Microsoft, the software giant better known for enterprise productivity software and Excel spreadsheets, is forging into territory more commonly reserved for bootstrapping Silicon Valley startups: social media.

Microsoft’s two-month old So.cl, a hybrid social network and search engine, marks the company’s latest attempt to get cozy with consumers and move beyond the boardroom, an effort that has ensnared Microsoft in multiple battles with tech behemoths such as Apple and Google.

Microsoft is careful to cast So.cl as a research experiment, not a full-on assault against the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

Instead, the service offers a playground for the company to test new features and concepts that could ultimately help shape its search engine, Bing, which has made ongoing efforts to differentiate itself from Google. Already, Bing has attempted to one-up Google by cutting deals with Facebook and Twitter to integrate some social elements into its search results, and So.cl could very well offer a glimpse at new avenues Bing may choose to pursue.

Launched by Microsoft’s FUSE Labs, a research group of about 30 people, So.cl grew out of an attempt to imagine what search would look like if it had been preceded by social media, not the other way around, notes FUSE Labs’ general manager Lili Cheng.

“Search is something you typically do alone. You might find content in search you want to share with other people, but it’s hard to share the stuff you’re looking at within search,” said Cheng. “We said let’s open up the box and experiment to see how we could merge together these concepts of search and social networking.”

“We started to think about … what search might be like if everything you did on search was together with other people,” Cheng added.

• The So.cl Feed

• Sharing On So.cl

• The Landing Page For So.cl’s Video Parties

• Inside A So.cl Video Party

• Another View: The So.cl Feed

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Related articles

• Microsoft Mixes Social Networking with Search (c24.co.uk)

Unroll.me, which started as a simple hack for unsubscribing to emails, is the startup behind this improvement, and it’s launching a redesigned product on Monday. For the first time, users can compile the newsletters they do want to receive into a one-email-per-day digest.

Here’s how it works: After you grant Unroll.me access to your inbox (only gmail, MSN, Yahoo and AOL are compatible for now), it searches for the newsletters you receive on a regular basis. A 2003 law that requires newsletters to include certain language makes this easier for the startup to spot them.

Through the Unroll.me dashboard, you can then opt out of each newsletter it detects with a single click (for sites like LinkedIn or Facebook, Unroll.me directs you to the appropriate settings page). You can also add any of them to a daily digest newsletter with one click. That’s it.

Eventually the site hopes to make money by building an index of newsletters. It could help newsletters acquire new subscribers by suggesting them to users who subscribe to similar ones, and it would charge them for the service. Unroll.me is currently offering newsletter recommendations to users, but none of them are sponsored.

Despite the lack of income, the service is free to use — but there is a catch. After unsubscribing from four lists through Unroll.me, you need to tweet, post or email friends about the service before you can continue purging your inbox.

Considering the benefits of the service, however, a social plug is a small price to pay.

Unroll.me is still in private beta, but the first 5,000 Mashable users who sign up at this link can skip the line.

Source :- http://mashable.com

Related articles

• Clean Your Inbox of Newsletters With One Click (themarketingguy.wordpress.com)

Image via CrunchBase

Rapportive, a startup that makes a Gmail add-on that displays social media info about contacts as you email them, confirmed on Wednesday that it had been purchased by LinkedIn.

Rahul Vohra, CEO of Rapportive, confirmed the acquisition on the company’s blog. “In business, partnership is dating — and we went on a lot of dates with LinkedIn. Slowly, but surely, we fell in love,” Vohra wrote. Vohra wrote that despite the new ownership, Rapportive will continue building its product. “At LinkedIn, we will support Rapportive, and we will continue to build beautiful products that make you brilliant with people.”

The confirmation comes after a report earlier this month from All Things D pegged the purchase price in the “low teens” of millions of dollars. Vohra did not disclose financial terms of the deal.

Rapportive is a sidebar for Gmail that displays information from relevant email contacts’ social media accounts, including LinkedIn, as you open and compose emails. It also lets you add those email contacts as friends on social networks without leaving your inbox.

The startup’s website says its plugin looks up more than 20 million contacts every month — which, considering how many emails can come to one account, doesn’t necessarily give much insight into the size of its user base. It competes with other personal relationship management products such as Smartr and Mingly

Source :- http://mashable.com

Related articles

• LinkedIn acquires Gmail plugin, Rapportive (agbeat.com)

In today’s world consumed by the internet, nearly everyone with access to a computer and a passion for keystroking their every thought, idea and inspiration has a blog. So because of the influx of bloggers and with the phenomenon that is the blogosphere, there has also come an expansive platform for successfully promoting all types of online businesses.

Creating online articles as a guest poster can be a powerful promotional tool that any company or website owner can take advantage of for the purpose of branding a name and increasing the amount of traffic flow to a site. By contributing well written posts to various blogs and sites across the web, you are able to share valuable information with readers and promote your company by imbedding a link back to your site.

As the owner of a website, I’ve found that one of the best methods for encouraging internet users to visit my page is through guest posting. For those looking for new ways to market your company and drive cyber traffic your direction, learn about the process and gain some insight as to why more and more businesses are using guest posts as an opportunity for growth…

The benefits of guest posting:

• Guest posting allows you to target your traffic. Because you pick the blogs you want to post on, you can target a specific audience for your business by choosing ones with a similar theme and followers that you would like to gain.

• Guest posting is great for SEO. When you post your article on someone else’s blog, you do it for free but in return the blog owner will grant you a link back to your website. Over time these backlinks will raise the value of your site to search engines like Google and Bing, making your content easier to find…and making you and your business more successful.

• Guest posting builds your reputation. When you get the chance to blog on well-known blogs and you continue to write good posts that are being published, people will recognize your name and your company’s popularity will be sure to skyrocket. By making friends with bloggers via guest posting, you will create relationships based on the value you are adding to their site.

• Guest posting introduces you to new communities. One of the greatest benefits of guest posting is that it enables you to gain a presence in new communities to share your message. If you are publishing posts that are meaningful and chalk-full of information, you will create a platform for discussion, enabling you to interact with people who might be able to benefit from your own product or services.

How it’s done:

Step 1: To find relevant blog, type chosen keywords into a Google search and then check the page rank of the site to see if it’s worth taking the time to post. As previously stated, it is important that the blogs you choose have an audience similar to the kind you are trying to attract. Check out the page ranking of the potential host blog by using a page rank tracker—obviously the more successful the blog, the more successful your post will be in accumulating new business. I normally shoot for blogs with rankings of a 3 or higher.

Step 2: Review the blog and see if they accept guest posts. If so then do a thorough job researching the blog to see what style of writing is used and what topics have and have not been covered.

Step 3: Send an informal email stating who you are and pitching your idea along with links to other articles that you’ve written to show your credibility. While keeping your message short and to the point, be sure to invoke confidence by letting the blogger know that you are certain you can create a great piece for their site.

Step 4: If the blog host okays your idea, proceed to compose the best post that you can. Make sure that it fits with the theme and general style of the site and write something as close to publish-ready as possible. Submit resourceful and quality information so that the readers will have a desire to find out more and click on over to your page. With that being said, don’t forget to include a link to your website. I normally do this in the author’s bio at the end of my articles, or you can also use a hyperlink in the post itself.

Step 5: If you submit your guest post and don’t hear back from the blogger on its status, I normally give them about five days before following up. If you still don’t hear back, follow up one more time and ask them to let you know if they are going to publish it or not. Should they decline your article, keep it so that you can post it elsewhere.

Sabrina Jackson is a guest post author who shares with us this post about the benefits of guest posting. In addition, Sabrina also owns Free Dating Sites for Women where she offers tips for safely dating on the internet.

Image via CrunchBase

The company was founded in 2006, and differently from most generic e-commerce and classified ads (e.g. like India’s Sahipasand) the site has decided to focus entirely on gift items such asgourmet products, jewelry and toys, providing as same-day delivery as a special service. In other words, their goal has been to become the go-to online gift shop for the Turkish population.

Headquartered in Istanbul, CicekSepeti currently employs 160 people.

The exact amount of the investment from Amazon, which joins Himmingbird Ventures in the founders’ team, is unknown.

Turkey seems to be a hot market for investors this year, after Tiger Global and KPC & Byers invested heavily in Trendyol and Quants Financial Services (a Swedish fund) entered in Grupfoni. Looking at this list, it seems also onlien shopping is getting hot again: maybe the Internet won’t be seen as a place for loans and real estate business only any more?

Related articles

• Amazon Invests In Turkish E-Commerce Startup Ciceksepeti (techcrunch.com)
• Why Turkey is the next raging e-commerce hotspot (venturebeat.com)

Late last night, one of Diaspora‘s four co-founders, Ilya Zhitomirskiy, had passed away. With much sadness, Techcrunch now confirmed this terrible news with the Diaspora team.

Ilya was just 22. To see any member of our community pass is sad, but for one so young to go is absolutely crushing. The cause of death is currently unconfirmed.

Our sincerest condolences to Ilya’s family, friends, and the entire Diaspora team.

As Per Chunch base Diaspora is a project begun by four students at NYU’s Courant Institute. They propose to build an open-source, distributed social network as an alternative to companies such as Facebook.

The team decided to raise $10,000 using Kickstarter by June 1. In light of Facebook’s recent moves concerning privacy, the team has received far more support than expected. With news coverage by Fox on May 11th and a writeup from the New York Times on May 12th exposure took off. The company had raised more than $178,000 by May 21st.

• Websaite name - joindiaspora.com
• Blog - http://blog.joindiaspora.com/

Related articles

• Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21 (techcrunch.com)
• Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Dies at 22 [REPORT] (mashable.com)

Image via Wikipedia

Could a Facebook competition encourage users to cut their utility usage? Can a mobile communication network help rural farmers share crop tips? Bringing together activists, world leaders and tech influencers, the second annual Social Good Summit seeks to answer these questions and more.

The summit, which kicked off on Monday in New York, aims to find new ways to use new media and technology to make the world a better place.

Presented by Mashable, the UN and New York nonprofit community center 92Y, the summit will host a number of events, including an inaugural “Startups for Good Challenge.” This competition showcases new businesses whose primary goal is to tackle, and solve, domestic and international issues. The organizations will compete for a chance to win a $10,000 cash prize.

The following eight finalists have been selected to pitch their idea at the Social Good Summit:

• Kopernik - For those living in remote areas, a lack of basic necessities may be due to a lack of accessibility. Kopernik aims to solve this problem by providing an online marketplace that offers such simple technology as a rollable water container or a portable filter that removes bacteria. Kopernik connects tech providers and investors to supply these items to NGOs.

• Simple Energy - When you show off your reduced utility bill on Facebook, you may win some rewards, thanks to Simple Energy. The organization encourages users to share their energy-saving ways and compete to see who can take on the most at-home green measures, such as switching to energy-saving lightbulbs, according to TechCrunch.

• Catchafire - Catchafire recruits volunteers with marketing and finance skills and pairs them with the nonprofits that need their help. Volunteers are matched with organizations based on their skills, interests and availability.

• Roseicollis Technologies - At just $10 a panel, the SunSaluter makes bringing the use of solar energy into the developing world an affordable possibility. The technology increases energy output by 40 percent due to its tilt,according to Dell Social Innovation, requires less maintenance than a motorized panel and has already improved the lives of 1,000 people in Kenya.

• em[POWER] Energy Group - em[POWER] Energy Group makes use out of waste by working with communities that rummage through landfills for food and shelter. It improves the sorting process of recyclables, turns organic and water waste into electricity and creates high quality compost.

• Awaaz.De - Awaaz De means “give voice” and this organization is doing just that. The India-based nonprofit enables people in emerging countries to get expert advice, just by dialing a toll-free number. Ranging from teachers to farmers, users can post, browse and reply to others’ voice messages to learn–and teach–how to best perform their trade.

• Sparked - Busy professionals chained to their desks have no excuse not to volunteer now that Sparked has arrived. Sparked invites do-gooders to contribute to a range of causes, without stepping away from the computer. One volunteer in Jordan, for example, helped the Ronald McDonald House Charities in America with an Arabic translation, according to Mashable.

• Prove My Concept - Prove My Concept is an educational software company whose goal is to inspire and support the next generation of young entrepreneurs. The organization provides a framework for high school students to analyze their business concepts independently, with teacher feedback.

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

• 8 Startups That Are Changing the World (mashable.com)
• Technologist wins ‘genius’ award for sensor tech (futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com)
• The 10 Biggest New York Startup Acquisitions During This Bubble (businessinsider.com)
• SLIDESHOW: Tech Startups That Could Save The World (huffingtonpost.com)
• The 10 Hot Brazilian Startups You Need To Watch (businessinsider.com)
• This Is The #1 Reason Startups Fail (businessinsider.com)

Image via CrunchBase

Klout, the startup tracking social media users’ influence across 10 different networks, has calculated scores for more than 100 million people, the company announced Wednesday.

“One hundred million people with Klout Scores means that there are 100 million voices effectively leveraging the social web to share their opinions, hopes and dreams and shaping the decisions of the billions of people now listening to them,” Klout co-founder and CEO Joe Fernandez says of the milestone.

To be clear, Klout has yet to sign up 100 million service users. Instead the startup measures the influence of its users and their social network friends by association, as pulled in via social graphs on Twitter, Facebook and recently added networks such as Instagram, Foursquare and LinkedIn.

Still, now that Klout is tracking the scores of more than 100 million people on the web, the startup can solidify its place as the de facto measurement tool for influence online and appeal to even more brands and marketers looking to locate and leverage their most socially persuasive fans and customers.

Fernandez says Klout will begin to incorporate additional networks in the months ahead — the startup has already expressed interest in assessing users’ influence on Google+. “We intend to find influence wherever it exists,” Fernandez says.

Source :- http://mashable.com

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Though they might not yet be household names, these companies are among this year’s Technology Pioneers of 2012, a select group of twenty-five startups identified by the World Economic Forum for their potential to “significantly [disrupt] the way business and society operate,” according to the WEF.

These twenty-five companies were chosen from among hundreds nominated by “members, constituents and collaborators of the World Economic Forum, as well as by the larger public,” and were evaluated according to five key criteria: “innovation,” “potential impact,” “growth and sustainability,” “proof of concept” and “leadership.” They range from biotech and bio-fuel companies to cloud computing and crowdsourced-funding firms. Followings are the Names -:

• Kickstarter – Kickstarter, a website that operates on an all-or-nothing crowdsourced funding method, offers musicians, filmmakers, artists, writers, entrepreneurs and others a way to raise money for projects they want to bring to life.

• Dropbox – Whether you’re just backing up your files or tend to work on several computers, Dropbox is a handy tool for saving and accessing important documents across multiple devices. The service saves your work to an easy-to-access folder available on any computer as well as the Dropbox website. It’s available for free (though users can only store 2GB of data) or for a monthly fee for users that want access to over 50GB of storage.

• Tabula Digita – Improving the world of digital education, Tabula Digita is behind video games intended to engage elementary, middle and high school students in learning math, reading and science.

• 1366 Technologies – The team at 1366 Technologies first developed their mission to make the cost of solar power competitive with other energy resources at an MIT laboratory. Today, the company remains hard at work building silicon-based energy solutions. A $150 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy, announced in June, will help keep this Boston-based company high on the list of green tech companies to watch.

• Altobridge – Altobridge, which describes itself as a “wireless network solutions provider,” says its mission is to “bridge the digital divide.” Since 2002, Altobridge has been working to, “remove the technical and commercial barriers that denied remote communities affordable mobile voice and internet connectivity.”

• CloudFlare – CloudFlare is a “virtual fraud and abuse team” that pools together a community of web masters to protect up-and-coming websites from hackers, spammers, and other digital demons on the Internet. Anyone can use the service and to empower and secure their webpages.

• Appirio – Appirio is aiming high by helping enterprises adopt cloud-based applications and platforms. Founded in 2006, the company has worked with big names including Google and Amazon to create, develop, and implement cloud computing strategies.

• Attero Recycling – Attero Recycling seeks to put an end to the growing number of issues posed by e-waste by developing new ways to recycle these discarded electronics.

• Biocartis – Biocartis is a biotech company based in Switzerland and the Netherlands that was founded in 2007 and is working on advancing and expanding the study of molecular diagnostic platforms.

• Diagnostics For All – Diagnostics For All is a non-profit organization that creates simple, low-cost diagnostics specifically designed for the world’s regions that lack efficient access to urban hospitals and medical centers. In February, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded DFA almost $3 million to support new projects.

• DoubleVerify – DoubleVerify is the self-proclaimed “pioneer of online media verification,” protecting enterprises from the “rogue” side of Internet advertising. The company has worked with major brands including Coca-Cola, Verizon, Bank of America, Walmart, and Nike.

• Driptech – Based in Silicon Valley, Driptech works to bring efficient water irrigation systems to small-scale farmers in developing nations. The company was founded Peter Frykman, who first recognized the need for improved irrigation technology when he visited Ethiopia while completing his mechanical engineering PhD degree at Stanford University.

• EcoMotors International – EcoMotors International develops lighter, more efficient, and less expensive internal combustion engines for a “cleaner, healthier, more sustainable future.” And it’s not just cars that EcoMotors has its eye on — the company hopes to apply its innovations to marine and agricultural vehicles, as well as stationary generators.

• Electro Power Systems – ElectroPS develops and manufactures advance fuel cell systems that generate primary and back-up energy for companies worldwide. The fuel cell technology provides 100 percent clean energy.

• Financial Inclusion Network and Operations – Headquartered in Mumbai, India, FINO develops technology solutions across the banking, micro-finance and government sectors. For example, the company is leading efforts to create a branch-less banking system in India.

• Joule Unlimited – Joule Unlimited hopes to create business “around sustainable, localized solar fuel production.” The company uses engineered photosynthetic microorganisms to produce diesel, ethanol and other chemicals that aren’t dependent on biomass feedstocks, land or water.

• Lending Club – Lending Club allows members to invest and borrow money directly from each other without involving a bank. Lending Club claims that it allows users to “eliminate the cost and complexity of traditional banks–to offer you better rates.”

• Living PlanIT – Living PlanIT is a company focusing on developing new technological innovations that can be applied to entire cities to improve living conditions within the communities. The company says it is working to dispel the belief that “improved utility or sustainability is unaffordable.”

• Mocana – Mocana works to develop security devices to protect non-PC devices, such as smartphones and smartgrids, from hackers and harmful viruses. The Smart Device Security platform “secures all aspects of IP addressable devices as well as the information, applications and services that run on them,” according to Mocana.

• Palantir Technologies – The brainchild of PayPal alumni and Stanford computer scientists, Palantir Technologies offers products that aim to improve the way different types of data are analyzed, presented and used. The company’s two products, Palantir Government and Palantir Finance, are reportedly used in defense and intelligence communities, as well as in some of the world’s top financial institutions.

• Picarro -Picarro produces gas analyzers that are used to test air quality in situations ranging from “food safety” and “air quality” to “landfill gas measurement” and “greenhouse gas measurement.” 

• Protean Electric – Protean Electric designs, develops and manufactures “in-wheel electric drive systems for hybrid and battery-electric vehicles.” The company says their “disruptive in-wheel vehicle propulsion system [provides] power to each wheel under the control of a central Electronic Control Unit (ECU) using advanced software control technology.”

• Solazyme -Solazyme uses algae and to produce oil and bio-materials. “Through our world class genetic and chemical engineering capabilities, we’re coupling proprietary strains of algae with standard industrial biotechnology; converting what the earth produces naturally into what society needs most – oil,” Solazyme explains. 

• First Energy – First Energy produces cooking stoves under the “Oorja” brand that are “virtually smokeless” and more efficient than traditional alternatives. The company promises that its innovations can help people and small businesses in rural villages save time, money, and the environment “First Energy Private Ltd’s solution is an inexpensive, highly efficient cooking stove, which burns biomass pellets, known as ‘oorja’ that are made from the compressed residue of agricultural by-products and rely on a radically new biomass gasification technology developed and patented by the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore,” writes the WEF. “The pellet stoves make it possible for an Indian family to serve a meal for five for roughly one rupee per person.”

• Tethys BioScience – Tethys BioScience uses blood tests to assess a person’s risk for potential diseases, allowing doctors to mediate with the proper treatment to possibly stop or delay their onset. The company created the PreDx Diabetes Risk Score, a blood test and algorithm that helps determine a patient’s risk for type 2 diabetes.

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Related articles

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• DoubleVerify Chosen As 2012 World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer (vccafe.com)
• CloudFlare, Dropbox, Palantir And Kickstarter Named Technology Pioneers By The World Economic Forum (techcrunch.com)
• Y Combinator applications are now open for winter 2012 (thenextweb.com)
• Pearson, Intel Capital and Ascend Venture Group Invest in Innovative Educational Game Designer, Tabula Digita (prweb.com)
• Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, Founders of Dropbox (bjconquest.com)

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Post from Mashable authered by Todd Wasserman.

The stock market might be on an up-and-down rollercoaster ride, but one type of startup that’s currently on the rise is barter sites — online operations where people can reuse, recycle or trade goods and services. Whether that has more to do with tighter family budgets or a trend toward greener purchases, a new-ish wave of entrepreneurs and philanthropists are attempting to exploit the apparent opportunity by launching sites where consumers can either trade their stuff for other things, get rid of unwanted items without clogging landfills, exchange their goods for money or do a little bit of each.

Of course, Craigslist has long existed as a hub for this type of activity and eBay is a great place to unload your stuff for cash. But Craigslist has a fair amount of baggage attached to it, in part because of its use as a resource for prostitutes and johns, and eBay usually requires shipping, which means you’ll get less for items than you could otherwise.

New barter sites, many with an emphasis on establishing local economies, address both concerns. In some cases, these sites are non-profits and aim to help the environment and help consumers save money. In other instances, the goal is to make money. Whatever the motivation, if you’re a consumer interested in exploring the barter economy, here are a few sites to consider:

1. Pawngo
2. Thredup
3. Swap.com
4. U-Exchange
5. Freecycle

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