It’s funny how sometimes blogs and other media outlets like to pick one side because they know it’ll make for a more controversial (and thus, more interesting) article. Case in point: iPhone’s million sold units.

When I wrote about it, I was enthusiastic, and stated that it was a good start. Many blogs agreed that it was, at the very least, a very good result for Apple and the iPhone 3G.

Now, everyone seems to be “coming to their senses“, quoting sales numbers of other mobile giants such as Nokia, LG, and Samsung. Yes, a little perspective is good, but let’s not for a second think that iPhone’s million sold units in the opening weekend is anything less than a stellar accomplishment.

Similarly to all those “why you shouldn’t buy product x” articles which come up a couple of days after the launch, and probably due to lack of any other meaningful iPhone-related news, some are trying to convince us that a million sold iPhones is nothing special. Carlo Longino’s “analysis”, also quoted by Techdirt and in turn by Gizmodo brings some numbers to the plate but forgets a couple of other crucial facts, which makes it, well, totally flawed.

The points?
- Nokia sells 1.28 million handsets per day.
- 282 million handsets are sold every quarter.

Heck, before I continue, I’ll add some more stats in favor of his argument:

- Apple didn’t sell any iPhones, new or old, in the period preceding the iPhone 3G’s opening weekend. Thus, some people were obviously waiting for an iPhone and when new ones finally came, the sales were higher.

Now, let’s look at the other side of the coin.

- Apple sells only one phone, and it’s a smartphone. Nokia sells everything from low-end, subsidized, 99 cents models to smartphones.
- The iPhone was basically sold out. A lot of Apple and AT&T stores would sell more iPhones if they could but they simply ran out.
- iPhone is an OLD phone. It’s a slightly revised version of a year-old model. I don’t know of any comparable model from any other manufacturer that will sell in 1 million units over one weekend.

Should I go on? The bottom line is that, Apple fanboy or not (which I’m definitely not as I don’t own any Apple products, including the iPhone), the number is impressive, and while it may not be an immense impact on the entire mobile phone market, it definitely means a big impact on the smartphone market, and, even more importantly, smartphone platform market. Let’s compare Apples to apples, shall we?

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To celebrate the summer and our SummerMash Tour, we are giving away one full month of advertising to three lucky startups in our new Startup Pricing 90×90 advertising zones. These zones were specifically created for startups (under one year old) to offer them more than affordable advertising.

For your chance to win leave the following in the comments section: URL/Company Name, 20 word description and 20 words on why you think your startup is right for the Mashable audience. Winners will be selected at random through a random integer Web app, please leave a valid e-mail address. Submissions due by Sunday, July 20th at 3 pm PT.

*To continue the celebrations, we are offering 15% off through the month of July to all Startups in “public” operation for under one year. Please contact me at startup-ads (at) mashable [dott] com.

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Since revamping a portion of its product offering late last year, Matchmine has since gone on to provide recommendation tools that are integrated with a network’s existing user preferences, as well as a centralized location for individual users to access and maintain their preferences from across their various networks. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but it’s a two-way street that covers a wide array of personal recommendations, and carries a good deal of flexibility in terms of future implementation of media consumption, recommendations, and cross-network communications.

That’s why several networks, such as Blogged, Odeo, and now Pixsy have chosen Matchmine to power recommendations on their sites. New partner Pixsy already had a very extensive reach across a number of networks, powering video search. So how will this new deal work for Matchmine and Pixsy? The same two-way street offering that Matchmine is becoming known for. Matchmine users will be able to port their Pixsy video preferences into their Matchmine account, and use those towards the creation of their overall preference score, which can be appied to any of the participating Matchmine partners.

Likewise, Pixsy will be providing recommendations based on Matchmine’s recommendation engine, and that includes Pixsy’s large network. According to Chase Norlin, CEO of Pixsy, the comany “hand selects key technology partners like Matchmine to present joint solutions to our publisher network of 35M uniques.” That’s a good expansion plan for Matchmine, as it seeks to become increasingly mainstream with its preference import options in order to apply recommendations across various media sites on the web. I still like Matchmine is doing, and it’s been fun to see such direct implementation of both network- and individual-based recommendations come about in a single service.

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I’ve gone to great lengths to avoid talking further about the race relations meme that ran around the tech blogosphere last week as a result of a year old Loren Feldman video cropping up in the news. The reason for this is pretty simple: I didn’t have the guts to talk about race. That’s right, you heard me.  Me.  The guy that’ll take on just about any controversial political topic (so long as I can loosely bring it back to social media somehow) didn’t have the guts to speak his mind.

The reason for this is simple: throughout the blogosphere and the various tentacled arms by which the dialogue extends from it, everyone was talking race last week.  And it wasn’t very long into the discussion that the very thing I spoke about yesterday in context of Wikipedia and other forms of democratic social media started happening to folks who in any way defended Loren: they were pushed to the fringe and given the most awful label someone can have these days.

Racist.

I’m broaching it now because one of the least controversial persons in the blogosphere, Chris Brogan, has decided to speak up on the topic and raise an important point. Before I get to his point, I’d like to explain my reasons for dropping out of the conversation, as I think it’s somewhat germane to the important issue he raises.

In the past, I probably would have waded in hip deep to the ongoing debate regarding whether or not Loren Feldman was overtly racist in his video, whether the satire was appropriate, and whether Verizon’s response of removing him from the network was indeed a measured or nuclear response. The problem was (and is), I’ve found, is that this debate devolves very quickly into emotional territory, whether or not the participants in the discussion are racist, and who is next to receive the Imus treatment.

In other words, the bigger you are, the harder you fall. Speaking in analogy and metaphor is central to the art of explaining and debate. Unfortunately in this day and age of political correctness, it’s almost impossible to know when you’re about to step on a landmine when you’re in this emotionally charged quagmire.

Simply put, I have a wife and two children.  My words are what put bread and butter on the table.  If I suddenly get the scarlet letter, my livelihood is gone from me.

This has to end. Everyone needs to man up in the social media world, put aside their emotions for a moment, and put on their thinking caps.  Chris Brogan very rightly likens the current controversy over the New Yorker magazine cover to the Loren Feldman incident as an echo. The mainstream media is performing their punditry over the “Terrorist Fist Jab” in much the same black and white tones as we did last week over the Loren Feldman “TechNigga” video. He goes on to ponder the fact that there might be more important things to worry about:

But this is what’s out there. This is the surface. This isn’t the secret campaigns that will (are?) spread through social networks, across back channels, hidden in some other kind of FriendFeed that we haven’t seen. Or maybe it’ll be out in the open, as Louis Gray reported on a short while back.

For a moment, we need to consider the larger implications of how social media can power some really negative experiences. Flash mobs are fun. But what else could they be?

What’s really ironic here is that this is one of the larger points that Loren Feldman was driving at with his satire (and he even spelled it out verbatim in an expletive-laden post after the series, embedded below). In between all the “gotcha, you’re a racist” moments in the conversation surrounding this, it seems that point is what was lost.

Click To Play

Chris goes on to say:

This isn’t one of those “film at 11″ shocker posts. Instead, it’s something I wanted to write to say that if you think that beating Loren Feldman down because his video broke away from satire and fell into racism, then you’ve lost. The fight is, I believe, a lot more sinister, running deeper under the radar than that, and with names that aren’t in the blogosocialmediacirclefishbowl sphere.

I don’t know if this post qualifies as a “Film at 11″ post, but I’m here to say that these days are here.  The things that Loren warned about last year are happening, and the malicious usage of social media for evil intent is here.

Let’s go over a sampling of the stories of the last year or so where social media has been used to pursue a racist or hate-filled agenda:

Senator Joe Lieberman Notices Al Qaeda Calls YouTube Home. Over the last year or so, I’ve kept a pretty decent track of the escalating level of hypocrisy in the enforcement of YouTube’s terms of service, particularly when it comes to free speech issues.  The government is starting to take note as well, and due to what is largely the Web 2.0 world’s inability to properly and consistently police themselves, is on a path to enforce draconian speech regulation similar to what the EU has in place.

Orkut a Haven for Pedophiles. Google held fast the position to protect the identities of child predators until public opinion turned on them. These pedophiles were using the wilds of the mostly anonymous dark corners of popular social networks to, in an organized manner, prey on children.

Al Qaeda Learns Social Media Marketing. An academic study shows that certain propaganda elements of Islamic terror groups are more well versed in social media marketing than most American businesses. We’re not talking YouTube only here, either.  Just about every major social networking tool is infiltrated, and they’re recruiting as young and impressionable as possible.

How long do you think it will be before this malicious intent strikes home for you? For those of you with loved ones fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere - do you think they’ve met an enemy combatant who was recruited via social media tools?  Do you imagine it’s possible for the real racists in America (the ones who aren’t averse to violence to prove a point) might figure out these tools as well? It’s been speculated publicly by Hillary Clinton herself that America isn’t ready for a black president, and that he may not survive his term in office. Do you think the tools that aid communication and organization might be used to facilitate that?

How long do you imagine it will be before the government figures out this is something they can use to frighten voters into supporting more freedom restricting legislation?

It’s time for us to stop tarring and feathering one another over what are ultimately silly emotional fights and look for ways to police ourselves responsibly, before the government decides to do it for us.

Let the brainstorming commence.

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Web 2.0 Invites for November 19th, 2007

Mashable’s second stop on the U.S. Summer Tour was definitely the place to be! We named the time and place and San Francisco showed up in full force. It was a great mix of people, both new faces and those we already call friends, all mashing together in one place; literally as we packed The Mighty to capacity.

Of course, we couldn’t have done the SummerMash San Francisco without the support of our local sponsors, speakTECH, PubMatic, and Yuku. Our Tour Sponsors, Sun Startup Essentials, Yoono and MySites, rock and we can’t wait to make the next stop with them in Los Angeles. Major kudos to Stickam, for live streaming the event.

Thanks again to everyone for coming out and joining us. The Mashable team had a great time. From the looks of the pictures that were taken (see our Flickr set), it looks like you did too! Feel like tagging it up? Check out the pics on the San Francisco SummerMash Event page.

We’re also on tour with SocialMediaCamp sponsored by Yoono and organized by Erica O’Grady. Stickam had the chance at SummerMash Seattle to sit down with Erica O’Grady, the multi-talented Social Media expert:

You can check out this and all the other interviews from our SummerMash stops on upcoming Mashable Conversations episodes.

Check out the other cities on the U.S. Summer Tour:
Los Angeles | Austin | Miami | Boston | New York City

Local Sponsors:

‘PubMatic is the world’s first service that increases Web publishers’ revenue by automating and optimizing ad serving decisions.’

The Yuku platform makes it easy for anyone to create an online community around topics that they’re passionate about. With a suite of message board, social networking and video and photo sharing applications, Yuku currently powers over 50,000 websites on topics that include fan sites about reality television, retro sneakers, and celebrity news & gossip. Create your own Yuku now or join one that interests you.

‘speakTECH provides User Experience and technical consulting for some of the top social networking companies in the world.’

Prize Sponsor:

‘The SXSW Interactive Festival features five days of exciting panel content and amazing parties. Attracting digital creatives as well as visionary technology entrepreneurs, the event celebrates the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology.’

Special Book Signing:

‘Personality Not Included: Get the ultimate guide to marketing with authenticity from Rohit Bhargava…featuring a forward by Guy Kawasaki.’

Local Media Partners:

“Bernardo’s List is an email newsletter about upcoming events for entrepreneurs, investors and tech execs in New York and other cities nationwide. Signup is free at http://www.bernardoslist.com!”

‘Social Radius is an award-winning social media marketing firm, specializing in SEO/SMO, thought leadership platforms/social media creation, viral/syndication, outreach and strategy.’

Tour Sponsors

The Sun(TM) Startup Essentials program is designed to help startup businesses off the ground by providing access to industry-leading systems at deep discounts, free world-class software and web-based training, discounts on partner hosting services, and more.

Yoono’s mission is to make the social web accessible, easy and fun for everyone. Its newly expanded service socializes your browser, helps you manage your digital life and brings the best of the web into one single browser-based application. Today, 1.3 million users are leveraging Yoono.

Yoono is hosting Social Media Camp at each tour stop which brings together the top local names in Blogging, Podcasting, Live Streaming, and New Media to participate in an open workshop about the power of social media.

MySites is a single place for all your online needs. You can create and customize a website, save and share any media, decide who can view it, embed anywhere, and use any device.

Touring Video Partner

Launched in February 2006, Stickam emerged as the first and largest Web site dedicated to live interactive video streaming. Stickam’s cutting edge technology delivers millions of streams each day, reaching over two million registered users. They are continuing on the path of social interactive TV by adding features that nurture its growing community and tech-savvy broadcasters. Whether you are famous for 15 or 150,000, Stickam.com is where you will find your friends and fans. See and be seen at Stickam.com, The Live Community.

Exclusive Ticketing Partner

“Eventbrite is the world’s largest self-service online ticketing site. Eventbrite makes it easy for anyone to sell-out an event.”

Online Community Partner

‘EventVue helps conference attendees meet the people that matter to them before they even arrive at an event.’

Tour Media Partner

“Thrillist is a free daily email that sifts through the crap to bring you the best of what your city’s hiding. Each day, you’ll get one quick email with info on the best food, drinks, gear, services, and events. Whatever it is, we promise it won’t suck. Get on the list.”

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As one of the few parents on the Mashable team, Mark had a more unique perspective on photo-sharing network TotSpot than myself. It’s great to see a family-oriented site geared towards the early adopter crowd nonetheless, given the ease with which content can be aggregated from across the web and distributed through one’s channel on TotSpot. Now that the team has had time to benefit from the feedback of avid early adopters like Mark, and a reported 8,500 other users, TotSpot has launched its public beta in the past few weeks, and is rolling out several new features today.

Public pages top the new feature list, which makes showing off your kids’ photos and videos that much easier. Privacy settings are still in place, so you can make a page private or password protect it (to keep things in the family). Interestingly enough, founder Adam Katz told us that this feature came as a request from users, most of which have heard about TotSpot through the company’s Twitter stream, proving yet again TotSpot’s appeal in the early adopter crowd and its ongoing dedication to both aggregation and redistribution of content.

(more...)

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This is a guest post by Aseem Kishore, a technology enthusiast and lead blogger for Online-Tech-Tips.

FriendFeed has come a long way in a short amount of time. In the beginning, it was just a fancy RSS aggregator with commenting thrown into the mix. However, over time, FriendFeed has added a slew of great features which has lead many to think that it will be the this year’s Twitter (if it isn’t already).

The interesting aspect of FriendFeed is its quick evolution from a lifestreaming service to lifestreaming plus discussion forum plus latest news plus search engine. Here are 10 reasons why I think FriendFeed will beat out their competition if they keep innovating at their current pace:

(more...)

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Live-blogging toolCoverItLive has released an upgrade this week that is truly helpful for bloggers in the social media space. If you’ve got one of those handy phones that supports Qik, or you do live video blogging with Mogulus or ustream, you can now drop your feeds into your CoverItLive window and broadcast it to the world, along with your live blogging coverage.

This builds on CoverItLive’s existing option for dropping a YouTube video into your CoverItLive window, though the formatting has been improved (with the video appearing in the top right corner of the window) and users can expand the video with a separate window if they’d like. The major benefit of being able to include these videos into your live blogging coverage is the streamlining for the blogging multi-tasker, which is what CoverItLive has always been good at.

With the added support for Qik and the others, such multitasking is made even more simple, in a very focused manner for those multimedia-oriented content producers. It also centralizes your content for distribution purposes, and makes consumption easier for your audience.

(more...)

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They’re a downright rarity, but JibJab animations are treasured by millions when they hit the Web. The ode to 2004’s US presidential election, “This Land is Your Land” (view below), is said to have garnered some 80 million views prior to the official vote in November. Now there’s a new two-minute clip to enjoy for 2008, called “Time for Some Campaignin’,” based on the Bob Dylan song “The times they are a-changin’.” Does it best its predecessor of four years past?

The brothers Spiridellis, who head the 35-man JibJab operation, think not, but with a little help from a much more socially networked online space this time around, a new record for the company may be set for the fall season.

Also interesting to note, JibJab last year introduced for the first time the ability for viewers to upload personal headshots to be included in videos through a service called Starring You!, part of JibJab’s Sendables e-card adjunct. And with the launch of the “Time for Some Campaignin’” video, they’ve made it possible for viewers to put together a custom election clip for anyone to distribute to friends. Millions of Sendables have been distributed, according to JibJab, with templates for birthdays, love notes, and casual humor. This new option will likely prove popular as well.

(more...)

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Dripbook, a portfolio creation and sharing network for visual media artists, launched in beta late last year. Eight months later, Dripbook is emerging from beta, enabling anyone to create an account on the site.

When I reviewed Dripbook during its beta phase last year, I noted the simplistic and easy-to-navigate design, and also appreciated some of the features that took an artist’s time into consideration, such as the multiple file upload option that allowed you to perform other actions on the site while waiting for media to be uploaded into your portfolio. The biggest downfall of Dripbook, however, was its closed-wall architecture that made it difficult to share content beyond the Dripbook network, limiting the promotional and marketing capabilities of Dripbook as a service.

With the full release today, however, Dripbook has changed some of that, layering in sharing options as one of its main features presented to users and artists alike. Public portfolios can be shared across a handful of bookmarking and microblogging sites, and the URL is also provided so that you can direct others to the public portfolio as well. Dripbook also offers artists dynamic widgets and RSS feeds, as well as exporting options for a custom, Flash-based portfolio that can be shared across the Web.

(more...)

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