDS.org on these searches was Wikipedia, and this doesn’t take into account the fact that LDS.org is only one of the more than 100 websites the LDS Church maintains. Others include Mormon.org, ProvidentLiving.org, and OvercomingPornography.org. But the name of the game isn’t just to rank for highly competitive, simple keywords like those above, but to also target a large number of long tail searches, or keyword phrases that are more specific. The number of searches for “holy bible” is certain to outnumber those for “isaiah let us reason together,” (LDS.org ranks fifth on Google for this search) but when you add up the aggregate visitors from millions of specific searches they outweigh the visitors searching for a handful of generic terms. The LDS Church appears to have mastered both. Perhaps this shouldn’t be too surprising coming from a religion that has an official statement on SEO, in which it says “We view SEO as a method to spread the gospel online…” Internally, the LDS Church has taken steps to use best SEO practices on all its websites, making sure each page loads quickly, has a search engine friendly URL, uses easily readable HTML text in place of graphics where possible, and uses title, H1, and other tags properly. Its websites are an excellent case study in how to implement Moz’s oft-referenced Beginner’s Guide to SEO. But one of the greatest assets the LDS Church has when it comes to SEO is its more than 15 million members around the world. Church members have long been encouraged to master technology and use it to spread the gospel message, and they have responded in recent years by setting up personal websites and blogs, many of which link liberally to LDS Church web properties. Inbound links like these are a key factor in how Google determines the credibility or importance of a website and its rankings. Following in Briggs’ footsteps once again, I compared the number of inbound links for LDS.org to those on The Moz Top 500 (last updated January, 2014) and found that the 8.8 million incoming links LDS.org has would put it in 204th place, just ahead of websites like GoDaddy.com and TechCrunch, and slightly behind Weather.com, Slashdot, and Forbes. Entrepreneurs and businesses would do well to encourage their employees and customers to be active technology users, as the LDS Church encourages its membership. As important is sharing the vision and “why” behind the “how,” so that ability is complemented by motivation. This can lead to employees and customers creating their own resources to further motivate their peers, as LDS Church member Larry Richman has done with his blog LDS Media Talk and book 101 Ways to Hasten the Work Online. Content Marketing From its General Conference videos to music from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the LDS Church puts a massive amount of content online. Google has indexed 11.4 million web pages on LDS.org, not all too far behind the BBC which has 12.8 million indexed web pages. But the LDS Church has hundreds of other channels where it distributes content. One of these, the companion to Mormon.org on YouTube, dubbed the “Mormon Channel,” features hundreds of professional quality videos and has 95,000 subscribers. One of the features of the channel is approximately 100 videos detailing the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, which by themselves have been seen millions of times. Paul Fischer, a Salesforce consultant posting on LinkedIn’s Pulse network, explains how the LDS Church used these Bible videos integrated with long form content to produce an Easter-themed webpage entitled “Because He Lives” that is an excellent example of inbound marketing. Fischer points out this is no amateur effort. “Upon inspecting the elements of the Easter website I noticed that the page is using Clicktale,” Fischer says. “Clicktale is a sophisticated software suite that tracks ‘mouse heatmaps.’ Some of their customers include Logitec, Lenovo, and Walmart.” Fischer goes on to explain how the Church effectively used calls to action to lead visitors down various paths, depending on the type of content and topics they were interested in. But as with SEO, the LDS Church’s greatest successes in content marketing appear to originate not from headquarters, but from its members. At Mormon.org the LDS Church has one-page profilles for well known members like José Silva, an actor from Brazil, Elaine Bradley of the Neon Trees, and Brandon Flowers of The Killers, but gives “normal” members myself, Jouni from Finland, or Eunice Eshun from Ghana the ability to create similar profiles where we can share our beliefs and answer questions. Gathering content from members has helped boost the indexed pages for that website to 748,000, and also overlaps as an effective local SEO tactic since each profile is tied to a geographic area. To take things a step further, perhaps even more is being done to promote awareness of the LDS Church and the beliefs of its members by members doing their own thing online, without any assistance whatsoever from the Church. YouTube sensations like the Shaytards, The Piano Guys, DevinSupertramp, and Lindsey Stirling have attracted billions of views to their videos, dwarfing the reach of official LDS Church channels. Key takeaways for businesses? Produce lots of great content and market it well, but even better, inspire your employees and customers to create content for you–they’ll have greater reach. Social Media Ambassador, a referral automation software firm, has compiled a list of 40 studies showing word of mouth is the most effective form of marketing. LDS Church leaders have long understood that while professional marketing and PR may be helpful, and celebrity YouTubers can provide a big boost, the real power for communicating LDS beliefs lays in encouraging every Church member to be a missionary, and that’s why social media has become a focal point in any discussion regarding the Church, missionary work, and technology. “Social media channels are global tools that can personally and positively impact large numbers of individuals and families,” said Elder David A. Bednar, a top leader in the LDS Church, in a 2014 talk entitled To Sweep the Earth as with a Flood, delivered to students at LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University. He continued, “And I believe the time has come for us as disciples of Christ to use these inspired tools appropriately and more effectively to testify.” Some of the LDS Church’s more than 80,000 full time missionaries are spending time browsing social media sites looking to engage anyone willing to discuss topics related to the Church, even if “anyone” means trolls. But it’s normal members who are flooding walls, streams, and boards with gospel-related content. Some of it is initiated by the Church, such as when the use of specific hashtags is encouraged by Church media channels (see #LDSconf), but much of it is spontaneous. In his talk, Elder Bednar spoke of the Instagram account “bofm365” started by Ben and Chelsea Prince of Arizona. Each and every day, the Princes post a new image with a reading assignment in the Book of Mormon. The account has attracted over 68,000 followers to date. The lesson for businesses and entrepreneurs here is not just to encourage employee and customer activity on social networks, but to teach consistency as a key success factor. The Greatest Success Comes From Letting Go Much more has been said (see Are the Mormons Better Than YOU at Content Marketing? by Taylor Stockwell) and could be said on what can be learned from the LDS Church when it comes to digital marketing. If there is any “one big thing” to learn, it’s to let go of control. What is clear from the success of the LDS Church with SEO, content marketing, and social media, is that the largest results have come from outside the Church organization. This couldn’t happen unless the Church took the risk of encouraging its members to use their best judgement, and get to work. Mark Zuckerberg might call this strategy “move fast and break things.” A 150 year old statement from Joseph Smith, the first President of the LDS Church, is just as apt; “I teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves.” Have you found digital marketing lessons in unlikely places? Share with us in the comments below. Joshua Steimle is the CEO of MWI, a digital marketing agency with offices in the U.S. and Hong Kong.

As S.C. Democrats wait on Hillary Clinton, likely foes plant seeds

COLUMBIA, S.C. — As Democratic leaders and activists gathered here Saturday for their annual state party convention, they chatted in corridors and at coffee stands about Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her campaign staffers buzzed around with clipboards to sign up volunteers. To many, the promise of the first female president seemed exhilarating. But the candidate was missing. In Clinton’s absence, her longtime booster, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, did his duty again. But the response from the 1,000 convention delegates and activists was lukewarm. And when McAuliffe signaled for a video message from Clinton to play, there was a technical glitch. Then silence. “It’s on her e-mail somewhere,” shouted one man from the back of the convention hall, referring to Clinton’s controversial use of a private e-mail server as secretary of state. What soon followed were fresh reminders that, although Clinton is as dominant a front-runner for the nomination as any non-incumbent in recent history, the hearts of party activists are not yet hers. Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont toying with a primary challenge to Clinton, brought Democrats to their feet with a fiery sermon about the hollowed-out middle class and the rise of an “oligarchic form of society” controlled by billionaires. The reception Sanders received — several delegates called him “electric” — surprised Rep. James E. Clyburn, the state’s most powerful Democrat, who took it all in from the back of the hall. “I really did not anticipate that from Bernie,” Clyburn said. “It says something about people’s thirst and hunger for a real message.” Delegates rose again for Martin O’Malley, the ambitious former Maryland governor, after he spoke with rhetorical flourish about the undying American dream and gave a muscular defense of such liberal ideals as increasing wages, expanding Social Security benefits and cracking down on Wall Street banks. O’Malley, who lately has amped up his attacks on Clinton, took an apparent swipe at his more cautious and calculating rival in his speech: “Leadership is about forming a public opinion, not about chasing after it. It’s not about the polls. It’s about our principles.” Sanders and O’Malley joined a small parade of lesser-known White House hopefuls who came through Columbia this weekend, seizing opportunities to undermine Clinton and deliver populist pitches constructed to enthrall the same activists who fueled an upset eight years ago, when Barack Obama trounced Clinton here, 55 percent to 27 percent. As O’Malley left the stage, Democrats swarmed him asking for selfies. The scene led one former Obama campaign staffer, Jonathan Metcalf, to remark: “I started with Barack Obama when he was 38 points down in South Carolina. It was supposed to be impossible. Martin O’Malley can do this — he absolutely can.” Later, when a reporter asked how his message differs from Clinton’s, O’Malley quipped: “Was she here? I guess it was different in every way.” Lincoln Chafee, a former Rhode Island governor and senator, also addressed the convention, while former Virginia senator Jim Webb was represented by a surrogate. South Carolinians are proud to hold the South’s first presidential primary and have grown accustomed to face time with candidates. Many delegates said Clinton made a mistake by not attending the convention, the largest annual gathering of local Democratic leaders. “I’m disappointed that she doesn’t seem to be paying a lot of attention to South Carolina. I think she should be here. That’s one of the reservations with her,” said Bruce Sanders of Columbia, a delegate who works for a flooring company. “As it stands now, I’m probably for Hillary, but I’m willing to think about it a little more.” Other delegates already had their minds made up. “It’s about time we had a woman, and here’s a very qualified woman,” said Rose Pellatt, 71, a Clinton supporter who works at a community college. “She may not be perfect, but who is? Why can’t we have a female president? I’ve worked too hard not to have this come to pass before I die.” The wait to see Clinton will soon end. She is scheduled to make her first visit to South Carolina next month, aides said, and the campaign’s mantra here is the same as in the other early caucus and primary states: She will work to earn every vote. The Clinton team is staffing up, with a half-dozen paid organizers across the state, and has built a volunteer corps of more than 600. A top national staffer, Marlon Marshall, was in South Carolina working delegates. On Friday, he and other Clinton aides mingled with activists at Clyburn’s famous fish fry, a rollicking party staged in a downtown parking garage with hip-hop music blaring and people dancing into the night. In 2008, Clinton’s ties to Clyburn were damaged when Bill Clinton made a series of anti-Obama comments on the campaign trail that many in this heavily African American state interpreted as race-baiting. This year, Hillary Clinton extended an olive branch when she hired a Clyburn protege, Clay Middleton, to run her South Carolina campaign. Clyburn, who recounted the painful 2008 episode in his memoir, said in an interview that he reserves “no venom” for the Clintons. “I have no problems with Bill or Hillary. I can be as enthusiastic about her candidacy as I have been for anybody. . . . [But] I will not endorse anybody before the Democratic primary in South Carolina.” For now, Clyburn said, it is important that all presidential aspirants get a fair hearing. One of them is Chafee, an ex-Republican, who has signaled he would run against Clinton from the left on foreign policy. “Are we ready to end these wars?” he cried out to partygoers at the fish fry. The next morning, Chafee took an apparent swipe at Clinton’s ethics. “We want to see someone who hasn’t had scandal after scandal after scandal,” he said. “I’ve never had an ethical blemish.” Webb, another potential challenger, skipped the South Carolina convention to attend the White House correspondents’ dinner in Washington. He was represented on stage by adviser David “Mudcat” Saunders, who called Webb “a great American hero.” At Saturday’s convention, once the audio-visual equipment was fixed, Clinton’s video played. She repeated the early themes of her campaign, saying, “South Carolinians need a champion, and I want to be that champion.” Although delegates seemed to be half-listening. The video projection was so soft and the convention hall’s lighting so bright that they couldn’t make out the picture. In closing, Clinton said: “I look forward to seeing you in person, too. Have a great evening.” The problem was, it wasn’t evening. It was 10:35 a.m.

10-Point checklist for integrating digital, mobile at a live event

To elevate your live event game, you probably wouldn’t look to Maroon 5’s wedding-crashing stunt for inspiration. But you might reconsider when you recognize the massive engagement the chart-topping band achieved through a combination of digital marketing and in-person connections. To create footage for their “Sugar” video, band members traveled around Los Angeles and crashed weddings, surprising couples with concerts at their receptions. The resulting music video perfectly captures the reactions of the brides, grooms, and wedding guests and has become a viral marketing asset. This stunt not only speaks to the benefits of experimenting with fan engagement, but it’s also a testament to the power of face-to-face marketing and its infinite potential when paired with digital technology. Because without the reach of social media — news outlets picked up the story and wedding guests flooded Instagram and YouTube with images of the momentous surprise — how many people outside of the couples’ extended families would have heard about it? Face-to-face marketing simply isn’t enough in the digital age, even for celebrities such as Maroon 5’s Adam Levine. Unless you combine in-person efforts with a digital and mobile marketing strategy, you’ll miss out on a significant number of opportunities for customer engagement. The combined power of digital and face-to-face marketing Face-to-face marketing is powerful because it engages customers on a physical and emotional level. Just consider that 78% of Millennials are more inclined to become part of a brand when they’ve had a face-to-face interaction. Giving customers a live experience creates a sensory interaction that influences their product preferences and perception of your brand. However, customer expectations have changed. As consumers use more technology and social media in their everyday lives, their attention spans are getting shorter and their expectations for interaction are getting higher. Even if you’re killing it with face-to-face marketing, the majority of customers are already up to 90% of the way through the buying journey before they reach out to you. If you wait until an event to interact with consumers, you’ve already missed out on a significant portion of their journey. Fortunately, you don’t need to choose one approach over the other. You simply need to plan ways to connect on digital platforms before, during, and after the event. To create a more powerful marketing experience, start with this 10-point checklist: 1. Build social media blueprints Create a hashtag so you can start a conversation and spur excitement before the event. Use social networks to poll attendees, and identify ways to exceed their expectations and create a more valuable in-person experience. Spread the word in LinkedIn forums and groups, and tweet frequently. Make sure your tweets and updates don’t all center around the event, though. Also share other relevant content to keep your messages fresh. 2. Plan out email and text messaging campaigns Evaluate your prospective customer base, and identify strategic deals and updates that will drive engagement during the event. Plan and organize these campaigns in advance. 3. Automate as much as possible Advanced registration systems give attendees the chance to advertise their registration on social networks. For example, use a Twitter API to auto-populate a tweet such as “I’ve registered for #Event, have you?” to help event attendees network beforehand. Then, use your email and text marketing campaign to engage with customers and prospects over time. 4. Build a landing page to spark interest Create a landing page to share videos, pictures, and comments on the event experience. Brainstorm and develop YouTube videos surrounding the event to build awareness and tease attractions at your booth. 5. Engage on social media during the event Have employees live tweet the event so others can share in the experience. Offer exclusive deals and specials for customers who see the messages, and use your event account to share updates and news. 6. Use location information to drive interactions Geofencing and beacon technology can help you target customers with promotional or educational content based on their particular location at the event. Attendees can also track their own location and find other attendees with similar interests. 7. Use a contest to solicit photos and video Create a contest that attendees can enter by sharing a photo or video from the event. Not only will this allow attendees to take part in the festivities, but those who don’t attend will also have a chance to experience the fun by checking out the entries. 8. Get active on your website Use your website to give real-time feedback from the show floor, and publish blog posts each evening that describe the day’s events. To take it to the next level, use your website to live stream a press conference if you’re announcing important news. 9. Follow through with your contest Name a winner, and celebrate via social media by creating a video using all the footage and photos you collected. 10. Connect with customers you didn’t meet Secure the final attendee database, and develop an email marketing campaign to reach out to prospects you were unable to meet at the show. Although face-to-face marketing remains an integral strategy for engaging and exciting your target audience, you also need to meet today’s digital consumers on their turf. Elevate your in-person experience by integrating digital and mobile tactics into your next event. Consumers will appreciate the refreshing face-to-face interactions and your digital efforts as well. How will you take a multi-pronged approach to marketing at your next live event? -By David Saef - Memeburn

Apple invests over $40 million in HBCU technology talent to improve diversity

On March 10, 2015, Apple and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF)— a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization— announced Apple's multi-year commitment to make over $40 million in investments to HBCU technology students. TMCF supports students enrolled in publicly supported historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), including Howard University. The partnership with Apple will entail identifying, supporting and attracting students who strive to work in technology fields.TMCF currently provides direct support to approximately 2,500 students through awarding full tuition scholarships, providing leadership training and development and offering internships. Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., president and CEO of TMCF, described the new relationship with Apple as “perfectly symbiotic.” “The biggest focus is jobs. Scholarships, internships, and mentorship should produce full-time jobs at Apple," Taylor said. "Apple is going to get what it needs, which is a highly talented, diverse workforce. In our community, what it is going to do is give students who desire to participate in that very lucrative tech industry an opportunity to get in, and the real message is they can serve as examples for younger students who are in school contemplating what they want to do.” Taylor explained that Apple wants to encourage students who desire to build their own businesses to become involved in the app development space. The app development ecosystem is reportedly comprised of 99 percent Caucasians and Asians. An additional component of the partnership will involve participation of HBCU faculty members. Since they are responsible for producing a pipeline of qualified talent, instructors will visit Apple's Cupertino, Calif. campus. The educators will interact with Apple’s technology engineers, while gaining up-to-date industry knowledge. “What I love about this program is that it also helps build the capacity for HBCUs to prepare their students to compete for jobs on the West Coast. We have to ensure that Apple talks to our faculty and says to them your curriculum should look more like this. This is what we’re looking for when you deliver a student to our door,” Taylor said. “Some people almost naively think that you can just deliver up a 3.8 student from any school with a computer science degree and they should be able to get a job at Apple. And if they don’t, it’s because Apple was racist. They just don’t understand that a 3.8 in the wrong programming language doesn’t translate.” Apple's partnership with TMCF and investment in HBCU students will positively impact the entire HBCU landscape. "At TMCF, the quote is over $40 million dollars. It is the largest, single gift made exclusively to HBCUs,” Taylor said. “TMCF offers a number of different types of scholarships, but for this particular program, we are going to select juniors only who have a 3.5 or better GPA in tech-related majors.” For the student portion of the program, the application window is scheduled to occur in the fall. Student programs will not take effect until January 2016. The faculty component will start immediately. The first group of HBCU faculty members will visit Cupertino this fall. Taylor noted that Apple’s commitment to HBCUs is not a civil rights initiative or an affirmative action program. “Apple has said every student who comes through this program has to be competitive, not black and competitive, but competitive. The only point that Apple is making, which I think is critical, is we have spent all of our time only fishing in the ponds that include Stanford, Yale and Harvard, so we are missing some really talented people. Let’s go cast our net a little bit wider, because we are missing people who are eminently qualified,” Taylor said. To learn more about TMCF and the new partnership with Apple, visit: www.thurgoodmarshallfund.net

Google Calendar for iPhone Now Available for Download

Google on Tuesday finally launched its Calendar app for iPhone. Last month, while announcing changes to the Google Calendar for Android, the company had noted the iPhone app was in development. Google Calendar (version 1.0.2) for iPhone is available on App Store for devices running iOS 7.0 and higher versions. Just like the new Google Calendar on Android, the iPhone app can automatically turn emails into Calendar events. So if you get an email with place, time, date (not as attachment) then the Google Calendar saves it as event entry to remind you later. Users can also disable the feature. Other than that, Google Calendar on iPhone also brings 'Assists', which make suggestions to save the user's time in creating events, and also the new Schedule View (for one day, three days and a week). Last month, Google had updated the Calendar app for Android based on users' feedback. The updated Google Calendar changes included pinch-to-zoom and a 'Week' view along with '3 Day' and 'Day' view, which was earlier '5 Day' and 'Day' only. Additionally, the app added the ability to add Google Drive files to events, and even open them inside the app. Users can also control birthdays from Google+ that are shown in settings. Other changes included "a new option to show week numbers in settings," and "import .ics files sent to you in Gmail and other apps." Meanwhile on Tuesday, Google released a new app named Interactive Events on Google Play. The app is still in the works and is currently in the dogfooding stage. Google Calendar App Now Available to iPhone Users PHOTO: On March 10, 2015, Google announced the release of a new Google Calendar app for the iPhone. On March 10, 2015, Google announced the release of a new Google Calendar app for the iPhone. Google/iTunes Google's gorgeous calendar app is ready to take over your iPhone. The search engine giant released a version of its calendar app for iOS users today -- months after it debuted an Android version. Boasting a colorful palette in line with the company's clean, boxy "material design" aesthetic, the Google Calendar app is designed to work with all of the existing calendars set up on a user's iPhone. The Spaceship-Like Design of Apple Campus 2 Google Hires Crack Team to Police the Internet Why Google Is Offering Hackers an 'Infinity Million Dollars' PHOTO: On March 10, 2015, Google announced the release of a new Google Calendar app for the iPhone. Google/iTunes PHOTO: On March 10, 2015, Google announced the release of a new Google Calendar app for the iPhone. What makes it stand out from other organizational tools is the ability to automatically turn Gmail emails into events that can be saved on a calendar. Assists can also suggest people, places and contacts when a user is entering something into their calendar -- making it easy to plan dinner with a group of friends. The app also offers schedule view, which gives iPhone users a beautiful way to scan their schedule -- whether it's a snapshot of the day or a weekly outlook. Google Calendar for iPhone Now Available Article Comments Mar 10, 2015, 12:18 PM by Eric M. Zeman @phonescooperupdated Mar 10, 2015, 12:19 PM Updated: typo Google today released a version of its calendar application for iOS devices. The app includes features such as Assists to help schedule regularly-occurring meetings, as well as Schedule View to make it easier to glean daily schedule details in a glance. The app integrates with Google Apps for Work, too, so companies can manage the app if need be. Google Calendar for iOS is free to download from the iTunes App Store. more info at Google » AD Forum Options Start a new discussion Start a new discussion

How Facebook's Custom Audiences Won Over Adland

Ad Age Reports Strategies and Solutions from Real Marketers’ Case Studies. Featuring case studies from Bank of America, Volkswagen, Express, Neutrogena, and more. Learn more St. Patrick's Day was a big opportunity for liquor companies hoping to connect with bartenders. A bartender, after all, is the quintessential influencer, and making that influencer feel special is smart marketing. This year, rather than mailing thank-you cards to all the bars stocking its products, Jameson is using Facebook to send thank-you videos to individual bartenders. To do so Jameson and its agency 360i took a list of bartenders who have attended the brand's bartender events and ran 3-D video ads aimed specifically at those bartenders' Facebook accounts through Facebook's Custom Audiences ad-targeting tool, said Tim Murphy, VP-marketing at Jameson's parent company Pernod Ricard USA. Jameson's St. Patrick's Day campaign shows how advertisers are using Custom Audiences for seemingly any type of ad targeting on Facebook. Facebook first rolled out Custom Audiences in 2012 as a way for brands to target existing customers by uploading their customer email or phone lists, which are then matched with the email addresses and phone numbers tied to people's Facebook account. Over the years, Custom Audiences has evolved into what 360i president Jared Belsky called "an easy button for relevance." Instead of Custom Audiences being yet another targeting option on Facebook, it has become the targeting option. Facebook's VP-business and marketing partnerships, David Fischer, said Custom Audiences is "incredibly central" to the company's ad strategy. "It becomes a central part to just about any marketing campaign on Facebook," Mr. Fischer said. Things could have played out differently. For the first year Custom Audiences was available, many advertisers questioned the idea of making their customer data available to Facebook. The social network promised it wouldn't actually be accessing brands' data. Instead it would use a process called "hashing" to match that data with Facebook's without either side being privy to the other's information. But for some marketers that wasn't comfort enough. "Facebook was being pretty aggressive in being like, 'All right, what don't your lawyers or your general counsel like about this? Put them on the phone with our attorneys.' Which you don't get too often. … Stuff like that really helped the people who had to sign off on it feel OK," said Travis Freeman, Dentsu Aegis Network's head of social. Facebook's legal team helped gain adoption, as did Custom Audiences' high match rates and campaign results. Facebook declined to provide average match-rate figures, but one ad-tech executive said his company's clients, on average, see a 68% match rate when using Custom Audiences to target their Facebook campaigns. Starcom MediaVest Group's senior VP-social media Kevin Lange said Custom Audiences has helped change clients' perceptions of Facebook. It "has actually helped them prove the case to marketers that they can drive ROI or brand metrics that go beyond just fans and engagement," he said. Now marketers like Chase and Target are using Custom Audiences to build customer databases of people who use their mobile apps or visit their websites and advertise to those people on Facebook. "It's almost like the second iteration of Custom Audiences. It has the value of the unique CRM you already had, but this is CRM they're almost helping you get," Mr. Freeman said. Facebook is even discussing merging its Custom Audiences tool with the conversion pixel that advertisers can drop on their sites to track when people do things on their sites like visit a certain product page or add items to their shopping carts, so that no matter what someone does on a brand's site, the marketer can remarket to them with Facebook ads, according to people familiar with the matter. Facebook declined to comment on any plans to merge Custom Audiences and the conversion pixel. But the real opportunity lies in how Facebook connects Custom Audiences with its other ad-tech products, particularly its Atlas ad server that helps brands target and measure ads that run outside of Facebook. As the first agency holding company to test Atlas, Omnicom has started experimenting with ways to incorporate data from its data-management platform Neustar. For example, it's matching the people in households who purchase a specific consumer packaged-goods product to their Facebook IDs using Custom Audiences. "And now with Atlas, you build Custom Audiences, and you're able to then utilize that Custom Audience targeting and use the Atlas ad server to deliver that messaging off of Facebook," said Gerry Bavaro, chief strategy officer at Omnicom's Resolution Media. Examples like these indicate the potential edge for advertisers -- and for Facebook as it looks to rival Google's ad-tech dominance. "Custom Audiences is essentially the Trojan Horse by which Atlas has the reason and the higher ground to offer itself up as an alternative" to Google's DoubleClick for advertisers, Mr. Belsky said, "because it's potentially different and more special because they have this richer level of data." "The key to the next three to five years of marketing is login data. … And no one has it better lined up for marketers than Facebook," said John Tuchtenhagen, senior VP-media at Digitas. Data Should Be One Large Net To Hook New Customers Every marketer uses data in a campaign. Otherwise no one would ever see it. But even with the vast amount of customer, purchasing and supply chain data that is now available, many businesses still only use a tiny bit of it, argues, Jo Sabin, marketing communications manager at crowdsourcing graphic design site, DesignCrowd.com​.au​. Today, companies can capture data beyond just the customer value – what has the customer purchased? What’s in their basket? Are they using any promotional codes? How did they reach/find out about our store (online or physical)? How long does the purchasing and transaction process take? How many customers ‘abandon their cart’? What are the peak times of day, month and year? With so much data now being captured at every sale, businesses of all sizes need to tune into the behaviour of their customers, and more specifically for marketers, into the ways that customers are finding out about their business. The possibilities of using big-customer-data to optimise marketing and customer engagement right now are endless. Incorporating just a few simple data strategies will help you tailor your marketing to better inform and influence your customers. Track everything Customer experience powerhouses like Amazon and eBay have somewhat mastered the art of data-driven marketing. When you feel like you are ‘seamlessly doing nothing’ on their website, don’t worry, they are tracking your every move. These online giants are not only looking at the behaviour of their customers, but also those who are browsing. Each customer has their data stored, so that during your next visit, the homepage is full of products that you are more interested in. Their secret? They track everything. Other, small-scale website providers like Bigcommerce and Shopify are now giving their customers intuitive analytical tools to better understand the behaviour of their customers. The reason behind these companies sinking so much money into data, is because even one slight change to the way you do business, can have massive effects and put you ahead of the game. Most companies track their customers’ purchasing history but there is so much more you can – and should – track. Move beyond what your customers have bought and track their every click, search terms and shares. For online stores, you should also keep track of where your inbound traffic is coming from, so that you can increase your spending here, and bolster your spending on some of the smaller channels. Capture these behaviours and you will begin creating a pretty concise picture of each individual customer. This data will help you create a better and more profitable customer experience. Take on technology Gaining more in-depth insight of your customers is clearly invaluable but it’s not easy. To make sure you are capturing all the data you need, whilst maintaining your customer satisfaction, you need to communicate and interact with your customers every day, through a variety of channels, to ensure your brand stays reputable. How do you keep on top of it all? Consider implementing a CRM and an automated email marketing system if you haven’t already. Double points if you integrate them with your social media sites. Why? These systems don’t only capture, store, track and analyse your data but help you execute clever, multi-channel campaigns and deliver real leads to sales. A/B testing, dynamic content, personalisation and event management are just a few of the features you can take advantage of. As mentioned previously, most website hosting partners will provide customers with built in analytics tools, with tutorials of how to get the most out of them. If your provider doesn’t offer these, or you want to customise your data even further, consider using Google Analytics. GA offers a bunch of tools that you can integrate into your marketing campaigns, like tracking discount codes and monitoring customer referrals. Get clever Once you’ve got all the tools together for collecting customer data, take the time to analyse it, and see if you can find any customer trends or anomalies – if you are struggling, take a look at the Google Analytics Academy. Look at your page bounce rate, average time spent on your site, the average value of transactions per visitor as well as the ways that customers are directed to/find your website. Adopt a data-driven mindset so you can track and measure if your business is growing. Being data-driven means you get into the habit of running tests in-store or online and measure results. This could have a big impact on your sales by improving the design of your email or the buttons and calls to actions you use on your website. When Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer was at Google she was famous for testing every design element, including 40 shades of blue to see what shade made users click the most. This decision generated the company an additional $200M in revenue. In 2013 at Yahoo Mayer tested a new Yahoo logo everyday for 30 days before she unveiled the current company logo. You can also feed this data back into the experiences of your customers, either by using it to customise the web page layouts for customers or combining your data with something quirky, like FitBit has. Every year, every FitBit member receives a summary email covering their performance over the past year. Members are then encouraged to click though to see their ranking against others, so they can better track their performance. Not only is this engaging and enjoyable for members, it confirms FitBit’s reputation as being a fun and interactive business. There is a heap of data that your organisation can collect, store and use to build top-notch customer experiences and increase your bottom line. When you are considering using your data, start from the end stage and outline 5-10 specific questions that you want answered. From here, you can work backwards and design the most appropriate data collection methods.

Top 10 Social Networks for Entrepreneurs

Dan Schawbel is the author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success (Kaplan, April 09), and owner of the award winning Personal Branding Blog. Looking for a job? Consider creating your own. There are a number of social resources to help you connect with other entrepreneurs and get your business ideas off the ground. Here are the top 10 social networks for entrepreneurs. Each helps entrepreneurs succeed by providing them with the guidance, tools and resources they need to setup their company and gain exposure. Have another social site to add to this list? Tell us about it in the comments. 1. Entrepreneur Connect Entrepreneur Media, the company that produces Entrepreneur Magazine, started a social network over a year ago specifically for entrepreneurs and small business owners called Entrepreneur Connect. Like all social networks, you have the opportunity to create your own profile, explore the community, share ideas with other entrepreneurs and network. Unlike most social networks, this one frowns upon too much self-promotion and applauds idea sharing. You can use this network to connect to service providers, suppliers, advisers and colleagues. Just like LinkedIn and Facebook, there are professional groups that you can join or create. Another cool feature is that you’re able to start your own blog and possibly have it appear on the main page. This is similar to what Fast Company has done with their website. 2. PartnerUp PartnerUp is a social network for entrepreneurs who are searching for people and resources for business opportunities. Anyone can join, but business partners, co-founders, executives and board members will get the most out of this one. In this network, you can ask or offer advice, find commercial real estate and find service providers like accountants and marketers for your business. The big differentiator with this social network is the commercial real estate “MoveUpSM” program that serves entrepreneurs who have experienced a hard time trying to find office space for their business. They also have a Resource Directory that allows small and mid-sized businesses to advertise their services. 3. StartupNation Most social networks neglect the content aspect that makes StartupNation so useful. With articles, forums, blogs, on-demand seminars, and podcasts, entrepreneurs will be better prepared for their ventures and have the resources required to make better business decisions. There are a wide range of topics being discussed on StartupNation right now, including business planning, marketing and web-based business. The site also offers a series of competitions, such as a dorm-based 20 contest and an elevator pitch competition. If you're an entrepreneur or hope to become one, this site is definitely one you can’t miss out on. 4. LinkedIn It’s difficult to leave LinkedIn off of any social networking list because it’s so useful for anyone who's either searching for a job, is trying to network with like-minded individuals, or building a company. LinkedIn offers many resources for entrepreneurs, such as groups, including the very popular “On Startups” group that has over 54,000 members. Entrepreneurs on LinkedIn should brand themselves properly so they can attract the right kind of business opportunities, and perform searches to find service providers or partners. As an entrepreneur, you should also be looking to participate in LinkedIn Answers, events and applications to spruce up your profile and become a valuable member to your community. 5. Biznik This isn’t another LinkedIn clone. Instead, Biznik brands itself as a social network that “doesn’t suck.” The Biznik community is composed of freelancers, CEOs, and the self-employed. Like the other networks, this is a place for you to share ideas, instead of posting your resume. It is mandatory for all members to use their real names and provide real data, and Biznik editors actually review all profiles to ensure compliance with that policy. There are three levels of membership, including basic, active ($10 a month for an enhanced profile) and supporting ($24 a month for increased visibility). 6. Perfect Business If you want to meet thousands of serious entrepreneurs, experts and investors from a variety of industries, then Perfect Business might be the perfect social network for you. The type of people you’ll find are potential business partners, potential clients and advisers. Additionally, the site has leading business partners like Entrepreneur and Virgin Money. From business networking to a video center where you can learn from successful entrepreneurs, a business plan builder and even an investor center, you’ll have most of the resources you need to create or regenerate your business. There is a free basic membership and a gold membership that costs $29.99 per month. 7. Go BIG Network The Go BIG Network embraces job seekers, in addition to funding sources, service providers and entrepreneurs. In this social network, you post requests for help, which are then routed to other people in the network that can answer your questions or support you. Members of this social network can search through profiles of other members, contact them or post a request (a classified ad) to talk about what they are looking for (such as a business partner). The profiles on this network are targeted and specific so it’s easy to find an investor in a particular region. 8. Cofoundr The Cofoundr network is made up of idea makers, entrepreneurs, programmers, web designers, investors, freelancers and executives. The primary purpose of joining this network is to start a new web venture. Unlike most of the social networks already listed here, Cofoundr is a strictly private network, which means that you can’t view member profiles before you register for an account. Membership requires having a valid university or work email address, which means high schools students and younger aren’t allowed. The first thing you have to do is sign up, then specify your abilities and the people you are trying to network with and finally, post your idea on the bulletin board or in the forum. 9. The Funded The Funded is an online community of entrepreneurs who research, rate and review funding sources. Entrepreneurs can view and share terms sheets to assist each other in finding good investors, as well as discuss the inner workings of operating a business. General benefits of this site include viewing facts, reviews and commentary on funding resources, and accessing RSS feeds of the most recent public comments by members. By joining the site, you have access to detailed fund profiles with specialty, reference investments, and investment criteria, in addition to accessing partner vCards that have full contact information of all partners at venture funds. In order to get any value out of this social network, you pretty much have to become a member. 10. Young Entrepreneur If you’re young, entrepreneurial and socially active or just curious, then Young Entrepreneur is a great starting point for you. This community appears as a discussion forum, with topics such as e-commerce, search engine optimization, marketing, IT & Internet, and franchising. Aside from their main forum and threads, there is a popular blog and some great videos. More business resources from Mashable: - 5 Startup Tips From the Founder of Gmail and FriendFeed- Startup Hacks: 7 Ideas for Building Your Team- Startup Hacks: An Early Stage Checklist Image courtesy of iStockphoto, askhamdesigns

Apple, Microsoft Issue Freak Flaw Fixes

Microsoft Also Provides Update for Failed 2010 Stuxnet Patch By Mathew J. Schwartz, March 12, 2015. Apple, Microsoft Issue Freak Flaw Fixes Both Microsoft and Apple this week released patches to address the so-called "Freak" flaw that affects Windows as well as Apple's Mac OS X and mobile iOS operating systems. Microsoft also released a fix that addresses a failed patch for a vulnerability that was exploited by the Stuxnet malware. See Also: Automate and Standardize your IAM to Radically Reduce Risk The Freak - for "Factoring RSA-EXPORT Keys" - flaw could be abused by attackers to subvert secure Web connections by forcing crypto suites to downgrade from using a "strong" RSA cipher to a weaker, "export-grade" RSA cipher, which they could then crack and use to eavesdrop on SSL/TLS communications. "Once the attacker has the key she can eavesdrop on your communication and even modify it and redirect you to impostor sites," says Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of security firm Qualys, in a blog post. The Freak flaw was discovered in January, but kept quiet by researchers until March 3 as they alerted vendors and organizations, working with Johns Hopkins cryptographer Matthew Green. Numerous organizations have been shipping related patches. Notably, OpenSSL released a Freak-free update - OpenSSL 1.0.2 - on Jan. 22 to patch its related flaw, designated CVE-2015-0204. This week, Apple patched its form of Freak - designated CVE-2015-1067 - via its Security Update 2015-002, which removes support "for ephemeral RSA keys." The update is for just the three latest versions of OS X: Yosemite (10.10.2), Mavericks (10.9.5), and Mountain Lion (10.8.5). Users of Lion (10.7) and older Mac OS X operating systems remain vulnerable to Freak attacks, although security experts say none have yet been seen in the wild. Meanwhile, Microsoft this week also patched the Freak flaw by fixing a Secure Channel vulnerability in Windows, designated CVE-2015-1637. Freak Fixes: What's Missing? But according to the University of Michigan researchers who are running the Tracking the Freak Attack website, 9.5 percent of the 1 million most popular websites - as ranked by Amazon.com's Alexa subsidiary - are still vulnerable to the Freak flaw, although that's an improvement from the 12.2 percent of sites that were at risk as of March 3. Even so, the researchers warn that 26 percent of all HTTPS servers remain at risk from the Freak flaw. And they say that the flaw may also be present in mobile apps, embedded systems - such as industrial control applications - and any other software that uses TLS. Until those get fixed, users are at risk, warn the researchers from French computer science lab INRIA, Spanish computer lab IMDEA and Microsoft Research who discovered the Freak vulnerability. "You are vulnerable if you use a buggy Web browser [detailed below] to connect, over an insecure network, to an HTTPS website that allows export ciphersuite," they say on their Smack TLS website. "If you use Chrome 41 or Firefox to connect to a site that only offers strong ciphers, you are probably not affected." From a browser standpoint, the researchers have released this Freak-related guidance: Chrome: All versions before 41, on various platforms, are vulnerable - upgrade; Internet Explorer: All OS versions before March 9 are vulnerable - upgrade; Safari: All OS versions before March 9 are vulnerable - upgrade; Opera: All versions before 28 are vulnerable - upgrade; Android Browser: Vulnerable, so the researchers recommend switching to Chrome 41; Blackberry Browser: Vulnerable, no fix yet available. The University of Michigan researchers have created a client-check tool that scans for Freak flaws. "Even if your browser is safe, certain third-party software, including some anti-virus products and adware programs, can expose you to the attack by intercepting TLS connections from the browser," they say. "If you are using a safe browser but our client test says you're vulnerable, this is a likely cause." Windows Gets Numerous Fixes In addition to patching the Freak flaw in Windows, Microsoft this week released 14 security bulletins for its operating systems, of which five are critical. Related patches address everything from RTF parser flaws in Microsoft Office, to font-based vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office that could be exploited via malicious Office or PDF documents, to a Windows Text Services flaw that could be exploited to run code on a target's PC. But Kandek at Qualys says the highest-priority fix involves Internet Explorer - all versions from IE6 to IE11 - which gets a patch that fixes 12 vulnerabilities, of which 10 are rated as being "critical" in severity because they can be exploited to remotely run arbitrary code. "In a typical scenario an attacker would plant malicious HTML code on a website that is under her control and lure the target to the site, or hack a site that the target habitually browses to, and simply wait for the target to come to the site," he says. 2010 Stuxnet Fix: Take Two One of those Microsoft patches was for an unexpected problem: a lingering zero-day vulnerability that had been exploited by Stuxnet, which was discovered in June 2010. The malware was allegedly built by a U.S.-Israeli cyberweapons program, code-named "Olympic Games," to cripple nuclear enrichment centrifuges in Iran. But according to researchers at HP's Zero Day Initiative, which rewards security researchers for disclosing vulnerabilities, the vulnerability persisted. They say they were approached in early January 2015 by researcher Michael Heerklotz, who detailed the familiar Windows vulnerability, which allows an attacker to create malware that uses custom icons from .CPL, or Windows control panel files, to run arbitrary executable files. Such malware could be hidden on a USB key, so that when it was plugged into a Windows system, it could automatically exploit it. "To prevent this attack, Microsoft put in an explicit whitelist check with MS10-046, released in early August 2010," ZDI says in a blog post. "Once that patch was applied, in theory only approved .CPL files should have been able to be used to load non-standard icons for links." But the patch failed. "For more than four years, all Windows systems have been vulnerable to exactly the same attack that Stuxnet used for initial deployment," ZDI says. Kurt Baumgartner, a principal security researcher at Moscow-based anti-virus vendor Kaspersky Lab, says that information security researchers have now found that this flaw was exploited as early as 2008 by what it's dubbed the Equation Group, which some researchers suspect is the U.S. National Security Agency. But it's not clear if information security researchers - at intelligence agencies or otherwise - knew that Microsoft's initial, 2010 fix for the flaw failed to block all such attacks. "We have not observed a different implementation of this newly [reported] LNK exploit in the wild - yet," Baumgartner says. Numerous researchers are warning that this flaw could still be targeted in unpatched versions of Windows, for example by crimeware toolkits. "To exploit the vulnerability, an actor would either need to convince a user to visit a malicious website, which is not an uncommon tactic, or have physical access to a vulnerable system to insert a USB device containing a specially crafted shortcut," threat-intelligence firm iSight Partners says in a research note.

Verizon Goes Over the Top With AwesomenessTV and DreamWorksTV; Orders More Than 200 Hours of Original Programming

NEW YORK, March 11, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon, a longtime leader in video, said today it has an agreement to add more than 200 hours of original content per year produced by AwesomenessTV to be available for customers later this year through over the top video. The AwesomenessTV channel will target teens and young millennials, with new scripted and unscripted series. The family-oriented DreamWorksTV will feature both live action and animated short-form content as well as some of DreamWorks Animation's most recognizable characters. The offering will only be available in the U.S. This is a multiyear deal. "It's increasingly clear that 'mobile first' is the way millennials are consuming all types of content, especially HD video and music," said Terry Denson, vice president, content acquisition and strategy at Verizon. "At Verizon, we're committed to working with only the best and most innovative content providers, like AwesomenessTV, and driving opportunities as new content models emerge and customers experience the most in-demand and popular video in entirely new ways." AwesomenessTV Networks is one of the most popular and best watched, especially among teen viewers, with over 7 billion views and 112 million subscribers. "This is an incredible opportunity to expand the audience for both AwesomenessTV and DreamWorksTV. Mobile is where our audience lives, which is why we are looking forward to working with Verizon to introduce our programming and talent to their massive customer base," said Brian Robbins, CEO and co-founder AwesomenessTV. Why Great Content for Mobile Video Matters Consumers increasingly demand 24/7 access to great entertainment, informative programs and popular videos, no matter where they are and no matter what wireless device they have in their pocket. Traditional video-viewing habits are evolving, and multiple screens with time-shifted video are becoming more popular, especially among millennials. These customers are faster to adopt new technology and are more likely to adopt new ways of doing things, especially related to technology. A recent study done by CTM/University of Southern California found that nearly two-thirds of millennials surveyed consider smartphones or tablets, not televisions, their primary device, and they are more likely than others to engage in entertainment activities on their mobile devices – including social sharing. The study also found a 12 percent increase in overall video consumption between 2013 and 2014, with 18- to 24-year-olds having the largest increase, which nearly doubled the national average. AwesomenessTV is multi-platform media company serving the global teen audience, owned by DreamWorks Animation (Nasdaq: DWA) and Hearst Corporation, which has a 25% interest. AwesomenessTV includes AwesomenessTV, a channel featuring original scripted and reality series; the ATV Network, a community based MCN with over seven billion views; the DreamWorksTV Channel, Big Frame Management, plus consumer products, music and publishing divisions. AwesomenessTV also produces theatrical films and television series, including Expelled which debuted at #1 on iTunes, the AwesomenessTV series and Terry the Tomboy movie on Nickelodeon and Richie Rich on Netflix. AwesomenessTV was founded by Brian Robbins (Smallville, Varsity Blues, All That) and Joe Davola (In Living Color, Smallville, MTV Networks). Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ), headquartered in New York, is a global leader in delivering broadband and other wireless and wireline communications services to consumer, business, government and wholesale customers. Verizon Wireless operates America's most reliable wireless network, with more than 108 million retail connections nationwide. Verizon also provides converged communications, information and entertainment services over America's most advanced fiber-optic network, and delivers integrated business solutions to customers worldwide. A Dow 30 company with more than $127 billion in 2014 revenues, Verizon employs a diverse workforce of 177,300. For more information, visit www.verizon.com/news/. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/verizon-goes-over-the-top-with-awesomenesstv-and-dreamworkstv-orders-more-than-200-hours-of-original-programming-300048911.html SOURCE Verizon

Facebook is working on virtual reality apps for social experiences

What's This? Oculus_rift_inaction-1 Image: Christina Ascani/Mashable Samanthamurphy By Samantha Murphy Kelly2015-02-18 16:48:24 UTC Facebook believes that one day we'll be able to connect with friends in virtual reality, so users can eventually experience someone's vacation as though they're right there with them. Facebook chief product officer Chris Cox revealed on stage Tuesday at the Code/Media conference the company's vision for how it plans to embrace virtual reality. Cox said Facebook is already developing virtual reality apps to enhance sharing, providing a fuller picture of what the social network is doing. Facebook, which acquired virtual-reality technology company Oculus VR for $2 billion in 2014, said users and celebrities will be able to create their own VR content, and send it to others. "You'll do it. Beyonce will do it," he said. Cox discussed how film demos created for VR headsets will enable wearers to see and experience a whole new world, such as the inside of a Blue Angel fighter jet or a yurt in Mongolia. For example, in the yurt, users can look around to see the landscape and people nearby, including one woman making food by a fire. Facebook plans to build on this concept to make sharing even more personal among friends. Although Cox provided scant information about when to expect Facebook virtual reality apps (and how they'll work), he said they won't debut for a while. "We're probably a long way from everyone having these headsets," he said. Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments. Topics: apps, Apps and Software, Facebook, Tech, virtual reality, VR

Snapchat Seeking Up To $19B in Valuation in New Funding Round

snap Snapchat is looking forward to raise as much as $500 million that would value the company at $16 billion to $19 billion. Executives are in advanced discussions with fund managers. The value is also close to the $22 billion that Facebook paid last year for WhatsApp, a messaging app that now has 700 million users. In 2013, Snapchat had rejected an acquisition offer from Facebook for USD 3 billion. As per a Bloomberg report, it also has been developing new features to make it an entertainment destination,a strategy that could help it lure more viewers and sell more ads. Apart from this, Snapchat has raised six rounds of investment, and secured a total funding of $648 million till date. It is backed by 11 investors and was launched in May, 2011 by Co-Founders Bobby Murphy and Evan Spiegel. The app allows to take photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and share a moment with friends. According to a recent report by comScore, Snapchat is now the third most popular app among millennials (18-34 year olds) at 32.9% penetration, led by Facebook (75.6%) and Instagram (43.1%) among smartphone users. Other apps are also included in this space such as LINE, Kakao Talk, Whatsapp, WeChat, Kik, Tango, Viber etc.,which attract hundreds of millions of users. The four major competitors of Snapchat are 4INFO, Tawkers, Tackk and ChatApp. Category Investments Mobile Report: Snapchat seeks funds to bump value to $19B Report: Snapchat seeks funds to bump value to $19B 10 Share This Story! Let friends in your social network know what you are reading about Report: Snapchat seeks funds to bump value to $19B Another day, another potentially eye-popping valuation of a tech startup. This time, it's the messaging app Snapchat. According to Bloomberg, the company is seeking a new round of funding that would value the Try Another Audio CAPTCHA Image CAPTCHA Help ]]> {# #} CancelSend Sent! A link has been sent to your friend's email address. Posted! A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. The messaging service is reportedly seeking new funding that would value the company at $19 billion. USA TODAY’s Brett Molina shares why Snapchat is worth billions of dollars. (Tech, USA TODAY) Another day, another potentially eye-popping valuation of a tech startup. This time, it's the messaging app Snapchat. According to Bloomberg, the company is seeking a new round of funding that would value the company as much as $19 billion. Citing "a person with knowledge of the matter," the report says Snapchat wants to raise $500 million. The funding would make it the third most valuable venture capital backed company in the world, behind ride-booking service Uber and Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi. Last month, Snapchat disclosed it raised $486 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, part of a flurry of huge funding rounds. Also last month, Xiaomi closed a $1.1 billion round that values the company at $45 billion, while Uber raised $1.2 billion. Snapchat, a messaging app specializing in video and photo messages that disappear seconds after they're sent, branched out into the content space with Discover. The feature allows media companies including CNN, ESPN and National Geographic to share Snapchat-style news. Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23. Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1Eo9Mi2 0) { %> 0) { %> 0) { %> ]]> Snapchat seeks to raise up to US$500M in new funding: Report [unable to retrieve full-text content]Snapchat is looking to raise as much as US$500 million in a new funding round that would value the mobile messaging company at ... Los Angeles-based Snapchat could not be reached immediately for comment.

How To Spot Social Media Bots - They Are Often Lonely

Social media bots have become an increasingly challenging issue. They can trick you into buying stuff or even influence your opinion (read more about the trouble they can cause here). But one way to spot – and stop – bots is by using their own friends. Who wants to have friends who are just there to ‘sell you stuff’. Correct! No one! Being a bot is being lonely – or hang out with other bots. To demonstrate this I teamed up with Affinio, a company co-founded by Tim Burke (@t1mburke) that looks at social communities for brands. Often brands measure social media activity as a whole, where every engagement counts equally. That is not entirely correct however, because normally a brand wants to only address their specific target group. Does your Twitter account equals your brands target group? Not necessarily. Affinio showcases this. As a nice side effect one can easily spot bots since they form – unintentionally – communities of themselves. Let’s take some Top Social Media “Influencers” (Link to List). We analyzed the Amy Jo Martin’s Followers At a first look AmyJoMartin’s twitter followers look rather inactive. Many of them have no uploaded image, but show only the pre-set “egg” user image from Twitter. Random Sample from @amyjomartin However that might not necessarily mean that those guys are bots – it might just be that those tweeps are just less active – they did not even bother to upload an image. The lower level of activity, however, is easily seen. If one clusters the Twitter followers for both Jeff and Amy. One will find that Jeff’s least active followers tweet about 15 posts a month. While Amy’s has five groups that tweet below 1 post a month. (See the images here) Affinio’s strength is to analyze communities and identifying who is “influencing” each member of the community – meaning who do most tweeps in this community follow. If, however, one purchases a thousand bots like I did in my experiment with @spotthebot (see this movie about it), these bots are often sold to others as well. The bot owner had build them and now resells them over and over again. The consequence: all bots follow the same persons. Said differently these influencer of one group of bots can be seen as the “customer list” of these bots. Thus Amy has bots who follow her. Looking at the community becomes easy to see that not every “influencer” is as influential as we might have thought. If you want to learn more about ‘influencer’ and the way to measure them read this free chapter on marketing from my Book “Ask Measure Learn” by O’Reilly Media. Please note that Amy has not necessarily purchased those bots. As pointed out in this post, it might just be that others bought them to harm her or maybe a bot programmer used Amy to make their bots look more natural. Another way of spotting bots is by looking at their behavior, particularly when this behavior is too regular over time. If someone tweets and engages constantly, it is most likely not a human being. (At least I personally value my sleep!) Spotting BotsAn Arm’s Length Race If you are a software engineer you already might think that all those issues with bots can be easily circumnavigated. Bots could upload images automatically. Bots could be more active – just tweet from an rss feed. And yes, bots could be more careful who they follow and how regular they tweet. You are right! Every time a network spots and removes a bot the programmer understands that she will need to change the algorithm. Because of this unintended feedback look a well well-known dating service took action and no longer removed identified bots. Instead they moved them into a virtual chatroom where spam bots meet up with bots from the dating site. This way the programmer will not know for a while that her bot was detected. In the end, we need to trust that it is in the best interests of social networks to do all they can to remove bots. Most of them now offer a way to get certified or to identify a bot now. By doing so they can train computer programs to spot bot activity. Bots are a reality and they will try their best to influence us. And they might be even more successful in the area of Big Data. Bots are generating data as well, and this data migh skew our algorithms such as trending content. We will need to master them as much as we have mastered SPAM, and learn to fend them off in the same way we have learned by now not to send money to a Nigerian prince. But maybe someday soon bots will outsmart us. But only if the computer become more intelligent as Nick Bostrom discussed in his excellent book “Superintelligence“. Until then, we should just be cautious about which prediction systems we believe. If you want to learn more about social media and big data – sign up for my newsletter.

How Social Media Marketing Looks in 2015

Five years ago, Facebook had introduced its now-iconic ‘Like’ button and MySpace was still popular. Since then, social media underwent rapid development and has grown into a huge and worldwide phenomenon with 2.46 million posts being made on Facebook every minute, 104 thousand images being taken on Snapchat and 1,730,000, 000 users who have uploaded about 20,000 pictures on Tumblr. These figures are expected to increase every year substantially and show how influential social media has become in terms of how people engage and communicate with each other as well as how business and commerce is done. Social media is used by about 97% of the marketers and 92% have acknowledged that importance and effectiveness of this tool for their businesses. Following are the trends and highlights that will be part of social media in 2015: 1- Content marketing is going to get more social. The power of content marketing is dependent on not just creating the ideal content, but also how the content is distributed to the targeted audiences.2- Real time social marketing is highly important. By observing and responding promptly to the needs of the target audience, marketers and business owners will be able to promote better engagements, which can increase conversions and sales.3- Audio and video are important elements of social content. They have become powerful tools like other digital marketing channels, which can lead to better responses through better engagement.4- There is also steady shit to social media on mobile. Experts have predicted that about 1 billion people will use their mobile gadgets for accessing social media on mobile. Therefore, it is logical for businesses to start focusing on mobile social media to make the most of it.5- Paid social media advertising will also continue to rise. Daniel Neubauer, the CEO of Internet Marketing Company Red Ram Media, says "The natural or organic reach of a regular Facebook post is around 0.073%. Businesses should give some thought to paid social media advertising if they want to get more mileage from their social media efforts".6- Social media wallets will be used for payment. Mobile usage has seen a phenomenal rise due to which prominent online tech players like Apple and PayPal have been driven to action for taking advantage of the mobile payment space.7- Social media commerce is also on the rise. Twitter, Facebook and soon other social media platforms will exploit commerce with ‘buy’ buttons that will be fully functional soon.8- It has been predicated by experts from Gartner and other research firms that businesses will use social media in a more smarter and analytical manner.9- Social media is also gaining importance in the business-to-business marketing arena. Facebook has an 89% usage rate and LinkedIn is close behind with an 88% usage rate by marketers.10- New social networks are also rising such as Ello, which are promising to provide users with a social network that’s free of ads and will not sell important user data to third parties. These trends should be kept in mind by marketers when designing social media strategies for 2015.

Best Practices for In-Store Mobile Strategy in 2015

Mobile strategy is erroneously reduced to, “What did I sell on the phone?” This limited view ignores the impact of this technology to drive sales at the local and store level. A well-executed mobile strategy can unify channels, wrapped in a convenient package for your biggest brand fans. Brand loyalty and in-store action should not be ignored, especially since these elements impact the purchase decision process so heavily. In the apparel industry, which is often driven by brand and lifestyle appeal, the mobile device plays a pivotal role in sealing that customer connection and long-term brand loyalty. Craft a mobile strategyThere are a surprising number of consumer-facing apparel brands that lack an apparent mobile strategy. Some think having a responsive website checks the “mobile strategy box” but it includes so much more than that. Mobile strategy refers to understanding where your customer is on her journey with your brand and how to best connect with her in that context. Is she loyal or transient? Is she standing in a store or sitting at home on her sofa? Is she social or does she wish to connect on her own terms? The one thing I can guarantee is she's staring at her mobile device. In fact, the average customer is looking at her smartphone's screen for more than about three hours per day (almost as much as television!). Start simple – have a responsive mobile website. If your brand is consumer-facing, you need to allow consumers to gain access to your site on their mobile devices. Does lifestyle matter to your shoppers? Do they identify with your brand's lifestyle promise? Are they loyalists? If you answered "yes," you may wish to look into a mobile application to better provide a personalized experience to your most loyal fans. If not, you may look to partner with applications that are sticky with your demographic and take advantage of mobile ads. Empower the consumerSince the mobile device is always in the consumer's pocket or hand, use this as an opportunity to educate her about your product, no matter which channel she's using to purchase. A great example of this is the scan feature on The North Face’s mobile application, which works to scan any brand tag on its clothing. Whether in a reseller’s store or The North Face’s own direct retail channels, consumers can learn more about any of the company’s products; read reviews, learn about product features; and even watch videos on wear tips. Specialty apparel brands, selling products that have a technology component or need an explanation, can benefit greatly from this mobile strategy, even in stores. Make the stores interactiveMerchandising in a physical retail location is already a challenge, and even more so if a brand doesn’t control the retail environment. However, using new technologies such as beacons can make retail environments interactive and personalized. Brands using displays shipped or embedded with beacons can communicate with fans using the mobile app who receive tailored messages when in proximity of the beacon. An example would be pushing a message that tells customers about a new collaboration and encourages them to learn more about your product design. Beacons don’t have to be just about pushing promotions; they can also activate content and personalized messaging based on purchase history. Focus on the futureIncreasingly, the phone isn’t the only mobile device found with consumers at all times. Wearables such as FitBits, iWatches and interactive jewelry are entering the consumer consciousness. Recognizing that its audience is taking fitness to a new level, Under Armor recently invested in acquiring three popular mobile applications as part of its strategy, pairing its popular apparel with the connected consumer lifestyle. This isn’t to say brands should go out and buy apps or wearable device companies, but they certainly can participate in co-marketing with them - especially those with a complimentary demographic all to their own. As the customer journey takes a digital detour, apparel brands must remember that mobile strategy is essential to connecting with the modern shopper. What better way to celebrate and reward these loyal consumers than providing them with the heightened and personalized experience they all seek? A sound mobile strategy is the icing on the cake that can really catapult your brand into recognition audience is taking fitness to a new level, Under Armor recently invested in acquiring three popular mobile applications as part of its strategy, pairing its popular apparel with the connected consumer lifestyle. This isn’t to say brands should go out and buy apps or wearable device companies, but they certainly can participate in co-marketing with them - especially those with a complimentary demographic all to their own. As the customer journey takes a digital detour, apparel brands must remember that mobile strategy is essential to connecting with the modern shopper. What better way to celebrate and reward these loyal consumers than providing them with the heightened and personalized experience they all seek? A sound mobile strategy is the icing on the cake that can really catapult your brand into recognition securing a long-term position in this exciting future of retail. Maya Mikhailov is co-founder and executive vice president of GPShopper.