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Verizon and AT&T think you want to share a pool of data with your friends and family. Sprint and T-Mobile think that’s a silly notion. We all want our own data pool, right? While the latter two might be correct for the moment, market forces might be moving against them. After all, Verizon and AT&T call the shots with their 200 million-plus combined subscribers.

Late last week Sprint announced a plan that, on the surface, might seem innocent. They’re offering businesses a chance to share data pools, the size of which depend on how many lines the account contains. FOr 10-line accounts busnesses can share 20GB; for 20 devices they can share 40GB, and for 30 devices they get 60GB combined.The system works in essentially the same was as Verizon and AT&T. Customers pay for each device connected to the account, plus the data pool.

According to Sprint, this is merely a trial. It runs through June 13th, and is an option, not a requirement, for business lines. In that way it might seem innocent enough. After all, business accounts are handeled differently than consumer ones. If the trial is a success Sprint might migrate its business customers there. But why would that affect consumers?

The answer is LTE. As Sprint expands its LTE network, it is likely coming to the realization that unlimited data isn’t feasible. Yes, LTE networks transfer data more efficiently than 3G networks, but LTE users consume more data, a lot more data, than 3G users. That will continue to be the case as mobile data gets faster and more efficient. People will start to treat them more like cable lines, consuming huge gulps of data where they used to consume sips.

All of this is highly speculative. Sprint might have nothing of the sort in mind for consumers. After all, unlimited data remains one of their strongest selling points in the face of crushing competition from AT&T and Verizon. If they give that up they’ll be just another player in an increasingly duopolistic industry.

What happens when reality crushes the possibilies for that differentiation? We could soon find out. Sprint continues to build out its LTE network — even offering it up to its prepaid brands Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile — and so could be feeling the crunch already. If it’s begun for business, chances are it will extend to consumers eventually.

Via All Things D.

The post Is Sprint’s Business Shared Data a Sign for Consumers? appeared first on MobileMoo.

A deacon at the St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Fullerton, a suburb of Baltimore, has been arrested and charged with multiple child pornography counts after Verizon tipped authorities to materials stored on the company’s online cloud backup system.

67-year-old William Albaugh was arrested and released on $75,000 bond after police found underage porn images and videos on his Verizon cloud backup as well as on numerous thumb drives in his home. Police confiscated two storage units, a laptop, and an iPad as well.

According to police, there is no evidence that any children at St. Joseph’s church were victims.

Albaugh reportedly told police that he has been viewing child pornography since the 1970s, but was in no way involved with any of the porn’s creation.

Albaugh had been a deacon at the church since 1996, but the archdiocese has confirmed that he has been suspended.

The police were first tipped to Albaugh’s child pornography collection when Verizon notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Verizon said that they had detected the images and videos stored on his Verizon Online Backup and Sharing account.

[Baltimore Sun via Ars Technica]

(Originally posted on the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog)

Depending on how you are holding your BlackBerry Z10 device, you may want to lock the screen into portrait mode. To do this quickly, complete the following steps:

1. While viewing the BlackBerry Z10 Home screen, swipe down from the top of screen
2. Tap the Rotation Lock icon

After tapping the Rotation Lock icon, you’ll notice that the icon turns blue when you access the Settings menu, which indicates that it’s turned on. To turn off Rotation Lock so your BlackBerry Z10 can switch between portrait and landscape views, repeat the steps above.

To learn about a feature on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone or troubleshoot an issue, there are several great options available to help. Visit www.blackberry.com/support for access to product manuals, how-to demos, tips and tricks, YouTube videos, support forums, knowledge base articles, Twitter support, and contact information for your region.

Casey Anthony, the woman famously acquitted of the murder of her daughter, Caylee Anthony, is back in a Florida courtroom, this time to face a bankruptcy case. Anthony has been in hiding since the end of the trial, appearing only occasionally in videos posted online.

Anthony’s debts stem from the 2011 murder trial and fines levied against her for lying to police about the whereabouts of her daughter. She recently filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, claiming she is almost $800,000 in debt.

The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that during today’s bankruptcy hearing Anthony will answer questions from a bankruptcy trustee and her creditors about her finances.

Anthony has been unemployed since the end of the murder trial in July 2011. Part of today’s questioning will concern who has been supporting her since that time. Also, rumors of a book deal for Anthony’s story could play into the hearing, an if true could prevent her from being declared bankrupt.

Cameras will not be allowed in the Federal Courthouse where the bankruptcy hearing is being held.

Allan Savory isn’t afraid to own up to the “greatest blunder” of his life. In his incredible talk from TED2013, Savory shares his life’s work managing grasslands in Africa, weaving a gripping tale out of what seems like an unlikely topic. Allan Savory: How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change In the 1950s, Savory helped create large national parks in Africa. But as people left this land to make way for animal reserves, Savory and his team noticed the land deteriorating and quickly turning into desert. After careful analysis, they determined that the problem was an over-abundance of elephants. And so in a politically heated move, they shot 40,000 elephants in order to save the grasslands.

Only, it didn’t work. Even with all these elephants killed, the grassland deterioration only got worse. In a powerful moment in the talk, Savory expresses his dismay.

“That was the saddest and greatest blunder of my life,” he said. “I will carry that to my grave.”

To hear how Savory, over the next few decades, found real solutions to the problem of desertification — one that involves livestock — watch his talk. Here, other bold speakers who’ve owned up to mistakes or expressed what they’ve learned from failure.

• Richard St. John: “Success is a continuous journey”
• Kathryn Schulz: Don’t regret regret
• JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure
• Tim Harford: Trial, error and the God complex
• Diana Laufenberg: How to learn from mistakes
• Kathryn Schulz: On being wrong
• Michael Litt: Why you need to fail to have a good career

How many views make a YouTube video a success? How about 1.5 million? That’s how many views a video our organization, DoSomething.org, posted in 2011 got. It featured some well-known YouTube celebrities, who asked young people to donate their used sports equipment to youth in need. It was twice as popular as any video Dosomething.org had posted to date. Success! Then came the data report: only eight viewers had signed up to donate equipment, and zero actually donated.

Zero donations. From 1.5 million views. Suddenly, it was clear that for DoSomething.org, views did not equal success. In terms of donations, the video was a complete failure.

What happened? We were concerned with the wrong metric. A metric contains a single type of data, e.g., video views or equipment donations. A successful organization can only measure so many things well and what it measures ties to its definition of success. For DoSomething.org, that’s social change. In the case above, success meant donations, not video views. As we learned, there is a difference between numbers and numbers that matter. This is what separates data from metrics.

You can’t pick your data, but you must pick your metrics.

Take baseball. Every team has the same definition of success — winning the World Series. This requires one main asset: good players. But what makes a player good? In baseball, teams used to answer this question with a handful of simple metrics like batting average and runs batted in (RBIs). Then came the statisticians (remember Moneyball?). New metrics provided teams with the ability to slice their data in new ways, find better ways of defining good players, and thus win more games.

Keep in mind that all metrics are proxies for what ultimately matters (in the case of baseball, a combination of championships and profitability), but some are better than others. The data of the game has never changed — there are still RBIs and batting averages; what has changed is how we look at the data. And those teams that slice the data in smarter ways are able to find good players that have been traditionally undervalued.

Organizations become their metrics.

Metrics are what you measure. And what you measure is what you manage to. In baseball, a critical question is how effective is a player when he steps up to the plate? One measure is hits. A better measure turns out to be the sabermetric “OPS” — a combination of on-base percentage (which includes hits and walks) and total bases (slugging). Teams that look only at hitting suffer. Players on these teams walk less, with no offsetting gains in hits. In short, players play to the metrics their management values, even at the cost of the team.

The same happens in workplaces. Measure YouTube views? Your employees will strive for more and more views. Measure downloads of a product? You’ll get more of that. But if your actual goal is to boost sales or acquire members, better measures might be return-on-investment (ROI), on-site conversion, or retention. Do people who download the product keep using it, or share it with others? If not, all the downloads in the world won’t help your business.

In the business world, we talk about the difference between vanity metrics and meaningful metrics. Vanity metrics are like dandelions – they might look pretty, but to most of us, they’re weeds, using up resources, and doing nothing for your property value. Vanity metrics for your organization might include website visitors per month, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, and media impressions. Here’s the thing: if these numbers go up, it might drive up sales of your product. But can you prove it? If yes, great. Measure away. But if you can’t, they aren’t valuable.

Metrics are only valuable if you can manage to them.

Good metrics have three key attributes: their data are consistent, cheap, and quick to collect. A simple rule of thumb: if you can’t measure results within a week for free (and if you can’t replicate the process), then you’re prioritizing the wrong ones. There are exceptions, but they are rare. In baseball, the metrics an organization uses to measure a successful plate appearance will impact player strategy in the short term (do they draw more walks, prioritize home runs, etc.?) and personnel strategy in the mid and long terms. The data to make these decisions is readily available and continuously updated.

Organizations can’t control their data, but they do control what they care about. If our metric on the YouTube video had been views, we would have called it a huge success. In fact, we wrote it off as a massive failure. Does that mean no more videos? Not necessarily, but for now, we’ll be spending our resources elsewhere, collecting data on metrics that matter. Good data scientists know that analyzing the data is the easy part. The hard part is deciding what data matters.

Please join the conversation and check back for regular updates. Follow the Scaling Social Impact insight center on Twitter @ScalingSocial and register to stay informed and give us feedback.

Scaling Social Impact
Insights from HBR and The Bridgespan Group

• Using Social Media for Social Good
• Can You Live Without a Data Scientist?
• Metrics Are Easy; Insight Is Hard
• Give Us Feedback and Get a Free HBR Article

Innovative social entrepreneurs and mission-driven businesses are using data, social media, mobile apps, and other technologies to better solve problems around the world and reach more people and communities.

Take Ushahidi, a nonprofit tech company using the internet and mobile applications to crowd source information during natural disasters, epidemics, and political crises. Or Kiva Zip, which relies on M-PESA, a mobile payment system, to allow people to make direct loans to micro-entrepreneurs in Kenya. There’s also Khan Academy, the nonprofit website that removes economic barriers to education by putting free video tutorials online. And even less tech-oriented organizations are using open source software simply to lower the costs of running a business — expense reporting, document storage, etc. — and put more money into serving their missions.

But these technologies have also put new burdens on some nonprofits and social entrepreneurs. Organizations find themselves under increasing pressure to collect and produce data that proves their worth to funders. Many want to take advantage of social media and data analytics but can’t afford the capabilities needed to do so (not many nonprofits have data scientists on their teams).

This month, HBR.org and The Bridgespan Group continue our three-month-long series on scaling entrepreneurial solutions that benefit society by focusing on how technology and data can fuel social good. We’ll explore questions such as:

• How can big data have a social impact?
• In what new ways are organizations using technology and data to scale the best ideas?
• What data is needed to prove what works?
• How should mission-driven organizations use social media?

To start, Peter Roberts from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University shares early findings from his research on the link between social media presence and a social entrepreneur’s future success. Jeff Bladt and Bob Filbin, the data scientists from DoSomething.org, talk about the important distinction between data and metrics. Throughout the month, we’ll continue to draw on leading experts and practitioners from the nonprofit world, business community, academia, and the growing field of social enterprise.

Please join the conversation and check back for regular updates. Follow the Scaling Social Impact insight center on Twitter @ScalingSocial and register to stay informed and give us feedback.

Scaling Social Impact
Insights from HBR and The Bridgespan Group

• Using Social Media for Social Good
• Can You Live Without a Data Scientist?
• Metrics Are Easy; Insight Is Hard
• Give Us Feedback and Get a Free HBR Article

Fledgling social entrepreneurs may have a lot of passion, but they usually don’t have much of a track record, a circumstance that leaves would-be backers to wonder: Which have the potential to become genuine world-changers? Which are likely to achieve significant social impact within an attractive business model? Potential customers are also left wondering: Which of these ventures are worthy of my attention and support?

It turns out one of the best clues may be on Facebook.

Last summer, Social Enterprise @ Goizueta set out with Village Capital, a peer-based accelerator program, to learn (among other things) whether social entrepreneurs with larger social-media followings are showing greater commercial promise. In an analysis of data from roughly a hundred social entrepreneurs, we found a clear connection between a venture’s Facebook presence and its commercial performance.

The average annual revenue for ventures that had set up dedicated Facebook accounts was roughly $142,000, considerably greater than the $77,000 for ventures that hadn’t set up such accounts. For those with Facebook accounts, the correlation between number of likes and revenue earned was a robust 0.38 (correlations range from zero to one). Social ventures with bigger Facebook networks also were more successful in raising capital: The correlation between number of Facebook likes and capital raised was 0.34.

Ventures with active Twitter accounts earned more revenue, on average (roughly $149,000, compared with $69,000), and raised more capital ($147,000 versus $67,000). However, the number of followers showed practically zero correlation with revenue earned or capital raised.

What does this mean for would-be investors and for the supporters (both individuals and organizations) of social entrepreneurs? A larger Facebook network suggests that a social-venture idea has legs. It seems to signal that an enterprise’s theory of how to effect change resonates with a lot of people and that the organization is developing a “voice” for effectively communicating its ideas to customers — a crucial success factor. In other words, show me a fledgling enterprise with a big Facebook following, and I’ll show you a venture that’s poised to bring in revenue and capital over the short term.

So what does it take to create these larger online networks? Here, we gleaned some additional insights from a separate analysis of 281 social ventures that applied to participate in the 2010 or 2011 Summer Institutes run by the Unreasonable Institute, the Colorado-based social-enterprise accelerator.

• We found that social media is a young person’s — specifically, a young woman’s — game. Ventures with founders over the age of 40 tend to be less adept at developing their social-media networks, and female entrepreneurs are building stronger social-media presences.

• Ventures dedicated to peace or human rights do significantly better when it comes to developing larger Facebook presences. On the other hand, Twitter-network advantages are observed among social ventures that are working in the Americas and among entrepreneurs who were invited to participate in the Summer Institute programs. The former effect might reflect the supply or demand of social-media networking — American social entrepreneurs might have better savvy, or typical stakeholders in the Americas might be more faithful users of Facebook and Twitter. The latter effect points to a possible specific benefit flowing to social entrepreneurs who participate in accelerator programs.

• A multipronged approach to social media seems to pay off. Facebook likes increase when a venture has an active Twitter and LinkedIn presence. Similarly, Twitter followers are more numerous when the venture is active on Facebook and LinkedIn. This makes sense to Milaap.org, a social enterprise in Bangalore that crowdsources low-cost capital for microfinance institutions through its online platform. Milaap.org is highly successful with its social-media efforts and emphasizes that it works hard to link Facebook and Twitter as closely as possible.

• One of the most encouraging findings to emerge from our research is that when it comes to generating social-media followings, social ventures in internet or marketing sectors don’t do any better than their peers in other fields. Nor do we see advantages for entrepreneurs with deep experience or advanced degrees.

What this last point implies is that you don’t need to be a high-tech whiz, a marketing expert, an experienced entrepreneur, or an academic star to generate social-media excitement about a world-changing venture. Instead, all social entrepreneurs should simply “keep an eye on what’s trending, what people are talking about, what memes are popular — and then tap into that,” says Shubhashree Sangameswaran of Milaap.org. Sangameswaran advises would-be entrepreneurs to “spend time figuring out what kind of an audience you’d like to attract. Then, create good content that’s relevant to your field, and engaging. Basically, be visible.”

Good advice, because the data seem to show that it is just this kind of visibility that translates into greater revenue and investment, two critical inputs for any entrepreneur who genuinely wants to change the world.

Please join the conversation and check back for regular updates. Follow the Scaling Social Impact insight center on Twitter @ScalingSocial and register to stay informed and give us feedback.

Scaling Social Impact
Insights from HBR and The Bridgespan Group

• Using Social Media for Social Good
• Can You Live Without a Data Scientist?
• Metrics Are Easy; Insight Is Hard
• Give Us Feedback and Get a Free HBR Article

WASHINGTON D.C. — President Obama has nominated Dr. Ernest Moniz to be the next Secretary of Energy. Moniz, a nuclear physicist, will succeed Dr. Steven Chu. IER President Thomas Pyle released the following statement in response to the nomination:

“The …

March 31st, March 31st, March 31st. Only a few more weeks, only a few more weeks, only a few more weeks. Keep repeating that to yourself and maybe you’ll be able to make it through Monday after watching the awesome new Game of Thrones season three extended trailer.

Google is reportedly experimenting with delivering the web faster on Android devices through data compression. Over the weekend, Francois Beaufort noted the development on his Google+ page; Beaufort has consistently delivered early information on Google’s Chrome OS and Android efforts in the past. He says the end result would be similar to the faster web experiences found in Opera’s Turbo and Amazon’s Silk browsers.

Current Chrome for Android users can actually enable the test feature now, provided they know how to use tools found in Google’s Android SDK. This one line command turns the function on: adb shell ‘echo “chrome –enable-spdy-proxy-auth” > /data/local/tmp/content-shell-command-line’ although for it to work, Google’s proxy servers supporting Chrome for Android need to be in place and running. There’s no indication if they are at this point.

According to Beaufort, code related to the effort suggests Google will use SPDY proxy authentication. SPDY is considered to be a next generation web protocol to lower page load times and latency; Google’s testing of SPDY has shown up to 64% reductions in page load times. Google created SPDY (pronounced “SPeeDY”) in 2009 as an experiment and support is now included in the Chrome, Amazon Silk, Opera and Firefox browsers.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• How to deliver the next-generation web experience
• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• A look back at mobile in Q1

Deutsche Telekom has adopted Joyn with immediate effect, allowing its mobile customers in Germany to use the platform to message, share files and videos and even play basic multiplayer games while talking to each other.

Joyn (technically known as Rich Communications Services or RCS) is an industry-wide initiative designed to counter third-party applications such as WhatsApp by augmenting the traditional voice-and-text functionality offered by the carrier. It doesn’t make a huge amount of sense unless your contact’s carrier also supports it – and so far, only users in Spain and South Korea can be sure that theirs does.

Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom are the two biggest carriers in Germany, though, and both now support Joyn. That means quite a lot of people in the country will be able to use the service, the features of which are free. As in other deployments, initial usage will have to be through a special app – the Android version is available now, and iOS will follow soon – while upcoming handsets from manufacturers such as Samsung and Nokia will have Joyn baked in.

It’s too early to tell how successful Joyn will be at this early stage. It will certainly have a tough time in the U.S., where so far only MetroPCS has set it live. In South Korea, though, operator SK Telecom said in February that it had garnered a million Joyn users in just a couple of months since launch.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• AT&T sans T-Mobile USA: Making lemons from lemonade
• Confused about the wireless markets? Here’s a breakdown
• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro

It has become a common refrain on the web: The rise of the DIY culture, the hacker movement and an overall sense that knowing how to code and hack is an important skill Events like Maker Faire are growing and attracting more participants, while venues like Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Etsy are offering makers of all types a viable venue for selling and advertising their skills. This cultural movement can rightly be seen a backlash against the passive consumerism of the last six decades, but it’s also about something larger — our place in an increasingly competitive, and “flat” world.

And as such, a large part of this movement focuses on kids. How do we teach our kids to code? How can we get them interested in hacking? In building? SparkFun, a Boulder, Colo.-based retailer of various DIY hardware kits, has a solution: a subsidized national tour that will supply hardware and tools for teaching kids how to build electronics and code to schools.

SparkFun wants to visit schools in all 50 states and will offer courses to both students and educators, as well as development kits. The first 50 spots are subsidized and so cost $1,500 for a class, while later spots will cost $2,500. Already 13 of those 50 slots have been claimed even before the program has been publicly announced outside of the SparkFun website, according to Lindsay Levkoff, the director of education at SparkFun.

Teaching middle schoolers Scratch programming.

Levkoff created the SparkFun department of education in 2011 to help bring the maker movement to schools that were interested in adding programs but had no idea how to go about it. After a West Coast and East Coast tour last year, the company decided to make it even bigger with a nationwide effort. As a side benefit, SparkFun is creating potential customers for its store.

“When I designed the department it was almost an altruistic branch and there was no guarantee that we would pay for ourselves,” Levkoff said. “We’re trying to be a nonprofit within SparkFun … but if people want to buy the kits and products then that’s a fantastic by-product.”

SparkFun’s plans are part of a larger effort to create hacking groups like Hacker Scouts for kids and even offer classes or hacker space for the younger set.

And while I’ve been pondering how to start one of those for my own daughter’s school, I’ve also been thinking a lot about the bigger issue here; namely why is this movement gaining ground and how important is it really? Is programming the literacy of the 21st century? Does being able to solder, sew or build a robot make someone more employable or creative than another?

The SparkFun tour is helped along by a drive to push Science Technology Engineering and Math education (STEM) and subsequent government and private grants to schools. As a parent I also am eager for my daughter to engage in building things and playing around with hardware in part because I loved building computers, radios and whatnot with my own dad.

But in some ways, beyond the mechanics of programming and the magic of electricity, I think these projects add a venue for concrete accomplishment that can be lacking in everyday schooling for many kids. And that sense of accomplishment, of completing a concrete task as opposed to learning algebra, might be the real value of these maker-based curricula. After all, there are a fair amount of people who get a lot more satisfaction from creating than from consuming.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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Windows Phone 8, Microsoft’s latest attempt to snag a chunk of the smartphone market, launched across the U.S. in November. That gave Windows Phone a boost during the holiday season that saw the Lumia 920 selling through a few million devices. It looks like Microsoft wants to recreate that mild success with a similar launch for the next iteration.

In a job listing for a software development engineer, Microsoft hints that its next Windows Phone platform will be launching this holiday season. Here’s the relevant sentence:

This is a great time to join as we’re completing our current release are getting ready for our next release targeting the holiday of this year and we’re chartered with keeping the momentum for Windows Phone by bringing new killer devices and delightful user experiences.

Of course, Microsoft isn’t outright saying what its next Windows Phone platform is. Next release could mean an incremental update to Windows Phone 8, or it could mean the rumored Windows Blue platform that will also reportedly come to Windows Phone.

If it is Windows Blue, it might be the start of the rumored annual release cycle for all Windows products. It would make Microsoft more like pretty much every other player in the industry as it tries to keep up with the fast pace of the mobile device industry. it remains to be seen if Microsoft’s hardware partners – Samsung, Nokia and HTC – will keep up with this new strategy, especially as Samsung and HTC are now focusing on flagship Android product launches this year.

[h/t: Mashable]

A new miniseries titled The Bible has begun airing on the History Channel. The show premiered on Sunday March 3, and subsequent episodes will air each Sunday in March, with the last episode coming on March 31, also known as Easter Sunday.

The series is being produced by Mark Burnett and his wife, Roma Downey. Burnett is best-known for network reality TV shows such as Survivor, and Downey found fame in the 90s for playing an Angel in the series Touched by an Angel.

According to The Bible‘s website, the show will depict dramatizations of some of the best-known stories from the bible, including Noah’s ark, the Israelites’ exodus, and the birth of Jesus. The role of adult Jesus in the series will be played by Portuguese actor Diogo Morgado.

Despite being on the History Channel, The Bible will not be an examination of the historicity of the Christian bible. Instead, the series is a docu-drama based on various popular stories from the book. Also, some of the stories depicted have been altered to “create a moving story” within the series’ time constraints.

Rather than historical documentaries and research, the History Channel in recent years has been characterized by its pseudoscientific programming, such as Ancient Aliens, and reality TV shows such as Ax Men and Pawn Stars.

Facebook CEO Mark Zurckerberg is not sending out privacy notices, requesting that users verify their accounts. That’s because no such messages would ever come from the Facebook CEO. There’s also that pesky little detail that the CEO of Facebook is not Mark Zurckerberg.

This one should immediately throw up some red flags, considering that the scammers can’t even spell “Zuckerberg” correctly. A new phishing scam making its way around Facebook is just a new riff on a classic ruse.

Hoax Slayer is reporting a message hitting some users’ inboxes claims to be from “Mark Zurckerberg” and states that…

Mark Zurckerberg

Dear Facebook user, After reviewing your page activity, it was determined that you were in violation of our Terms of service.Your account might be permanently suspended.

If you think this is a mistake,please verify your account on the link below.This would indicate that your Page does not have a violation on our Terms of Service.

We will immediately review your account activity,and we will notify you again via email.
Verify your account at the link below:

Clicking on the link will direct users to a fake Facebook login page. Although made to look like the real Facebook login page, this malicious site will simply steal your info once you enter it in.

This type account verification scam is old, but persistent. Most claim that the user has violated some Facebook terms and must verify their account in order to keep it from being suspended. In the past couple of months, we’ve seen a couple variations of this scam hit Facebook. One version purported to come from the Facebook Security Team. Another scam message claimed that users had been “annoying or insulting” to other users and that they face account suspension. Both of those scams, like this “Zurckerberg” one, asked for personal info to “verify” the accounts.

Zemanta has added Todd Sawicki, the former chief revenue officer for Cheezburger Inc., as president. Sawicki announced the news Monday on the Zemanta blog. Zemanta is focused on helping publishers and advertisers better promote and monetize online content.

BLOG POST
I am very happy to be joining Zemanta because it is at the intersection of three massively important trends for online publishers and advertisers: the increasing use of content marketing, the rise and importance of native advertising and the rise of mobile (and it’s monetization challenges). With the recent launch of Zemanta’s Content Discovery Network, I am incredibly excited about it’s ability to help publishers and advertisers better promote and monetize online content.
Some Background

Andraz and Bostjan, Founders
My relationship with Zemanta goes back to 2008 Seedcamp in London. Zemanta’s co-founders, Bostjan, Andraz and I were all mentors for the startups competing for that year’s competition and kept in touch ever since. It seemed whenever Bostjan had a question about the business of online advertising he would ask me. He must have been a fan of my take on the history of online advertising from an Ignite NYC presentation. Then when Bostjan heard that I had left Cheezburger last fall, he recruited me to help advise Zemanta on the development and launch of their Content Discovery Network.

The Link is an original Native Ad Format
Early on I had a key realization about Zemanta and the future of Content Discovery Networks. Zemanta’s VP of Engineering Dusan Omercevic and I were talking about how Related Posts by Zemanta (the product powered by the Content Discovery Network) performed on mobile. It turns out that Zemanta’s mobile content recommendations had CTR’s as high as 6%. Yes, that is a CTR for essentially an ad unit. My reaction:

A 6% CTR definitely made me stop and think. And then it came together – links are as native to the Internet as LOLcat photos. They are such an expected part of the content experience that content without links looks and feels odd to readers. And in mobile where navigation requires a long scroll and swipe to the top of the web page, links even begin to represent navigation. Related Content becomes something so much more than just something readers expect to find at the end of each article they read online.
Native Advertising and Mobile Made for Each Other

For anyone not familiar with the current state of mobile monetization for publishers – mobile banner ads are running at a huge – 1/3rd to 2/3rds lower CPM’s then their desktop counterparts. And given publishers can show only 10% as many ads per session as they can on the traditional web that means publishers are only making 5-10% the amount of money they used to. In my view, banners are DOA on mobile (except for maybe cross-promoting app installs).

As James Slavet of Greylock recently wrote – something will solve mobile monetization for publishers. Personally, I think native advertising will solve it. As I have said before, there’s just not enough screen real estate for banners to work they way did in traditional PCs. Native advertising – in the stream – should work and when you see and hear about 6% CTR’s that mean it can and does. So my bet is that Zemanta is one of the those companies that does figure mobile advertising out.
So Why Zemanta?

When looking at either starting a startup or joining one – you need to look at the product/vision, the team and the investors. I’ve just explained why I am big believer in the product and vision. Zemanta currently counts about 300,000 active publishers using its tools. Content Discovery Network launched with a reach of 1 billion page views. These guys have a lot of wind at their sails.

Add on top of that the fact that Zemanta has one of the top product engineering teams for any startup across Europe and founders who I have gotten to know very well and respect over the last 4.5 years and I think it’s easy to say they check that box. And finally, the track records of their primary investors – Fred Wilson of USV, Peter Jones of Eden Ventures and Robin Klein of TAG (the Ron Conway of early stage investing for Europe) – speak for themselves. Zemanta has all three – great product/vision, fantastic team and top notch investors. 3 for 3.
So Why Me?

It’s not everyday that a company gets to hire a Bravo TV reality star as President. (OK I’m as far as a star as anyone) More seriously though, I was the guy who was responsible for making millions of dollars from silly cat photos. As you can see on my CV, I was the CRO for Cheezburger where I was responsible for developing and promoting the rise of native advertising. I’ve worked and co-founded I number of startups in the digital media space from Lookery, a social advertising pioneer, to Loudeye, one of the first commercial platforms for distributing music online. I am active advisor and investor in startups with a focus on digital media.
Todd with a Cat (Of Course)
So What’s Next

I am joining Zemanta in the role of President. Bostjan and Andraz are at the core the product and technical leaders of the company. I’m here to help them develop a great company to work at across the globe, a company that provides a powerful native advertising solution to hundreds of thousands of publishers and advertisers and company that help solves the puzzle of mobile monetization.

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WASHINGTON D.C. — The White House has confirmed that President Obama will nominate Gina McCarthy to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). McCarthy currently acts as assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation and will replace Administrator Lisa …

Nelson Global Products Inc., a developer of exhaust products for commercial vehicle markets, has acquired Water Works Manufacturing. Water Works is based in Cambridge, Minn. Terms of the deal were not released. Nelson Global Products is a portfolio company of Wind Point Partners.

PRESS RELEASE
Nelson Global Products Inc., a global leader in the design and manufacture of tubular and exhaust products for commercial vehicle markets, has acquired Water Works Manufacturing located in Cambridge, MN. Water Works also has two subsidiaries; Cambridge Metals and Plastics (CMP), located in Cambridge, MN and, Interlaken Technology Corporation (ITC), located in Chaska, MN. The acquisition is effective immediately.

Water Works will continue to operate under the leadership of Jim Shear, its current President and CEO, and his experienced management team.

The 250 employees at Water Works will maintain their positions with the respective companies. A new 33,000 square foot addition is currently underway at the main manufacturing facility in Cambridge.

Founded in December 2003, Water Works is a leading provider of advanced metal forming solutions that have allowed the Company to become a major supplier to blue chip customers in the power-sports & infrastructure related industries.

Nelson Global Products is a portfolio company of Wind Point Partners, a private equity firm headquartered in Chicago, IL. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

“This acquisition is a very exciting opportunity for us,” said Tom Gosnell, CEO of Nelson, “Water Works provides a significant opportunity for us to expand our addressable end markets, our manufacturing processes, and our product offering, as we better meet the expectations of our growing number of customers”.

“We are especially enthusiastic about the advanced metal forming capability which Water Works brings to the Nelson Global Products family. Jim Shear’s past investments in these processes, as well as laser technology for tube and sheet processing, further strengthens our already robust manufacturing technology,” said Gosnell. “We are proud to be aligned with the Water Works team”.

About Nelson Global Products With a 60+ years of rich engineering and manufacturing history, Nelson Global Products designs, manufactures, and markets a broad range of high performance exhaust and tubular products for OEM and aftermarket use for the global on-highway and off-highway markets. These products include mufflers and silencers; exhaust tube assemblies; EGR and Thermal Management Tubing (TMT) for emissions systems; pressurized tube assemblies for air, hydraulic and lubrication; and structural assemblies.

The company’s operations include corporate offices in Stoughton, WI and manufacturing operations in Clinton, TN; Fort Wayne, IN; Peoria, IL; Arcadia, Black River Falls and Viroqua, Wisconsin; and international operations in Scoresby, Australia; Pune, India; and Changzhou, China.

Stringent new emissions regulations for U.S. on-highway diesel engines, mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2010, have required the industry’s need for quality, thermal management tubing solutions. As other countries adopt tighter emissions standards in the future, Nelson anticipates carrying over North America thermal management technology to achieve significantly higher demand for its thermal management tubing products.

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Blue Point Capital Partners has recapped Shnier-Gesco Limited Partnership, a distributor of floor coverings in Canada. Terms were not disclosed. Blue Point has offices in Charlotte, Cleveland, Seattle, and Shanghai.

PRESS RELEASE
Blue Point Capital Partners announced today the recapitalization of Shnier-Gesco Limited Partnership (Shnier). Counting 75 years serving the Canadian flooring market, Shnier is the largest full-service distributor of floor coverings in Canada, selling proprietary and branded products and programs spanning all flooring categories through an established base of independent retailers.

Blue Point, with offices in Charlotte, Cleveland, Seattle and Shanghai, is one of the largest resident private equity firms in each of its target markets. Shnier represents the 15th platform company for Blue Point II, a 2006 vintage middle-market buyout fund with $400 million in committed capital. Shnier is a natural fit within the Blue Point portfolio given its financial strength and leading position within a highly fragmented marketplace. The firm’s investment in Shnier is focused on leveraging Blue Point’s operating resources and experience to optimize the Company’s supply chain as well as to embark on an acquisition campaign to further develop the Company’s revenue stream.

“Shnier is a demonstrated leader in the Canadian floor covering marketplace with an impeccable reputation for quality,” said Ed duDomaine, president and chief executive officer of Shnier. “Blue Point’s strategic and operational focus made it the obvious choice and ideal partner to execute this next phase of growth for the Company. We remain focused on serving our customers with high-quality flooring solutions and unsurpassed levels of service. The best is yet to come for Shnier.”

“We believe Shnier’s proven management team and strong legacy in the flooring market create a dynamic platform with actionable organic and strategic opportunities,” said Sean Ward, a partner with Blue Point. “We look forward to a successful and rewarding partnership together.”

Founded in 1938, Shnier (www.shnier.ca) sells and services over 4,000 residential and commercial flooring customers, offering value-add products, programs and services. Shnier is headquartered in Brampton, Ontario, and operates 5 state-of-the-art, warehouse, sales office and showroom facilities across Canada.

Blue Point Capital Partners (www.bluepointcapital.com) is an established private equity firm managing over $800 million in committed capital. Leveraging fully staffed offices in Charlotte, Cleveland, Seattle and Shanghai, Blue Point’s entrenched regional presence affords it the opportunity to establish relationships on a local and regional basis with entrepreneurs and their trusted advisors, while simultaneously providing the resources of a large, international firm. Blue Point has a 22-year track record of partnering with companies in the lower middle market where it can bring about accelerated growth and transformative change in partnership with its companies, their management teams and Blue Point’s network of operating resources. Blue Point is one of only a few middle-market private equity firms with a presence in the economies of both the United States and China, and the firm’s experience with cross-border management and value drivers has provided a distinct advantage for its portfolio businesses. Blue Point invests in manufacturing, distribution and service businesses generating $20 million to $200 million in revenue.

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