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Google has announced that their Check-in service based on Latitude, launched in Austin last month at SXSW, is now available across the US. This means you can use the Google Latitude app to check-in at locations across the US and unlock deals based on your status. The way it works is pretty simple:

1. Check in. Check in using Latitude to share places with friends when you’re there.
2. Gain status. Keep checking in every time you visit your favorite places to gain status there. You can tap your current status level to see your progress towards the next status level.
3. Unlock offers. Places can make check-in offers available to you at each of their 3 status levels. When you gain higher status, you’ll unlock any available check-in offers.

Many are already asking what the point of all this is. We already have Facebook and Foursquare, among others, for check-ins and deals. It’s well-known that Google isn’t exactly the cream of the crop when it comes to doing social, so why would you bother checking in on Latitude instead of the competition?

Even though Latitude may not be as social as Foursquare or Facebook, there are some of us out there that don’t really care about the social features built into those services. At least, not as far as check-ins go. You may just want the badges and the status. Maybe you’re tired of getting 1 point for check-ins at places you’ve been to before and are looking for a reward system that’s a bit more flexible.

Google Latitude check-ins offers an interesting alternative if you want to share your location and care about getting deals. You can share your location to Twitter and Buzz from the app and I’m sure there is a way to also dump them into Facebook if the social aspect is important to you. Not only do you gain access to new deals based on your status level, but venues can even create their own achievement levels. Become a Champion of Taste at Quiznos or an AE Gold Shopper at American Eagle Outfitters, for instance.

Grab Google Maps for Android (Latitude is a feature of Maps; requires Android 1.6+) or the Latitude app for iPhone and start checking in to unlock deals. What do you think about Google Latitude check-ins? Waste of time or new weapon for your arsenal?

via ReadWriteWeb source Google LatLog

Drum Circle Kids is an app for iPad that allows your child to create unique jam sessions by tapping on five colorfully animated drummers. By toggling the drummers on and off, you can create dozens of possible sound combinations. You can also explore the scenery to discover ambient sounds hidden there.

In the learn section, kids can swipe from one drum to the next and touch to play each drum while learning fun drum facts. Includes: the American Trap Set, Caribbean Steel Pan, Chinese Drum, Cuban Conga and the West African Djembe with more drums to come! If you are looking to buy a great drum set then check out drumsdude.com.

Intended for toddlers, age 18 month+, the game was developed by Imani Powell-Razat. Imani is a mom and designer/illustrator for Harlem-based Spye Design. Drum Circle Kids, created as a “multicultural celebration of the world’s drums,” was developed using Corona SDK, a cross-platform mobile app development framework.

Not only is it cool to see a mom develop an app, but I’m sure there are grown people who can’t operate an iPad as smoothly as the kid in the video below. Check out the vid and download the app from iTunes.

via @karsh source If It’s Hip, It’s Here

Global human rights organization, Breakthrough, has launched a new Facebook game called 2049. Players actively explore “how the choices and challenges Americans now face will shape the future of the country, its democratic values and how we define ourselves as a nation.”

America 2049 is the first Facebook game to integrate the social networking platform with other resources, both online and off. It includes multimedia and interactive features, clues planted across the Internet and real-life events at leading cultural institutions nationwide. These real-life locations include the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience members, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, and the Bosque Redondo Memorial in New Mexico.

America 2049 is literally a game-changer,” said Breakthrough President & CEO Mallika Dutt. “It parachutes us into an alternate reality perhaps not so far from our own, where we find America poised at a crossroads, and where we are asked to make critical decisions about how we truly want to define ourselves as a nation. The game experience allows us to immerse ourselves in a future that could be — but also inspires us to envision, and recommit to, a real America built on pluralism, democracy, dignity, equality and human rights for all.

Breakthrough multimedia director Heidi Boisvert says that, by placing America 2049 on Facebook, “Breakthrough is using one of the Web’s most popular cultural platforms to create the possibility of changing culture itself.” The game also features appearances by Harold Perrineau (LOST), Victor Garber (Alias), Cherry Jones (24), Anthony Rapp (Rent) and Margaret Cho (Notorious C.H.O.), who generously donated their time and talents to help Breakthrough put a human face on complex social issues, people are loving this game just as much as they love to get a victory over full damage champs for their video games with P4rgaming.

“’America 2049’ entertains and enlightens about the real-world issues of acceptance and tolerance,” said Harold Perrineau. “The project resonated with me because I love the idea of people fighting at all costs for their right to pursue the life they choose without fear of persecution. I hope that through playing ‘America 2049,’ young people in particular will be inspired to help stop institutionalized hatred and intolerance — today.”

Breakthrough is definitely hitting a hot spot between online social gaming and social networking and leveraging the largest social network may actually allow them to hit their mark. Play America 2049 on Facebook and tell us what you think.

WSJ reports that Google is looking to revamp YouTube in order to ride the trend of televisions that allow viewers to watch online video. Primarily, the goal is to compete with broadcast and cable television by enticing users to stay on the site longer and attracting advertisers.

The site is planning a series of changes to its home page to highlight sets of “channels” around topics such as arts and sports from batandballgame.com. About 20 or so of those channels will feature several hours of professionally produced original programming a week, some of these people said. Additional channels would be assembled from content already on the site.

Google is looking to carve out their own niche between the amateur content we’re used to seeing on YouTube and the professionally produced content we usually watch on TV. Those familiar with the matter say Google is willing to shell out as much as $100 million to get this low-cost content produced.

While streaming video sites like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon pay license fees to provide professionally produced programs, Google has mostly unwilling to do so. Rather than pay these hefty fees to grab existing content, it seems they believe it would be more cost-effective to create long-form video from scratch.

While YouTube executives have said the site is close to being profitable, Google is obviously attempting to take a bite out of the $70 billion U.S. television-ad market. The world’s No. 3 website for unique visitors, YouTube generated about $544 million last year. They’re expected to generate more than $800 million in net revenue this year, according to Citigroup estimates.

Currently, YouTube visitors spend about 15 minutes on the site each day. Probably watch cat videos or laughing babies. By switching up their content offerings, Google wants to change the perception of YouTube and give visitors a reason to stick around. YouTube executives have said they want people to ”watch YouTube” the same way they “watch TV.”

This is still in the rumor stage at this point, but it would be interesting to see what type of content Google could come up with using this strategy.

via WSJ

LinkedIn has announced today that they will be opening up full access to their new platform for building the professional web. There is much talk across the blogosphere about how Google, Facebook, and Twitter are building and extending the social web, but not much about the professional web. This is LinkedIn’s niche and, while the site itself is not a huge draw, a set of tools for integrating professional profiles across the web could be very powerful.

With this release, we’re including a powerful set of plugins, to further help bring professional identity & insights into your application. For example, you can show your visitors who they know in a professional context with the Member Profile plugin, and display rich personalized insights about companies featured on your site with the Company Insider plugin.

Available plugins include:

Sign In with LinkedIn, which makes it easier for users to authenticate or register for your site using their LinkedIn identity

Share, a button which enables users to share your website with LinkedIn’s professional audience

Member Profile, which brings LinkedIn profiles to your site

Full Member Profile, which brings larger, more detailed LinkedIn profiles to your site

Company Profile, which displays key company info at-a-glance

Company Insider, which shows rich company data from several different views

Recommend, a button which enables users to recommend your products and drive traffic back to you

While the platform provides deep integration with LinkedIn geared towards developers, it’s also easy to use for those with no coding experience whatsoever. The goal is to give developers and publishers alike a “featherweight” way to “light up your site and increase engagement.” For example, here is all you need to include the Member Profile plugin on your site:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.linkedin.com/in.js"></script>

<script type="IN/MemberProfile" data-id="http://www.linkedin.com/in/reidhoffman" data-related="false" data-format="inline"></script>

For more details on how to dig into the professional web and integrate LinkedIn on your site or into your web apps, check out developer.linkedin.com. They’ve created quick start content, including script generators that allow you to “visually configure and deploy your plugin of choice.” According to LinkedIn, this is only the tip of the iceberg and they are asking for feedback on what’s available so far.

What do you think? Will LinkedIn integration engage a different type of visitor? Will you be implementing this on your site?

via ReadWriteWeb source LinkedIn Blog

Blogging While Brown conference and the Black Weblog Awards will join forces this year to create a weekend of black social media with a live awards ceremony included. Blogging While Brown is the leading community of Black bloggers and the Black Weblog Awards is one of the oldest celebrations of Black social media excellence. They form a perfect match and their collaboration will produce the largest gathering of Black social media influentials in the country while featuring the first ever live presentation of the Black Weblog Awards.

“I am delighted and excited that the Black Weblog Awards will be presented with the Blogging While Brown Conference,” said Maurice Cherry, Founder of the Black Weblog Awards. “This is an amazing opportunity to showcase hard-working bloggers, video bloggers, and podcasters.”

The keynote speaker for the event will be Angel Laws, Founder of Concreteloop.com. Concrete Loop has been a recognized voice in urban lifestyle and culture since 2005 and has since been named one of TIME magazine’s top websites. Other featured speakers include Managing Editor of TheRoot.com Joel Dreyfuss, and Executive Director of Color of Change James Rucker.

“This partnership is a historic opportunity to leverage the resources of two of the most prominent institutions in Black social media,” said Gina McCauley, Executive Director of Blogging While Brown. “I’m looking forward to a weekend of learning, networking and recognizing the rich contributions of Black digital media content creators and the communities they nurture and grow year-round. ”

Check out BloggingWhileBrown.com and BlackWeblogAwards.com for more info. The event takes place in Los Angeles, CA, July 8-10, 2011. Will you be there?

President Barack Obama will be holding a special “Facebook Live” townhall event at Facebook’s headquarters with CEO Mark Zuckerberg & COO Sheryl Sandberg. The event will be live streamed for anyone to watch across the globe. The meeting will be used to discuss “tough choices we must all make in order to put our economy on a more responsible fiscal path, while still investing in areas like innovation that will help our economy grow and make America more competitive.”

You can participate in the discussion by submitting questions by posting them on the Facebook wall for the event. You can also submit questions at WhiteHouse.gov/facebooktownhall. Facebook will select which questions will be answered during the event.

Obama just announced his plans to run for reelection via Facebook yesterday. Currently 3,415 people plan to attend the event and the comments keep adding up, although many are not related to the event. Logon Wednesday, April 20 @ 1:45pm PST / 4:45pm EST to watch the event and see if your questions get picked.

Lebron is launching an animated web series called “The Lebrons” to provide positive messages to today’s youth. We first covered the show back in January. The show follows the four LeBrons: Kid, Athlete, Business, and Wise as they live in James’s hometown of Akron, Ohio. Much like the cartoons of yesterday, each episode will provide a positive message for viewers.

The show will be primarily offered via a YouTube channel with some syndication across major sports sites. Dan Goodman and Bill Masterson of Believe Entertainment Group helped create, finance and sell the show. They believe the webisode format is the new frontier of digital entertainment: “When we looked at LeBron’s audience, it really became a natural place for the show to reside,” Masterson said. “Unlike when we grew up and cartoons were on Saturday morning … now their access is not as programmed or dictated by timing. It’s on their own terms.

A portion of the proceeds from the show will go directly to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America for purchasing computers. The show is sponsored for HP and Intel and actually started off as a Nike commercial. These products and logos will have a strong presence in the series. The goal is to strike a balance between being promotional and actually providing valuable content for viewers. While featuring brands will allow the show to thrive when the budget isn’t there, there is also the risk of overshadowing the message, which doesn’t benefit the brands or the show.

Lebron is very passionate about this project, calling it a “modern day Fat Albert.” He will promote the series using his strong social media presence. He currently has 1.6 million Twitter followers and 5.7 million likes on his Facebook page where he is currently displaying the show’s logo as his profile picture.

via Mashable

As if he wasn’t already into just about everything, from music to broadway, Jay-Z has now launched another website called Life + Times. As Forbes puts it, that site is aimed at “gentleman who are discerning enough to buy an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, watch video about Jean-Michel Basquiat, and care about the “internal perspective” of Studio Alhadeff Architects and its principal designer, Giancarlo Alhadeff.”

Don’t expect a table of contents or river of news here. The site’s design is focused on the visual, with each story represented by an image in a grid. Hovering over the image gives you the title and topic while clicking opens up the content. Topics on the site include: Style, Leisure, Art & Design, Technology, Music, and Sports. You might find anything from music and an interview with Killer Reese One and DJ/Producer Troublemaker to a sit-down with RIM VP of Industrial Design Todd Wood to discuss the design of the latest Blackberry.

You can also check Jay’s tour schedule and connect on Facebook. Of course, as always, Tweets is watching. What do you think about Jay’s new site?

via Forbes, Mashable

April 18 marks the launch of the African Immigrant Journal (AIJ), the first website dedicated to exploring the experience of millions of African-born immigrants and 1st and 2nd generation Americans of African descent in the United States. The interactive online publication will feature news, profiles, in-depth features, commentary, video, photos, discussion forums, and more.

“We view the site as an essential repository of information and a unique platform to shape, affirm and investigate the experiences of an emerging group that remains largely invisible to the American public,” says Henry. “We will locate our stories within the context of the larger American immigration narrative.”

In addition to telling the under-told stories of a largely invisible segment of the American population, the AIJ will give
voice to the concerns of African immigrants all across the United States. With an insightful eye and affirming voice,
the AIJ will celebrate the success stories, probe the problems and dispel common myths about African immigrants.

Founded by childhood friends and Maryland-based Liberian immigrants Lewis Kelley and Tanu Henry, the AIJ aims to tell the stories of a largely invisible segment of the American population. It will give voice to immigrant concerns across the United States, celebrating success stories, probing problems, and dispelling common myths about African immigrants.

Obama has officially launched his bid for re-election with a short video posted on YouTube. The tw0-minute video is embedded as the centerpiece at BarackObama.com and features average Americans telling us why Obama should be re-elected. Obama himself appears in the video for only a few seconds, but doesn’t actually say anything.

The site has been stripped down to the bare bones and reminds me of what you might find from a startup in closed beta, even down to the Twitter and Facebook sharing buttons. A note above the video states:

This campaign is just kicking off. We’re opening up offices, unpacking boxes, and starting a conversation with supporters like you to help shape our path to victory. 2012 begins now, and this is where you say you’re in.

The site is using the question “Are You In?” to gain supporters and invites visitors to the site to sign up for a mailing list. Taking things a step further, the site integrates with Facebook so that you can share your support for Obama with your Facebook friends. Once you’ve connected with Facebook, you can scroll through a list of all your friends to see who is not in yet. For those who haven’t yet taken the plunge, you can post to their Facebook wall with an optional message directly from the site. The site also invites you to check back to see how many people you inspired to join.

The launch also included an email blast to Obama supporters. While it may seem early for Obama to make this announcement, the campaign is trying to hit the ground running and some are quick to point out the fact that Republicans have basically been campaigning against Obama his entire term.

“We’ve always known that lasting change wouldn’t come quickly or easily. It never does,” the Democrat said in the e-mail. “But as my administration and folks across the country fight to protect the progress we’ve made—and make more—we also need to begin mobilizing for 2012, long before the time comes for me to begin campaigning in earnest.”

The site links to official Twitter and Facebook pages, where the announcement has also been posted, and even uses the new Twitter web intents feature to make it easier to connect with the Obama campaign there. Not surprising at all to see Obama reaching out via social media and it will be interesting to see how they continue to use social media to engage their audience.

via WSJ, BarackObama.com

At an event I attended this week, called Alley to the Valley, at the overpriced Rosewood Sand Hill Hotel in Menlo Park, I discussed this subject with 50 very successful women. Half of the attendees were from the east coast, and half were from the west coast. We agreed that the best way of supplying this dearth is through recognizing that there is indeed a problem; providing mentoring, encouragement, and assistance to all aspiring women entrepreneurs; and showcasing the successes.

I have already presented hard data that show that there is a problem, and I’ve suggested remedies. Now I’ll showcase some successes—black women CEOs that graduated from Founder Labs, a pre-incubator for emerging entrepreneurs and from a related organization, Women 2.0. I’ll let them tell you their own stories.

more at Women of Color in Tech: How Can We Encourage Them?

Twitter Kills the #DickBar

Just weeks after Twitter introduced the Quickbar, which was later dubbed the #dickbar as a jab at Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, Twitter has decided the “feature” just wasn’t a good idea. The Quickbar inserted trending topics and promoted ads into your tweet-stream in the iPhone app and was immediately met with opposition. They attempted to revise the bar, but this didn’t appease anyone.

It’s been reported that the feature was developed by a junior product manager with no senior oversight. This points to flaws in Twitter’s management structure. Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s new executive chairman and product leader, is also full-time CEO of Square. Satya Patel, Twitter’s new director of product management, will continue working as advisor to portfolio companies for Battery Ventures.

Twitter needs to get their management structure on point and figure out what, exactly, their business model is. They are at the top now, but that can change in an instant. Just ask MySpace.

via TechCrunch, Business Insider

Amazon Faces Backlash from CloudDrive

Amazon recently launched a pretty awesome cloud-based storage locker, giving users 5GB of cloud storage absolutely free. On the surface, it looks like another Dropbox ripoff, but the magic is in the music. You can upload your music to your clouddrive and then play it in a browser or from your Android phone. Any music you purchase from Amazon can be stored on your clouddrive without counting against your storage limit. The problem with all this is that Amazon did not consult the major labels regarding streaming fees before launching the service.

Now, there is pretty much a stand-off going on between Amazon and the major record companies. The labels think Amazon should have to pay so that users can stream their music from the cloud. I agree with MP3Tunes CEO Michael Robertson, when he says “the labels have engaged in a legal terror campaign over the last 10 years using litigation to try and slow technology progress.” He also gives us an interesting take on what could happen here:

Amazon’s entrance into the business is enormously significant because it will dictate whether Apple or Google enter into a license for their own service or go the unlicensed path. If the labels take no action against Amazon, then expect Apple and Google to follow in their footsteps

via TechCrunch, Reuters

Sprint Opposes T-Mobile AT&T Merger

In a completely unsurprising move, Sprint is opposing a potential acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T. They say such a merge would “reduce competition and harm consumers.” Sprint, currently the number 3 carrier, would could be the biggest loser if AT&T and T-Mobile joined forces. They would end up so far behind Verizon and AT&T-Mobile that catching up might be impossible. Regardless of their primary motives for opposing the transaction, Sprint does make a valid point.

AT&T and Verizon are already by far the largest wireless providers. If approved, the proposed acquisition would create a combined company that would be almost three times the size of Sprint in terms of wireless revenue and would entrench AT&T’s and Verizon’s duopoly control over the wireless market. The wireless industry moving forward would be dominated overwhelmingly by two vertically integrated companies with unprecedented control over the U.S. wireless post-paid market, as well as the availability and price of key inputs, such as backhaul and access needed by other wireless companies to compete.

Vonya McCann, senior vice president of Government Affairs, went on to say “on behalf of our customers, our industry and our country, Sprint will fight this attempt by AT&T to undo the progress of the past 25 years and create a new Ma Bell duopoly.”

Location Aware Musical Albums?

A band by the name of BlueBrain has added another dimension to their music album. Harnessing the power of location and mobile, the rhythms and beats change as you physically walk around The National Mall in Washington, D.C.:

When we first had the idea of what was possible with location awareness, we thought about how smartphones have opened the flood gates to what is creatively possible in so many senses. We had this idea of having the music progress and change based on a person’s location. We decided to release an album that’s also an app with whole melodic phrases that change based on a listener’s location. It’s something that no musician has ever had the opportunity to do before. We went to work, and are very excited to show the world. — Ryan Holladay

Will.i.am actually talked about something similar in reference to the Black Eyed Peas 3D music video app. He mentioned the fact that the technology will influence how music is written and created, which is exactly what happened with the BlueBrain album. They started with the concept of a location-based album and built the music around it. A lot of time was spent exploring the mall and the music was composed based on the different areas.

via TNW

The Mavericks have teamed with Qualcomm to add augmented Reality to this year’s playoff tickets. Augmented Reality (AR) joins the real and the virtual to create a futuristic viewing experience. In this case, you’ll be able to play a game by viewing your ticket using your Android’s camera.

Single-game tickets for the first two Mavericks home games of the first round of the 2011 NBA Playoffs will go on sale April 2nd. Fans that purchase single-game tickets will receive a futuristic, commemorative 2011 Mavs Playoff ticket, and game-day tickets and commemorative tickets will go live when the playoffs begin on April 16th.

Once you have your ticket, download the “Mavs AR” app from the Android Market. Fire up the app and point your phone at the front of your ticket. This starts up an interactive mobile game featuring Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, and Jason Terry.

Right now, this is Android-only, but Cuban hopes to expand to other platforms for future seasons. It’s always awesome to see augmented reality being used for…well, anything. I think the technology is just cool. In this case, a game is not really that useful, but it’s a start.

via TechCrunch, NBA.com

An official Mozy app has made its way to the Apple App Store and you might be surprised with what you can do with it. The Mozy team has decided to keep the features to a minimum in the beginning, relying on user feedback and an aggressive update cycle to get things up to speed. This app is being launched with a simple goal: to provide MozyHome customers an app for accessing their files backed up to Mozy.

Some of the features included in this release: emailing a file, opening in other applications, and viewing photos or sharing them to Facebook. If you’re a Mozy user, you might be scratching your head right now. Mozy is an automated backup solution that I highly recommend, but this set of features sounds more like Dropbox than Mozy. Instead of simply backing up your files, Mozy is now letting you access your files from anywhere. It seems that Mozy is using the mobile space to expand and enhance their backup solution.

• The Mozy app is listed in iTunes only for users in the US & Canada. (A global update is planned to release soon.)
• The Mozy app currently only works with MozyHome accounts. (An update for MozyPro customers is already under development.)

This means that it currently only works for free Mozy accounts, which I’m sure covers a lot of folks. If you haven’t signed up for a Mozy account, you can do so here.

Usually, this would be the part where I berate Mozy for not creating an Android app, but they actually have one in beta testing. Check out their Android community forum and follow this thread for details on downloading and installing Mozy for Android.