New Facebook App Suite Turns Brand Pages Into Crowdsourcing Hubs

Name: Napkin Labs

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Quick Pitch: Napkin Labs makes interactive marketing tools for Facebook.
Genius Idea: A suite of customized apps that make brand pages interactive.

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Brands are set on getting customers to Like their Facebook pages. But then what?
Napkin Labs launched a new suite of Facebook apps this week that it hopes will help answer this question.
The company offers four different apps. “Brainstorm” is a basic crowdsourcing platform that lets brands ask their community a question. “Photoboard” collects and displays community-sourced images. “Pipeline” turns Facebook pages into open forums. And “Superfans” shows who participates the most in campaigns, then rewards them. Most of the tools come with analytics and moderation features.
“I think a lot of brands are starting to realized their Facebook pages can go beyond ‘great, you like us now,’ and actually shape the future of the brand,” Napkin Labs CEO Riley Gibson tells Mashable.
Napkin Labs adapted some functionality of the new Facebook apps from its previous product, which created a separate online “lab space” for brands to collaborate with their customers on products, design and anything else. The separate space had game features — such as a points system and rewards for participation — but it was still asking customers to visit someplace new on the web. Convincing such migration is no easy feat, so it’s not surprising Napkin Labs eventually decided to instead build on existing brand pages.
As Gibson puts it, “We realized the ecosystem within Facebook was perfect.”
Napkin Labs recently demonstrated how its Facebook apps will work with a custom app it made for Domino’s Facebook page called “Think Oven.” Users could submit their designs to the page in the hopes of winning one of $200 rewards.
The startup says pages experience a 29% increase in Likes after running a Facebook contest. But brands will have to decide for themselves how much that’s worth. This is not your average Facebook app installation. Napkin Labs works with clients to customize the pages, and thus its campaigns start at $1,000.
Would you pay that much to customize your brand page, or are there better ways to engage the community that don’t involve expensive customized tools? Let us know in the comments.

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Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

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The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

How to Get the Windows 8 Consumer Preview Right Now

Microsoft just launched the consumer preview of Windows 8. That means anyone who wants to check out the latest version of Microsoft’s new operating system — unveiled on Wednesday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona — can download it right now and start scrolling through Metro apps in all of their tiled glory.
How can you get this groundbreaking piece of pre-release software? Just head on over to Microsoft’s site and download. Microsoft has said repeatedly that Windows 8 would run on any machine that can run Windows 7, so theoretically you should be able to install it on your Win7 PC with no problems (of course, be sure to back up all your stuff thoroughly).
Be warned, though: this is pre-release “beta” software — not ready for prime time yet. As we found in our detailed look at the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, the OS still has many bugs, and some of the functionality isn’t fully baked. Most notably on the “under construction” list: OS-level sharing, which right now can only be done with the Mail app.

However, for those bold enough, using Windows 8 on a touchscreen device or with a traditional mouse and keyboard is a fascinating experience. Many Metro apps, with their full-screen nature, look gorgeous, and Microsoft has built bridges into the OS for connecting with services such as Facebook and Flickr. Of course, the traditional desktop is always just a click or two away.
When will you be able to get the final version of Windows 8? Not till this fall, when Microsoft is expected to release it to the public — along with an nearly identical version of Windows for low-power ARM devices and a big update to Windows Phone that’ll bring it more in line with Windows 8.
Until then, you’ve got this to play with. What do you think of Windows 8? Have your say in the comments, and watch for our Open Thread post later today.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview: An Overview

Start Menu

Here's what greets you every time you log into your Windows 8 machine. Yes, the tiles are customizable, though it's a little unwieldy in practice.

 

Sharing in Metro

Sharing is arguably Metro's most powerful feature. Although the sharing option is only populated with Mail right now, once Windows 8 apps get going, you'll see options here like Facebook, Twitter and all the rest -- in every app.

 

 

Finance Metro App

Many apps, like the native Finance app, look beautiful in Metro.

 

Traditional Desktop

You can still get back to the familiar desktop anytime you want in Windows 8. Note the absence of a Start button, which you get to by mousing into the lower-left corner.

 

Bing Maps

Bing Maps, like all Metro apps, makes use of the entire screen. Right-clicking brings up options.

 

Multitasking Menu

You can see which apps are running by pointing your mouse to one of the left corners and then moving it alongside. Right-clicking an app lets you stop it.

 

Action Menu

The side action menu slides out via the side and is the same no matter what app you're in.

 

Microsoft’s Clash With Google Over Privacy Settings May Be Part of a Larger Problem

Google’s policies are once again under scrutiny as Microsoft and others have caught the company circumventing users’ privacy settings to track them with cookies. But Google representatives have pointed out that they are not alone.
It all started with Apple’s Safari Web browser. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google and other advertising companies have been using a special code to trick Safari into bypassing users’ privacy settings to monitor their activities online. Stanford grad student Jonathan Mayer first spotted the code. A follow-up investigation by WSJ advisor Ashkan Soltani revealed that the Google tracking code had been installed on a test computer through ads on 22 of the top 100 websites and that the code was also installed on an iPhone browser through ads on 23 sites. (Once the Journal contacted the company about the matter, Google disabled the code.)
When Microsoft heard that Google had circumvented user privacy settings on Safari, they wondered if Google was also bypassing users’ privacy preferences on Internet Explorer. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer corporate vice president Dean Hachamovitch wrote in a blog post, “We’ve discovered the answer is yes: Google is employing similar methods to get around the default privacy protections in IE and track IE users with cookies.”
The real issue, according to a blog post by TAP, is that the default setting Microsoft created to block third-party cookies has a bug. As a result, many companies – including Facebook – have been able to get around the requirement for third parties to summarize their privacy policies and offer users a way to opt out of sharing their personal data. The protocol for writing compact policies (CP), as defined by the Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P), has not been widely implemented since it was first created in 2002 by the World Wide Web Consortium.
A Facebook representative told ZDNet, “While we would like to be able to express our cookie policy in a format that a browser could read, P3P was developed 5 years ago and is not effective in describing the practices of a modern social networking service and platform. Instead, we have posted a public notice describing our practices that is consistent with Section 3.2 of P3P. We have reached out directly to Microsoft in hopes of developing additional solutions and we would welcome the opportunity to work with W3 to update P3P to account for the advances in social networking and the web since 2007.”
Google’s response to Microsoft’s complaints said more or less the same thing. “Today the Microsoft policy is widely non-operational,” Google wrote. “A 2010 research report indicated that over 11,000 websites were not issuing valid P3P policies as requested by Microsoft.”
The complexity of the issue begs the question, is there an easier way to handle this? According to Jonathan Mayer, there is. He and fellow Stanford researcher Arvid Narayanan are currently working on Do Not Track, a policy proposal that would allow users to opt out of being tracked across all third-party sites, much like the Do Not Call Registry.
If it goes through, would you sign up?
Image by Gunnar Pippel via Shutterstock

Microsoft Adds Former Symantec CEO And IBM Exec John Thompson To Board

Microsoft has added a new board member today—John W. Thompson, the chief executive officer of Virtual Instruments and former chairman and CEO of Symantec. This brings Microsoft’s board’s size to 10 members.
Thompson currently serves as CEO of Virtual Instruments, which offers products that ensure the performance and availability of applications deployed in virtualized and private cloud computing environments. Thompson also served as chairman and CEO of Symantec from 1999 to 2009, where he grew revenues from $600 million to over $6 billion. He stepped down as CEO of Symantec in 2009, and stepped down from Symantec’s board of directors in 2011.
Previously, Thompson held a number of executive positions at IBM, including sales, marketing, software development and general manager of IBM Americas. Thompson was also reportedly being considered as Commerce Secretary under the Obama Administration.
“John has extraordinary technology and business expertise, and we are delighted that he is joining Microsoft’s board of directors,” said Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman.
In addition to Thompson, Microsoft’s board of directors consists of Gates, CEO Steve Ballmer; Dina Dublon, former chief financial officer of JPMorgan Chase; Raymond Gilmartin, former chairman, president and CEO of Merck & Co. Inc.; Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings; Dr. Maria M. Klawe, president, Harvey Mudd College; David F. Marquardt, general partner at August Capital; Charles H. Noski, vice chairman of Bank of America Corp.; and Dr. Helmut G. W. Panke, former chairman of the board of management at BMW AG.
Symantec has had a complex relationship with Microsoft over the past, which makes Thompson’s appointment interesting. As described by ZDNet in 2007, Thompson has previously described Microsoft as a partner, ally and competitor to Symantec.

Google Wants a 2.25% Cut of Every iPhone Sale

Looking to earn back some of the $12.5 billion it’s spending to buy Motorola Mobility, Google sent a letter to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers looking for a maximum 2.25% cut of sales for phones that use Motorola’s technology, including Apple‘s iPhone.
The letter, which went out to the IEEE on Wednesday, outlines Google’s position on Motorola patents if and when the proposed takeover is executed. (Reports say it could happen next week.) Most striking was Google’s insistence on continuing to enforce a 2.25% fee on iPhones based on the model’s use of Motorola patents.
Google’s stance comes about two weeks after Motorola Mobility filed a lawsuit against Apple accusing the company of infringing on its technology patents. Motorola’s complaint, filed in a Florida federal court, concerns patents for the iPhone 4S and Apple’s iCloud service.
Patents has proved to be a key issue for Google and likely a primary impetus for the Motorola Mobility acquisition. That bid came after a very public spat this summer between Google, Apple and Microsoft over patents.
Google fired the first salvo in early August by using its Official Blog to kvetch about an “organized campaign by Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.” The post, by David Drummond, Google’s senior vice president and chief legal officer, went on to accuse Apple and Microsoft for being “in bed together” in an attempt to hurt Google’s business via patent claims.
Though Apple stayed above the fray, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith took to Twitter to point out that Microsoft had invited Google to jointly bid on patents from Novell. Frank X. Shaw, Microsoft’s lead of corporate communications, also posted a letter from Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, refusing Microsoft’s invitation regarding the Novell patents.

The iPhone 4S looks and feels exactly like the iPhone 4.

The most important new feature of the iPhone 4S is Siri, a voice-controlled "Intelligent Assistant" that can complete tasks based on natural language. Ask it what the weather is like today and it will respond with details.

Will Windows Phone 8 Launch Microsoft Back In the Game?

I think we can all agree to the fact that Microsoft has rushed its new Windows Phone 7 mobile platform to the market in the last quarter of 2010. The initial iteration was lacking some basic features — not only present on competing platforms but imperative to the user experience — some of which were later addressed by the NoDo and then the Mango update.
There were several voices (not only) on the Internet that criticized Microsoft and its Windows Phone 7 platform because of several reasons including, but not limited to, the low number of apps in the Marketplace, the lack of copy and paste operations, missing video calling options, but mainly because we never got the chance to see official numbers representing sales of Windows Phones. The marketplace is growing fast (and now, at the time of this editorial, it already has close to 70,000 titles), the NoDo update brought copy and paste functionality, Mango and some wave-two devices added video calling and Nokia’s recent financial report talks about over one million devices sold from the end of October until the end of January (but still no global numbers).

Windows Phone 7 is still well below a two-digit OS market share, increasing ever so slowly but steadily (and even decreasing recently); however, Apple’s iOS at 43% and Google’s Android at 47% seem very far away. So, will a platform refresh like Windows 8 put Microsoft back in the game (for real this time)?
After seeing details of the upcoming OS refresh codenamed Apollo we can all agree that it will be as big of an update as Windows Phone 7 was when it replaced Windows phone 6.5. Not only will it be a new mobile platform but it will very well blend in with Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system for PCs, slates and convertibles.
The lack of support for removable storage was probably one of the most criticized Microsoft moves with regards to Windows Phone 7. Users wanted to be able to manually sync all sorts of documents while Microsoft considered it was best to sync music, videos and pictures via the Zune software. Additionally, a huge part of the user base (or future possible users that refrained from going Windows Phone 7) was complaining about the limited internal storage space on devices. Eight gigabytes were not enough and 16GB were still too little to accommodate huge multimedia libraries for some users.
Windows Phone 8 will bring back removable storage. What does this mean? You will most probably be able to expand your storage with a microSD card to a yet undisclosed total storage supported by the platform. Not only that but you will probably be able to use your phone as mass storage and sync all sorts of documents.
While Windows Phone 7 users were quite happy with the way the OS performed on single-core CPUs clocking anywhere between 1GHz and 1.5GHz – because of the way the platform was built to be fluid – their friends using Apple’s iPhone and Android were rocking dual-cores (and soon quad-cores). Now that Microsoft is preparing dual-core support for Windows 8, people using other platforms are already criticizing Windows Phone users; we need to get one thing straight: Windows Phone 8 will be a completely new OS and experience. It’s not Windows Phone 7 that needs dual-core; it’s Windows Phone 8 that will support dual-core. And, looking at the current Windows platform (and how well it is optimized) chances are Windows Phone 8 will be buttery-smooth with its new chip support for which it will be specially built.
Four screen resolutions are rumored. We currently have WVGA but Windows Phone 7 Tango was rumored to lower the bar to HVGA (a resolution that was mentioned in the very early stages of Windows Phone 7). What could be the other two screen resolutions? Well, qHD and 720p seem valid candidates. Let’s take a look at those: HVGA (320×480) with aspect ratio of 1.5; WVGA (480×800) with aspect ratio of 1.6; qHD (540×960) with aspect ratio of 1.7; 720p/HD (720×1280) with aspect ratio of 1.7.
We can already see the diversity in hardware but on the other hand we can already hear the critics call out fragmentation. While we could easily brush that off with Eric Schmidt’s argument about “device differentiation” we’ll just say that anyone who used Windows Phone and its Metro user interface knows how scalable it could be.
We’ve seen that on the hardware side, Microsoft seems to listen to the community feedback: adding the option for external memory, higher screen resolutions (and probably lower ones for budget phones) and just as much horsepower as it is needed to deliver a fluid user experience (and maximize battery life). Hardware-wise, Windows Phone 8 will be right there and fans will definitely continue to defend it against the competition which will by then probably need and support quad-core processors.
On the software side Microsoft seems to plan on seriously pushing the concept of “Windows reimagined”. In a somewhat similar way to Google and its Ice Cream Sandwich OS (which is a unifying one for smartphones and tablets) Windows Phone 8 will do much more. It will be part of the Windows 8 family for PCs, slates and convertibles. It will not only lend its looks to Windows 8 but it will use many components from the PC OS; developers will be able to “reuse — by far — most of their code” and port applications from the desktop to the phone, as Joe Belfiore said. The Marketplace will see an impressive growth giving users plenty of choices. And with native code, apps will be easily portable among platforms like iOS, Android and Windows Phone.
Skype, now part of Microsoft, will have deep integration with the OS; you’ll have the same experience when answering a Skype call like the one you currently have when picking up a normal phone call. In addition, native BitLocker encryption as well as business apps (with the ability for corporations to deploy and manage) will definitely push Windows Phone 8 in the business and corporate segment.
It looks like great things are coming to Windows Phone 8 software-wise too. If Microsoft can couple all of these with an improved cloud and online experience they might have a winner. The company appears to have targeted the average user with its Windows Phone 7 platform; this saw many of its old Windows Mobile users (mainly the power users, hackers, tweakers, etc.) go Android. Sharing features like the kernel, networking stacks, security, and multimedia support with Windows 8, Microsoft can crack the ice once again for its new platform; whether it will become what Windows Mobile and Windows phone was back in the day is anyone’s guess.
Let’s not forget about Android Ice Cream Sandwich (and the probably upcoming letter “J”-named refresh); we should not forget about Apple’s iOS and the upcoming iterations. The competition never sleeps. However, those who are tired of seeing a grid of icons, those who want better battery life, seamless PC-tablet-phone integration, a fluid experience, shared apps, and so on will probably consider Windows Phone 8. Microsoft won’t turn die-hard iOS and Android fans but they can gain back some of the users lost in favor of the competition once Windows Phone 7 hit the market (and that’s a solid starting point).

This article originally published at Pocketnow here.

Quand Microsoft s'en prend à Google via une publicité

Microsoft n’a jamais eu la langue dans sa poche. Et profite de la tempête médiatique et de la polémique provoquée par les modifications que Google a effectuées sur sa politique de confidentialité.

Redmond a en effet cru bon d’en profiter pour faire la promotion de ses propres services. L’éditeur américain s’est donc payé des publicités en pleine page dans plusieurs prestigieux journaux US, comme le New York Times ou le Wall Street Journal. Objectif : expliquer qu’il existe des alternatives – celles de Microsoft – si l’on n’est plus satisfait des services de Google. Et la charge est sévère :

« Google est en train de faire des changements impopulaires sur leurs produits les plus populaires. Ces changements, enveloppés dans des termes comme "transparence", "simplicité" et "consistance" sont en réalité destinés à une seule chose : faciliter à Google la connexion entre tout ce que vous cherchez, envoyez, dites ou regardez pendant que vous utilisez l’un de leurs services. »

Microsoft écrit ensuite en gras son idée force : « Chaque donnée que Google collecte et connecte à votre personne augmente votre valeur auprès des annonceurs. » A côté, un petit dessin montre trois silhouettes d’individus avec le signe du dollar dans le crâne. Le message est clair ! 

Hotmail contre Gmail

Redmond se défend toutefois de critiquer trop rudement le business de la publicité ciblée. Et pour cause : Microsoft y a aussi recours ! « Il n’y a rien de mal à vouloir améliorer la qualité d’un produit publicitaire. Mais cet effort doit être compensé pour coller aux besoins et intérêts des utilisateurs »,  explique ainsi son annonce, avant de proposer des services en ligne de Microsoft pour remplacer ceux de Google.

« Rejoignez les centaines de millions de gens qui apprécient ne pas avoir à s’inquiéter de voir le contenu de leurs mails privés utilisés pour leur servir des publicités », indique la pub pour vanter le webmail de Microsoft, par exemple. Idem pour Office 365, opposé à Google Documents, et Internet Explorer, évidemment opposé à Chrome.

« Nous prenons une approche différente : nous travaillons à ce que vous restiez en sécurité en ligne, à vous donner le contrôle sur vos données, et à vous offrir le choix de sauvegarder vos informations sur votre disque dur, sur le cloud, ou les deux », écrit par ailleurs Frank Shaw, vice-président de Microsoft, dans un billet écrit pour l’occasion.

Une méthode si agressive est-elle la bonne ? Microsoft a en tout cas fait les fonds de tiroir pour enfoncer le clou : la firme a aussi rendu publique une vidéo qui avait déjà leaké l’année dernière. Imaginée pour promouvoir le lancement d'Office 365, Gmail Man critique la curiosité de Google, dont les robots « lisent » les mails des utilisateurs de son webmail.

You Can Now Pre-Order the Nokia Lumia 900 at Microsoft Retail Stores

If you live near a Microsoft retail store, you can now pre-order a Nokia Lumia 900 with a $25 down payment, the Verge reports.
Unfortunately, even if you do that, you still won’t know how much the device will cost when it finally arrives, probably in March.
The Lumia 900 sports a 4.3″ AMOLED ClearBlack display with a 800×480 pixel resolution, an 8-megapixel camera (as well as a 1-megapixel front-facing one for video chat) and LTE/HSPA+ support.
With a 1.4 GHz processor, an Adreno 205 GPU and 512 MB of RAM, it’s Nokia’s most powerful Windows Phone yet. However, we’ve heard rumors that its price will be very competitive, possibly even as low as $99. 

The Microsoft Store locations are here.