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It’s easy to forget that companies have been inviting ideas from “the crowd” for a very long time. If you’re in doubt, read The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, a memoir of 1950s America in which the author’s mother writes advertising jingles for contest after contest. Years before Jeff Howe coined and defined the term “crowdsourcing,” marketers knew its power.

Now that the business world has rediscovered the concept, most people celebrate crowdsourcing as a way to get fresher, better ideas. And they’re right: If a consumer goods company uses Tongal or a similar platform to solicit and sift through thousands of creative submissions, the odds are good that it will be rewarded with some real gems. But the quality of the winning idea is at best only half the argument for crowdsourcing. When ordinary folks sit down to think about how a product should be advertised, the marketer doesn’t only get more creative options, it gets more engaged customers. Each spends at least a little time considering what makes a product special. Whether their crack at conveying that specialness ultimately wins a contest or not, it at least leaves an impression on them.

Focus on maximizing the engagement payoff and you realize there is an ideal time commitment to be asked of the crowd — and it measures in the minutes. By contrast, if you expect hours to be spent on beautifully rendered creative, you’ve raised the bar too high. Ninety-nine percent of your public lacks the time and confidence, and won’t engage at all.

Nabisco’s “Daily Twist” campaign for Oreo cookies is an example of a marketer getting it right. In honor of its 100th anniversary, the brand launched a 100-day series of cookie designs pegged to each day’s news. It invited the public to do two things: suggest news pegs via social media and, on the last day, select the winning design. That left the middle of the process, the creamy creative execution, to be cooked up in a matter of hours by paid, and highly talented, designers. With the bar so low for crowd participation, anyone could offer their thoughts.

The campaign was still paying off months after the 100 daily twists had come to an end. During Super Bowl XLVII, a creative team well-practiced in quick executions was able to seize on an unforeseeable power outage and create the night’s most talked about ad. And it wasn’t aired on television — only on the social media platforms Twitter and Facebook, where it was up to Oreo’s followers to pass it along.

The base the brand needed to amplify that ad was in place because of engagement-builders like the Daily Twist. In the course of that campaign, Oreo saw people’s “sharing” of its brand page on Facebook rise by 4400% as compared with prior months. Plenty of those people also went out and bought Oreos. Whether there was any sharing of the cookies themselves remains unknown.

This is the third in a series of posts from our March issue on the future of advertising. Stay tuned for more “Creative That Cracks the Code” over the coming weeks; topics include Variations on a Meme; The Ad as a Game; Collaborating With the Crowd; Just Enough Humor; A New Social Movement; Ads That “Go Native”; Apps as the New Ads; Personalized Products; and Ads in the Public Sphere.

We also want to know which ad campaigns strike you as innovative; tell us below and we could analyze your pick as part of this series.

The Cambridge Innovation Center, where numerous Boston-area startups have spent time, plans to launch similar workspaces in Baltimore and St. Louis, according to a report in Monday’s Boston Globe.  It also plans to add more space locally.

Located in Kendall Square near MIT  – and with VMware, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, IBM and Oracle offices within a stone’s throw — CIC hosts innumerable hackathons and meetups, becoming a hub of the Boston-area startup scene.

Startups can rent a desk at CIC’s Cambridge Co-working Center for $535 a month or, if they prefer, they can plunk down $5,200 per month for  a swank, three-person office with a view.

CIC claims to have launched more than 1,000 companies since opening 23 years ago

Tim Rowe, CEO of the center and a partner at New Atlantic Ventures told the Globe, the goal is to “create communities of people who are making an impact … We really should be doing that everywhere.”

Co-working spaces are booming — especially in areas where real estate prices are sky high. Many San Francisco area startups launch from RocketSpace, and New York has lots of co-working options, as GigaOM’s Ki Mae Heussner has reported.

Photos courtesy of Flickr user ilamont.com

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A Chicago woman whose sister sat just behind President Obama as he gave an anti-violence speech was shot and killed later that same day, in a tragic twist of fate.

Janay McFarlane, an 18-year old mom, was apparently caught in the crossfire during a shootout in North Chicago on Friday night. Police say two people are in custody and are being questioned about the shooting, but no charges have been filed yet.

McFarlane’s 14-year old sister was the one who attended Obama’s speech at Hyde Park Career Academy, where he spoke about the loss of 15-year old Hadiya Pendleton, the drum majorette who was fatally shot in a case of mistaken identity last month just days after performing at the president’s inauguration. Pendleton’s death closed out January with a whopping 40 shooting fatalities in Chicago, the highest amount for that month in over ten years. Janay McFarlane’s mother, Angela Blakely, spoke about her daughter’s compassion for those who lost their lives.

‘‘She always said after Hadiya Pendleton got killed, ‘Momma that’s so sad,’’’ Blakely said. ‘‘She was always touched by any kid that got killed. She was always touched by mothers who couldn’t be there for their babies because they were gone.’’

The young mom was taken from her own child, a three-month old son.

A different shooting in the city left another young woman dead on the same day; Frances Colon was killed in crossfire in Humboldt Park, the third shooting victim to be taken from Roberto Clemente High School. Colon’s dreams of becoming a lawyer were cut short, and her parents are mourning the bright girl who had such a strong future ahead of her.

“She was picking out her class ring, she was excited for her cap and gown, she was going to college,” said Dorothy Payton.

The shooting occurred just two hours after President Obama’s speech. Tragically, Colon’s father drove right by the crime scene after the shooting and saw her body covered in a sheet, but had no idea it was his daughter.

ICYMI, Saturday Night Live aired a nice little sketch over the weekend called “Djesus Uncrossed,” which featured host Christoph Waltz taking on the role of revengeful Jesus Christ and going on a killing rampage to right the many wrongs done to him. That means plenty of dead romans, a really dead Judas, and more.

Christoph Waltz, Jesus, Tarantino-like violence. What’s not to love? As they say in the skit, it’s being hailed as a less-violent version of Passion of the Christ.

Check it out if you missed it:

Well, apparently someone at reddit is a time traveller – a couple of people, actually. Either that or SNL writers like to read reddit. It’s up to you to decide what’s really going on here.

Users in a week-old comment thread discussing an article about Quentin Tarantino’s plans to make a third film in the “revenge” trilogy (Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained) laid out the premise of the SNL skit days before it ever aired.

The top comment states “Maybe he’ll do a Jesus movie. Actually a Jesus revenge movie makes the most sense. Mel gibson would have a role too.”

Three responses down, a user suggests the title “Djesus Uncrossed.”

Adding to the coincidence, another user suggested that “Christopher Waltz would have to be Jesus then.”

After the SNL episode aired, other redditors came back to discuss the fulfillment of the prophecy. Some suggested that SNL stole the idea from reddit.

Are these redditors prophets? Time-travellers? Do the SNL writers read reddit? Is this all just a coincidence?

Backwards compatibility is a popular feature for new game consoles. The ability to have one console under the TV that can play multiple generations of games is valuable for a certain kind of gamer.

The rumored hardware architecture of Sony’s new PlayStation and Microsoft’s new Xbox makes it unlikely the new consoles will be backwards compatible. The Wall Street Journal, however, is reporting that Sony’s new console may provide backwards compatibility by streaming games through the cloud.

Citing “people familiar with [Sony’s] plans,” the Journal states that the next PlayStation console will offer PlayStation 3 games and stream them to users online.

This rumor seems credible because Sony last year purchased cloud gaming company Gaikai for $380 million. At the time, Andrew House, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, said that the company would use Gaikai to “deliver a world-class cloud-streaming service that allows users to instantly enjoy a broad array of content ranging from immersive core games with rich graphics to casual content anytime, anywhere on a variety of internet-connected devices.”

If the rumor is true and the next PlayStation console does include streaming games, the challenge for Sony will be keeping server and bandwidth costs down. Just last year, Gaikai competitor OnLive had to re-form its company and lay off half of its staff as a measure to stave off bankruptcy.

Sony is planning to reveal the PlayStation 4, or whatever it’s called, this Wednesday. Before that happens, however, Sony has created a little history tour through PlayStation’s past. If you need to catch up on your gaming history, this is a good place to start.

First up, of course, is the original PlayStation. The result of a ruined relationship between Nintendo and Sony to build a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Nintendo turned into one of the most successful gaming consoles of all time. Sony was the first company to market video games to adults and it worked out super well for the company. It even beat out long time incumbents Nintendo and Sega.

Following up the original PlayStation with something even better seemed almost impossible, but Sony did that and more with the PlayStation 2. The PS2 has the distinct honor of being the best selling home video game console of all time with over 150 million units sold around the world. It helped that the console was the exclusive home to many of the generation’s best titles including Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Final Fantasy X and Shadow of the Colossus.

All good things must come to an end though. The PS3 didn’t have the best launch, and the $600 launch price was too much for many to swallow. Sony’s console also lost out on many of its exclusive franchises from the last generation as the Xbox 360 was also home to popular titles like Final Fantasy XIII. Regardless, the PS3 hit its stride a few years after launch, and now offers many of this generation’s best games, including Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and LittleBigPlanet.

Unfortunately, these videos don’t offer any hints to what we can expect on Wednesday. The hype is at an all time high though as the PlayStation faithful are figuratively frothing at the mouth for any and all information about the next generation of gaming from Sony.

All we can say is that it’s going to be big. This is the first true next-generation console debut, and people are already expecting a lot from Sony and Microsoft. Sony can’t really afford to mess this up like they did the original unveiling of the PlayStation 3, and Microsoft will be watching very closely to take advantage of any missteps. The worlds’ eyes are on you, Sony. No pressure.

If you ask a lot of people who still watch “SNL”, the show hasn’t seemed to be able to find its footing in recent years, with the exception of a few talented cast members and an injection of new blood this season. There have been notable appearances by several guests, however, and Christoph Waltz is so adorable it’s hard to find much wrong with his performance in any circumstance. But even he was overshadowed this past weekend when the Alabama Shakes took the stage to perform “Hold On” and “Always Alright”; if you’re anything like me, your Twitter/Facebook feed blew up after they did their thing, with many who had never heard of them declaring a newfound love.

Wow. You guys wiped out the free download site we used! Here’s a NEW LINK to get our 2nd song on SNL, Always Alright: bit.ly/AlwaysAlrightDL

— Alabama Shakes (@Alabama_Shakes) February 17, 2013

Amazing band! They killed on SNL this weekend @alabama_shakes – Hold On by Alabama Shakes, from #SoundHound soundhound.com/?t=31c57ebe08d…

— Eric S. Crane (@chauneuf) February 18, 2013

WHOA. RT @nodepression In case you missed Alabama Shakes on SNL this past weekend: bit.ly/VZDgRZ

— Cindy Howes (@cindycast) February 18, 2013

Finally saw Alabama Shakes SNL performance last night…DAMN SAM! They freaking nailed it. Check it! Tickets on… fb.me/1baWZAu4O

— Scott Register (@RegsCoffeeHouse) February 18, 2013

Alabama Shakes shaked (shook) SNL (video) pulse.me/s/izuh0

— knsrex (@Knsrex) February 18, 2013

Impressed with Alabama Shakes.I was expecting moonshine jugs and washboards and heard some great music. #snl

— Dale Tudge (@toqueguy) February 18, 2013

Check out their bluesy Southern rock performance below:

Google announced the other day that it has added Blogger and Google+ Pages to Google Takeout, meaning that users can more easily export their data out of these services if they would like to leave.

Kári Ragnarsson from Google’s The Data Liberation Front wrote on the Data Liberation Front blog:

Meet us at https://www.google.com/takeout, and together we will export each of your blogs as an Atom Xml file. Or, if you’ve enjoyed exporting data from your Google+ Stream and Google+ Circles through Takeout in the past, but are looking for something more, join us now and download html files with your posts and json files containing the circles for each Google+ Page you own. If you don’t want to rush into things, we can also just export a single blog or page of your choice. Either way, give us a try. Life will never be the same.

A couple months ago, Google added some new features to Google Takeout, enabling users to maintain their original folder hierarchy when exporting files from Google Drive, and letting users pick a single resource within a service to download.

“For instance, a single Picasa album or top-level folder from Drive – instead of exporting every single file,” Google explained at the time. “To try it out, go to the ‘Choose services’ tab and click on ‘Configure…’ once you’ve added a service that supports this.”

Google also recently added Reader and Latitude data to the Google Takeout menu, and started letting users download all their YouTube videos together.

Hat tip to The Verge

Katy Perry was spotted wearing a heart-shaped rock on her ring finger recently, prompting rumors to fly that she and perpetual heartbreaker John Mayer are engaged.

Perry’s reps haven’t commented on the situation, and a source told People that it’s not happening, although Mayer did reportedly pick out the ring himself as a Valentine’s Day gift. The couple has been off and on for a while now following her highly-publicized divorce from Russell Brand.

As for Mayer, he’s had quite a few high-profile relationships with stars, including Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, and the much-talked about fling with Taylor Swift. But he says it feels different with Perry.

“I don’t feel like I’m in a celebrity relationship,” he said. “For the first time in my life I don’t feel like I’m in a celebrity relationship. I really don’t. I’m not in a high profile, I know it’s high profile. It’s hard to explain.”

The couple were spotted out and about in Hollywood on Valentine’s Day, sharing a meal at The Cut before heading to Vista Theater for a movie.

Images: Maciel/X17online.com

For the longest time, the media industry has lobbied Google to censor its search results in favor of “legitimate” Web sites. Google gave in a little last year when it introduced a new ranking signal that puts pirated content lower on the search results page. Now Google may be working towards a new, more radical, way of removing pirated content from the net.

The Telegraph reports that Google is now working on a plan that would hit pirate sites where it hurts – their wallets. The search giant would work with payment companies to block funds from going to sites that collect fees or donations in return for access to pirated content. The hope is that blocking funds to these sites will hurt them far worse than Google censoring its results. In that way, Google’s search results can stay neutral and the media industry can kill off pirate sites.

Blocking funds from reaching certain Web sites is a slippery slope, however, and it’s reported that Google is a little concerned. The company reportedly fears that the big media players could use such a ploy to block funds from reaching smaller, yet legitimate, competitors.

Despite these concerns, it’s reported that Google is working with businesses to have something in place by Spring. Media companies would definitely want to have something out sooner than later, but hopefully Google will take its time to ensure this newest ploy doesn’t cause any collateral damage.

It should be noted that this plan may never actually see the light of day. Google and the media industry may not be able to reach an agreement that’s satisfactory for both parties. Heck, it may already be dead, and rumors of its existence may just finally be reaching the press.

Regardless, we’ve reached out to Google for comment on the matter, and will update if, and when, we hear back.

Google is planning on opening up retail stores in major metropolitan areas by the end of the year, according to a report from 9to5Google.

Seth Weintraub, who notes that Google already has a retail presence in a number of Best Buys and PCWorld/Dixon’s stores, reports (citing a “reliable source”) that Google is in the process of building stand alone retail stores, and that these would be places where Google could not only sell its Nexus devices (and possibly apparel), but push its Chrome operating system, and get Google Glass into consumers’ hands.

Google Glass, while it may seem like a novelty, could actually prove to be a very important product for Google, and if this is one of Google’s main motivating factors for opening a chain or retail stores, that shows how important Google really does consider it.

Google was recently granted a patent, which seems to indicate the company is looking to make your actual life searchable, and Glass could play a significant role in it being able to do so. While we’re looking a ways out in the future, so may contact lenses based on similar functionality. If Google is also able to refine Glass from the fashion standpoint, one can easily imagine more merchandise to fill a store.

Google is also said to be thinking about marketing a smart watch, so that’s yet another potential device for Google to place on the shelves.

And who knows what else Google may have on the horizon?

It will be interesting to see what kind of presence (if any) Google gives motorola devices in these stores, assuming they actually do open. Google indicated that it would not give Motorola special treatment among device manufacturers, when it announced the acquisition.

As Google gets further into the hardware business, a retail store is a no brainer, particularly in light of what is already available from competitors. Apple has over 400 retail stores in 14 countries.

We’ve reached out to Google for comment, and will update accordingly.

Would you shop at a Google store?

Today, I’d say that we’re at least fairly certain that the Earth (and all the other planets) revolve around the sun, and not the other way around. I don’t want to rule out some crazies out there, I mean, the world does have 7 billion people in it. But let’s just go with it. We know that the heliocentric model for our solar system is the correct one, and we have Nicolaus Copernicus to thank for that.

Not just Copernicus, of course. Heliocentrism wasn’t his idea – it was proposed as early as the 3rd century BC. But Copernicus is credited with forming the comprehensive mathematical heliocentric model and his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) is considered one of the most important works in the history of science.

After the publication of Celestial Spheres, the so-called Copernican Revolution began, ushering the world into the Scientific Revolution.

Copernicus, are true Renaissance Man, served as a mathematician, astronomer, Catholic cleric, artist, physician, economist, and is said to have spoken at least four langages.

Copernicus was born on February 19th, 1473 and died in 1543 at the age of 70. Today’s animated Google Doodle (currently being displayed in Australia and the like) celebrates his 540th birthday.

“Would you take a look at my business plan?”

Some member of our staff at Echoing Green, an angel investor and grantmaker in social enterprise, hears this request every week. And we are often happy to review these start-up plans — which include the typical elements such as a product description, competitive analysis, estimate of market size, and projected financials. But we are interested in much more than these traditional plans. We use other criteria to find new people and ideas that can create large-scale social change.

In short, the business plan is overrated.

Like the vast majority of start-ups, most new social enterprises are bootstrapping efforts. As Amar Bhide said in “Bootstrap Finance: The Art of Start-ups” (a 20-year-old HBR article that is an uncanny precursor to today’s “lean startup” meme), traditional business planning processes are less relevant to bootstrappers — where resilience trumps planning and energy trumps experience.

Applying a formal spreadsheet-type analysis to an early stage concept can be “disastrous.” Instead, we look at eight broad rules for success, half of which are about the entrepreneur herself (not her business plan). These are lessons we’ve learned from investing $30 million over the last 25 years in 500+ social start-ups about what make a promising social entrepreneur, but they are equally applicable to any entrepreneur.

Purpose and Passion. Do they care deeply about this issue or community? Do we understand why? In 2012 Echoing Green invested in 28-year-old Marquis Taylor as one of our Open Society Black Male Achievement Fellows. Marquis created an organization called Coaching For Change to engage young Black men as entrepreneurs pursuing business opportunities related to basketball, football, and other sports. His passion was evident from his initial application — as the child of a single mother in South Central Los Angeles, basketball was his ticket to college. But he also understood that while a career as a professional athlete was extremely unlikely, sports itself was a multi-billion dollar industry with great opportunity as coaches, trainers, even youth camp organizers.

Perspective and Resilience. Will this person bounce back from the obstacles they will surely face in building this business? According to official statistics, more than 50% of new enterprises fail in the first 5 years. But in our experience 100% of new entrepreneurs face partial failure regularly. Even when a particular challenge doesn’t end the business immediately, the ability to bounce back is crucial. Although this is Marquis’ first entrepreneurial endeavor, his journey from academically struggling high school student to graduate student at Smith College demonstrated the grit and tenacity to consistently overcome obstacles.

Point of Entry and Leadership. Can you envision this person entering a field in a transformative way and inspiring others to action? All leaders must demonstrate authenticity and legitimacy with their customer base and other stakeholders. Marquis is building his organization in Massachusetts, a far cry from the Los Angeles of his youth. But his authentic presence and open attitude have given him access to the insular industry and geography where he now works.

Power Source and Resource Magnetism. Can this person attract money, people, and other resources to their cause? At Echoing Green we’ve learned that more important than charisma is what we call resource magnetism. Whether or not the entrepreneur has a thousand-watt smile (and it just so happens that Marquis does!) it is much more important that she is able to quietly persuade people around her to volunteer their time, talent, and treasure. Somehow Marquis is able to use the most tenuous of connections to arrange a conversation with a busy but influential leader, and then walk out with a financial commitment or five more introductions.

Even the most entrepreneurial leader, of course, needs a great idea. Here are our four rules we use to evaluate the underlying business concept:

Innovation. Has it been tried this way before? There are hundreds of organizations that use athletics as a way of engaging low-income teenagers. But too many of these organizations fail young people by neglecting to make the connection between athletic success and professional success. Marquis found a way to do this. Coaching For Change asks young people to build their own businesses around youth clinics, summer sports camps, and coaching. The kids develop discipline and focus, but also practical, marketable skills.

Importance. Does this organization tackle an issue that matters in the world? Our Fellows must not only have a clever idea — they need to tackle one of society’s major pain points. Marquis reminds us that nearly half of all young black men who start high school will not graduate. His work matters.

Potential for Big, Bold Impact. Could this organization directly, or by example, change a big system? Truly great organizations don’t merely grow, they also influence their field. Marquis is ambitious and he hopes Coaching for Change will work with as many young people as possible. But reaching scale through copycat businesses is just fine and if Marquis can demonstrate the viability of his model, we believe it will be adopted more broadly and faster than Coaching for Change can spread it.

A Good Business Plan. Does the start-up plan (budget, timeline, staffing, etc.) seem thoughtful? Of course, the business plan remains an important element and we don’t neglect to look at it. While Marquis’ plan today is well-structured, the truth is that when we met him it was not the strongest part of his overall presentation. But we invested in him because we believe that helping an early-stage entrepreneur articulate a detailed plan is one of the ways that risk-tolerant investors can be most helpful.

Coaching for Change is by no means an established success. And even the most promising social enterprise take wrong turns. We are proud to have made early investments in the work of Andrew Youn, who founded One Acre Fund; Wendy Kopp, who founded Teach for America; and Vikram Akula, who founded SKS Microfinance. Each has led their start-up to massive impact for hundreds of thousands of people and influenced the way resources are deployed in their fields. But we’re equally proud of Angel Taveras, whose Echoing Green-funded mentoring program never reached scale, but who now pursues social change as the Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island. So while we know that Marquis Taylor meets our eight criteria and has a better than average chance of success, we’re still buckled in for what might be a bumpy ride.

The point is that a business planning process can be extremely valuable to an entrepreneur. But if we’re going to truly see change through entrepreneurship, we have to focus on the person first and the business plan second.

Follow the Scaling Social Impact insight center on Twitter @ScalingSocial and register to stay informed and give us feedback.

The digital reading revolution is not going to look the same in developing countries as it has in the developing world — but that doesn’t mean that ebooks don’t have potential there. Efforts to get them into readers’ hands, however, are complicated by low incomes, spotty or nonexistent internet access and lack of credit cards.

At the O’Reilly Tools of Change conference last week in New York, Paperight’s Arthur Attwell and Worldreader’s Michael Smith outlined several companies’ efforts to bring new ways of reading to developing countries. Here’s a brief introduction to each of those companies.

Paperight

Arthur Attwell worked in educational and scholarly publishing in South Africa for several years while cofounding and running a digital publishing company called Electric Book Works. But, he said, “The more I worked in ebooks, I found that I was essentially making ebooks for rich people. I didn’t think that was a very interesting challenge.” South Africa’s digital publishing market, he said, is supported by just one or two million wealthy people; the country’s remaining 48 million residents can’t afford it.

Digital wasn’t the solution for Attwell: The most recent South African census found that 65 percent of the country’s residents have no internet access at all. But, Attwell said, every South African village, town and city has at least one “photocopy shop” with copy machines and those buildings usually have internet access. His company Paperight, launched in May 2012, takes advantage of those shops to distribute books. A store registers on Paperight.com, opens a prepaid account of credits and instantly gets the legal right to download and print books for their customers. Over 200 South African shops, as well as a few in other African countries, are now using Paperight.

Worldreader

Worldreader, an NGO I’ve covered in the past, gives Kindles to students in sub-Saharan Africa and has become increasingly well-known in part because of its partnership with Amazon. (CEO David Risher was previously an Amazon executive.) The company has distributed 428,000 ebooks to 3,000 kids as of January 2013.

Worldreader is now pushing forward with reading on basic mobile phones. An app called biNu lets users download Worldreader books (and other content — including Facebook) over a basic feature phone’s data signal. biNu is now enabled on 5 million subscriber phones, primarily in Nigeria. (The top five book searches, Worldreader’s Smith said, were “sex,” “romance,” “the Bible,” “Harry Potter” and “physics.”) Worldreader is also working with students to self-publish their own writing on Amazon’s KDP platform.

Right now, Worldreader is tied to Kindle. Smith said the company is “definitely looking to get beyond” it, but right now Kindle is the only e-reader that supports 3G. And in many countries where Worldreader operates, internet access isn’t easily available. Smith said Worldreader also needs Amazon’s Whispercast technology to push books onto devices, and other e-reading companies don’t yet have that system in place.

Mxit and Siyavula

Mxit is a social network for mobile phones, with about 50 million users across the African continent. The network relies primarily on instant messaging but also allows access to other kinds of content — including books. One of the first books distributed on Mxit’s platform in 2009 was a novella called “Kontax.” Aimed at teens and available in both English and Xhosa (one of South Africa’s official languages), the book was distributed in parts, allowing readers to discuss it as unfolded. “Kontax” was read 34,000 times, and Yoza, the initiative behind it, has expanded to offer more cell phone novels (which it calls m-novels).

Now, the South African open-source creative commons textbook publisher Siyavula is distributing free math and science textbooks on Mxit. (Attwell’s Shuttleworth Foundation is a backer of Siyavula.) In 2010, following teacher strikes, the South African government arranged to print copies of Siyavula’s textbooks and distribute them to high school students. As a result, over 200,000 South African students have read Siyavula’s content. Now corporations are sponsoring books in new subjects and for younger students.

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The amount of data carried on mobile networks around the world doubled between the fourth quarter of 2011 and the fourth quarter of 2012, infrastructure firm Ericsson has said.

Ericsson’s figures, which came on Monday as part of an interim update (PDF warning) to its Mobility Report, suggested that the growth in mobile data usage is not slowing down. Bear in mind that the figures don’t even take into account mobile usage over Wi-Fi networks (or mobile WiMax, for what that’s worth), so the real numbers will be even greater if you’re concerned with what people do on their phones, as opposed to what type of connection they use.

Between Q3 and Q4 of last year alone, total data volumes over cellular connections increased 28 percent. Mobile broadband subscriptions also grew by about 50 percent year-on-year, between the final quarters of 2011 and 2012.

No slowdown

Now, 2012 was the year in which LTE became reality in many parts of the world, and faster downloads and uploads will usually encourage more use. That really can’t explain all the mobile data growth, though: Ericsson reckons that the number of LTE subscriptions at the end of 2012 was 57 million – way up from 14 million at the end of 2011, but still small when you look at the bigger picture. Much of this growth has to be down to the increase in subscriptions, not just the type of connectivity they use.

Around the world, there are now 4.4 billion mobile subscribers (with 6.3 billion mobile subscriptions, as one person can have more than one phone or connected devices). That’s nine percent year-on-year growth for subscriptions.

Unsurprisingly, the really big growth in mobile subscriptions these days can be found in China, the rest of Asia-Pacific, and in Africa. During 2012, China saw 30 million new mobile subscriptions, while India saw 11 million, Bangladesh 9 million, Indonesia 8 million and Nigeria 5 million:

Regarding these emerging markets, it’s been said before but it bears repeating: for many people in such areas, their mobile phone is their first computer. The opportunities here are staggering, both for those trying to hawk their services in emerging markets, and for those in such places who themselves want to develop services for local customers and perhaps even the developed world. This trend will shape the future of the web.

It’s also worth reminding ourselves that the mobile world is still not predominantly driven by smartphones – not by a long shot. According to Ericsson’s data, smartphones account for only 15-20 percent of the global installed base for cellphones, and only 40 percent of handsets sold in 2012.

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• The big theme of MWC: How to live in a connected world

We have all hit play to watch an internet video, only to be met with that annoying buffering wheel. You begin to debate how much longer you will wait. “Just one more second,” you tell yourself, until finally you close the window and move on to something else.

Knowing this scenario is a frequent occurrence from personal experience is one thing, but understanding how widespread this is and how it impacts millions of viewers and a content owner’s revenue is entirely something else. Last week, Conviva released its Viewer Experience Report detailing exactly what viewers are experiencing and how it impacts their behavior.

According to Conviva data, not only are viewers impatient when it comes to poor quality (Slow-starting video that buffers or is low-resolution), but they are becoming increasing less tolerant. In 2011, increasing the time a viewer’s content buffered by just 1 percent usually led to 3 minutes less of viewing time. Now that same 1 percent increase in buffering leads to 8 minutes less of playtime. Viewers expect high quality, smooth playback — regardless of delivery channel.

The report shows more people than you might think (60 percent of viewers) experience some kind of degradation and that these viewers watch significantly less video after having a bad experience.

In the end though, it isn’t viewers that miss out — it’s the content providers. Conviva estimates that if quality remains the same, content providers will miss out on $20 billion total over the next five years. Download the full report here.

Mindy McCready, whose star seemed so bright when her country career took off in 1996, endured a series of pitfalls in the past several years. After a suicide attempt following her ex-boyfriend’s arrest for attempted murder–he beat and then choked her–McCready’s life seemed to spiral steadily out of control. She reportedly dealt with a drug and alcohol problem off and on, and was featured on “Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew” following an arrest tied to a fake prescription for OxyContin.

Things seemed to be looking up for the singer when she met David Wilson; the couple became the proud parents of a baby boy last year. But in January, Wilson died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. The circumstances surrounding his death were suspicious enough to cause investigators to look at McCready as a suspect should evidence of foul play come up, causing her to make a statement on the “Today” show.

“Oh, my God, no. He was my life,” she said when asked about the allegations that she had something to do with his death. “We were each others’ life…I have never gone through anything this painful. He didn’t just touch my heart, he touched my soul. He was my soulmate.”

McCready entered a rehab program earlier this month, but it’s unclear what the treatment was for specifically. Then, on Sunday afternoon, authorities were dispatched to her Arkansas home on a shots fired call. McCready was found dead on her front porch of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“At 3:31 PM, Sunday, February 17th Deputies from the Cleburne County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to a report of gun shots fired in the area of 1132 Fox Chase Drive in Heber Springs,” reads a statement from the police department. “Officers arrived on the scene at 3:58 PM and discovered the body of 37 year old Melinda Gayle McCready on the front porch of the residence at 1132 Fox Chase. Ms. McCready was pronounced dead at the scene from what appears to be a single self-inflicted gunshot wound. At this time family members have been notified of the incident. Ms. Mcready will be transported to the Arkansas State Crime Lab for an autopsy and the matter will be fully investigated.”

McCready was just 37 years old. She leaves behind a six-year old son, Zander, and 10-month old Zayne.

Google Nexus smartphones are known for a few good things — they tout the latest unadulterated version of Android, the hardware inside is decently fast, the build quality is surprisingly good, and the price doesn’t burn a hole in the pocket. But if there’s one area where no Nexus smartphone shines, it’s definitely in the camera department.

As a Galaxy Nexus owner I have often faced a camera dilemma — do I shoot bad pics just to have them, or stick with taking a mental snapshot. More often than not the latter seems to be the way to go. It’s not that the cameras are overly bad, it’s just that in order to take a remotely-decent picture I’d have to fiddle around with the software and by the time I found the good setup the perfect moment will have already passed. And don’t get me started on noise or clarity. But it appears that will soon change as Google is finally making the camera a priority.

After engaging with his followers on Google+ on a camera-related topic, Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering for Google, revealed an interesting tidbit relating to future Nexus devices. In response to a comment about the quality of Nexus smartphone cameras, Gundotra says: “We are committed to making Nexus phones insanely great cameras. Just you wait and see.”

Whether that means better software or better hardware it’s definitely left to our imagination at this point. Android 4.2 Jelly Bean could certainly use some improvement in the former department, as the camera software only contains a few user-configurable options and does not even marginally rival the setup found in some flagship droids currently on the market.

That said, considering Google’s commitment to AOSP (Android Open Source Project), any new features and overhauls would have to be open-sourced for a large part of the community to perpetuate the success of custom distributions. Proprietary bits are not out of the question either, seeing as Google does not embed Photo Sphere into AOSP at the moment, leaving developers to “borrow” the necessary files from factory images.

Improved software is unlikely to drive up costs, but better camera modules likely will. This raises the question on whether Google will continue with the same budget-friendly philosophy with future Nexus smartphones, seeing as the “great cameras”, hardware-wise, are mostly exclusively-associated with expensive devices.

Speculation aside, it’s great to see Google taking an interest in developing more rounded Nexus smartphones, be it software or hardware-wise.

Piriform Software has released Defraggler 2.13 and Defraggler Portable 2.13, brand new builds of its freeware Windows defragmentation tool. Version 2.13 adds support for Quick Defrag scheduling, Fragmentation Threshold options when scheduling and support for external 3TB drives.

The update comes four days after Piriform updated its free data-recovery tool, Recuva 1.45 and Recuva Portable 1.45, with the promise of better reliability when deep-scanning NTFS drives as well as improved performance when securely overwriting data.

The notable improvement in Defraggler 2.13 is a new option for creating a scheduled quick defragmentation of the hard drive to tidy things up. Also added to the scheduled tool are two options, the first closing Defraggler when the defrag completes, and the second to allow the user to set a fragmentation threshold, which can prevent scheduled defrags taking place if the specified figure (as an overall percentage of the drive) hasn’t been reached.

Version 2.13 also adds support for external 3TB drives, drives with allocation units greater than 4KB, and the ReFS filing system as found in Windows Server 2012. It’s rounded off with the usual mix of updated translations, GUI and usability tweaks and minor bug fixes.

The Recuva 1.45 update also adds support for external 3TB drives as well as hard disks with 4KB sectors. More critically, perhaps, it promises improved secure overwrite performance when wiping hard drives as well as better reliability when recovering data using the NTFS Deep Scan tool.

The paid-for Pro version gains an option for creating VHD drive images for recovery purposes, while a minor bug with opening VHD images in Windows has been fixed. The update is again rounded off with minor tweaks to the user interface.

Defraggler 2.13, Defraggler Portable 2.13, Recuva 1.45 and Recuva Portable 1.45 are all available as free-for-personal use downloads for PCs running Windows XP or later.