Technology Media Placements

Technology Media Placements

Technology Table Of Contents Date

Publication

3/25/2016

Fortune

12/12/2015

Venture Beat

6/2/2015

CNN

5/30/2015

NBC News

5/12/2015

Social Times

1/7/2015

Direct Mareting News

8/11/2014

PR Week

5/5/2014

USA Today

4/25/2014

Entrepreneur

4/22/2014

Forbes

3/27/2014

INC.

3/27/2014

Entrepreneur

3/18/2014

Entrepreneur

3/14/2014

SF Gate

3/13/2014

Bloomberg Business

3/13/2014

Chron

3/5/2014

iMore

2/24/2014

NBC News

1/31/2014

The Wall Street Journal

1/15/2014

Fast Company

11/13/2013

Ad Age

2/1/2013

CNET

Title This Drone Startup Just Achieved A Milestone In Doorstep Delivery Autonomous Tech' will surge in 2016 keep an eye on these 8 players Could this really happen?

In 'San Andreas,' It's the Science That's Shaky, Quake Experts Say Digital Natives Demand A Retail Revolution Hyatt Regency Maui Says 'I Do' to Social Marketing Offerpop App is Source of Inspiration for Brands Design Mine:' Get Home Design Ideas with Free App 4 Tactics For Surviving Facebook's Algorithm Changes (Infographic) How Four Eco Brands Are Using Social Media Marketing Effectively Is Your Co-Founder 'The One'? 7 Ways To Tell 3 Companies Share How They Stay True To Company Culture Amidst Rapid Growth 5 Ways to Harness Hashtags to Drive Business Value Websites Help Dwellers Remodel with Just a Click What's Your Workday Exercise?

Websites Help Dwellers Remodel with Just a Click Best Home Improvement Apps for iPad: Houzz, Design Mine, Color Smart, and More!

Not Your Grandma's Quilt Entrepreneur Stitches Together A Quilting Business How to Really Hire (And Retain) More Women In Tech Hashtags Breathe Life Back Into Social Commerce Hedge Docks Offers Quick And Cheap MacBook Docking Options

Technology Table Of Contents Date

Publication

1/8/2013

PC Mag

1/8/2013

Engadget

12/4/2012

Reuters

7/30/2012

San Francisco Chronicle

7/27/2012

Bloomberg Businessweek - Small Business

7/1/2012

Huffington Post

2/29/2012

Mashable

1/1/2012 11/1/2011 7/1/2011 6/1/2011

Entrepreneur Money Magazine Spirit - Southwest Airlines INC.

2/15/2011

PC World

Title Henge Docks Add Connectivity To Your Apple Laptop, Tablet Henge Announces Its Latest Horizontal Dock For MacBooks, Loads Of Ports For Connecting Your Wares Exclusive: Bally Technologies Eyes Online Gaming Co 3G - Sources Video Game Firms Look To Expansion Of Online Casinos Game Makers See Jackpot As States Make Online Gambling Legal James Kosta, 3G Studios: A Wild Ride For Jailed Teen Hacker Turned Video Game Entrepreneur Timeline for Brands: How to Prepare for Your Company's New Facebook Page Belly Up To The Widget Buffet Point, Click, and Cut Remodel Bills Diggerslist Fabulous Facebook Pages New Tools Emerge to Help Develop Facebook Pages

This Drone Startup Just Achieved A Milestone In Doorstep Delivery March 25, 2016

Flying robots are one step closer to bringing you anything you want.

Drone deliveries may be having some trouble taking off in the Unites States, but that doesn’t mean that they’ve been totally grounded.

Drone startup Flirtey said on Friday that it completed the first federally-sanctioned drone delivery in a U.S. urban area without the help of a human to manually steer it.

The half mile-drone flight took place on March 10 in Hawthorne, Nev., Flirtey CEO Matt Sweeny said in an interview with Fortune. Staff members programmed the drone’s flight path using GPS and then loaded a parcel of emergency supplies—including food, water, and a first-aid kit—into a box tethered to one of the company’s drones.

Flirtey then sent the flying robot to an uninhabited house where it eventually lowered the package to the home’s front porch using a rope while hovering above.

Although Flirtey had a drone pilot present to take control if something went haywire, the drone had no problems as it dropped off the package.

The Nevada-based startup performed the delivery with the help of its partner, the University of Nevada at Reno.

Last year, Flirtey made the first Federal Aviation Administration-approved drone delivery in a rural area by dropping off emergency supplies to a health clinic in Virginia.

Sweeny explained that its recent delivery was significant in that it shows that drones can deliver goods to homes without crashing into power lines, rooftops, street lamps, and other common obstacles in populated areas.

“We think the safest way to deliver packages is for the drone to remain at a distance and lower it into the customer’s hand,” said Sweeny.

Big companies like Amazon AMZN 3.43% , Google GOOGL 1.41% , and Walmart WMT -0.23% are all exploring the use of drones to deliver customer orders. However, getting FAA clearance requires going

through a lengthy approval process. Companies must also abide by rules that prohibit deliveries at night and those that are out of the eyesight of human operators.

That’s one of the reasons why Amazon has been testing drone deliveries in other countries like Canada and the Netherlands.

Flying robots are one step closer to bringing you anything you want.

Drone deliveries may be having some trouble taking off in the Unites States, but that doesn’t mean that they’ve been totally grounded.

Drone startup Flirtey said on Friday that it completed the first federally-sanctioned drone delivery in a U.S. urban area without the help of a human to manually steer it.

The half mile-drone flight took place on March 10 in Hawthorne, Nev., Flirtey CEO Matt Sweeny said in an interview with Fortune. Staff members programmed the drone’s flight path using GPS and then loaded a parcel of emergency supplies—including food, water, and a first-aid kit—into a box tethered to one of the company’s drones.

Flirtey then sent the flying robot to an uninhabited house where it eventually lowered the package to the home’s front porch using a rope while hovering above.

Although Flirtey had a drone pilot present to take control if something went haywire, the drone had no problems as it dropped off the package.

Flirtey drone lowering package. Source: Flirtey The Nevada-based startup performed the delivery with the help of its partner, the University of Nevada at Reno.

Last year, Flirtey made the first Federal Aviation Administration-approved drone delivery in a rural area by dropping off emergency supplies to a health clinic in Virginia.

Sweeny explained that its recent delivery was significant in that it shows that drones can deliver goods to homes without crashing into power lines, rooftops, street lamps, and other common obstacles in populated areas.

“We think the safest way to deliver packages is for the drone to remain at a distance and lower it into the customer’s hand,” said Sweeny.

Big companies like Amazon AMZN 3.43% , Google GOOGL 1.41% , and Walmart WMT -0.23% are all exploring the use of drones to deliver customer orders. However, getting FAA clearance requires going through a lengthy approval process. Companies must also abide by rules that prohibit deliveries at night and those that are out of the eyesight of human operators.

That’s one of the reasons why Amazon has been testing drone deliveries in other countries like Canada and the Netherlands.

For more about drones, watch: Sweeny said Flirtey was able to win FAA approval for its latest drone delivery over bigger companies like Amazon and Google because of its prior experience testing drone deliveries in Australia and New Zealand.

Separately, the company said in August that it signed an unspecified deal with fast-food giant McDonald’s MCD 0.59% . But Sweeny on Thursday declined to comment on its specifics.

‘Autonomous tech’ will surge in 2016 — keep an eye on these 8 players December 12, 2015

We’re about to see a surge in “autonomous devices” — devices that are aware of their environment, their state, and incoming data and that have the ability to learn and make decisions on their own.

By 2020, an estimated 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet. Objects you’ve never even considered will become smart devices – dog collars, coffee makers, windows. That’s billions of devices and trillions of sensors, too many to manage through human manipulation or the stimulus-response commands of the past. It will become a practical necessity for devices to operate autonomously, and all the signs point to 2016 being the tipping point for the emergence of the Age of Autonomy.

I’ve been watching this space since 1994, when I first focused my attention on artificial intelligence, and the companies behind autonomous technology aren’t necessarily the big names you’re familiar with.

Here’s a handful of key players you’ll want to be aware of: 1. VIV

Called the intelligent Siri replacement, San Jose-based Viv is an intelligence platform that will soon connect millions of apps to its global brain. Viv has the flexibility to process complicated commands, countering the limitations of current voice-navigated systems, including predecessor, Siri, the voice interface that Viv cofounders Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer, and Chris Brigham helped to create.

Viv is an open system, enabling businesses and applications to develop its brain. The engineers behind Viv have created it based on pillars, one of which is that it will learn something new every day. Viv’s founders would have you think of their artificial intelligence service as a utility, not unlike how you think about accessing electricity. Theirs will be a ubiquitous brain that powers millions of apps, devices, and machines simply through the human voice. The ability for devices to have a remote service providing this knowledge growth is one of the many autonomy trends we will see emerge in the next 12 months.

2. Wit.ai Similar to Viv and on its way to becoming a leader in intelligent language processing, Wit.ai software uses a voice interface to turn speech into actionable data for developers building applications and devices. The software learns human language as it goes, building an extensive natural language platform for its community of developers – a group of more than 10,000 users at present. Wit.ai is already making many things possible, from voice-controlled appliances, drones, and robots to automated homes. This Palo Alto company, backed by Andreessen Horowitz before being acquired by Facebook early this year, is making just another case that open platforms will rule in the Age of Autonomy. Given its initial traction, Wit.ai is well-positioned to deliver some practical solutions in the near-term, moving the needle forward.

3. Cohda Wireless With Cohda Wireless vehicle-to-vehicle (V2X) technology out of Australia, vehicles are able to communicate with each other as well as with smart road infrastructures to share information on safety, mobility, and the environment. Device self-recognition and collaboration with other devices and the environment will be a defining feature of devices in the autonomous space. Cohda Wireless communicates via cellular, Wi-Fi, and DRSC to reduce congestion and avoid accidents. This will ideally play

a role in reducing the large number of injuries that occur in the United States each year as a result of roadway accidents. The company has also been involved in efforts to standardize car-to-car communication. These types of direct machine-to-machine radio technologies are key to supporting the inter-machine communication fundamental to optimized device awareness and autonomy.

4. Saffron Saffron technology, newly acquired by Intel, is spanning across industries, including aerospace, insurance, healthcare, and manufacturing to improve decision making. The San Francisco company was initially founded in 1999 by former IBM Knowledge Management and Intelligent Agent Center chief scientist Manuel Aparicio and is led by former PeopleSoft executive Gayle Sheppard.

Saffron takes data from disparate sources and works quickly and intelligently through a contextual memory to identify thousands of connections. This type of intelligent 360-degree view is going to be the game changer for bringing real-time autonomy to the device. Intel’s focus on baking this type of intelligence directly into its chips suggests that the future may allow devices to do the bulk of their learning and decision-making on board, without having to engage outside services.

5. IBM Watson Developer Cloud IBM’s Watson Developer Cloud already boasts the industry’s largest portfolio of cognitive APIs. Developers can bring their own data and engage with others to gain insights, extract value, and enhance learning. Its natural language processing, computer vision, and cognitive capabilities create an ideal platform for intelligent apps. Like many of the aforementioned companies, Watson is tearing down information-sharing barriers. Watson partners have the ability to tap into IBM’s resources as well as collaborate with communities to build platform intelligence. While the current Watson AI-as-a-Service offerings are somewhat specific, IBM is systematically extending its solution set, addressing sophisticated autonomy problems one at a time.

6. Edge3 Technologies Edge3 Technologies out of Tempe, Arizona, is a vision-analytics company that develops software for the future of self-driving vehicles. The technology monitors, tracks, and maps the behavior of drivers and their passengers to verify identity, levels of awareness, and heart rate, among other variables.

These factors will enable semi-autonomous driving to occur, while ensuring car operators are attentive and capable of decision making necessary to operate self-driving cars. No special hardware is required. In fact, according to Edge3, technology as simple as 2D cameras will have the ability to apply its technology. Edge3’s potential goes beyond self-driving cars and into robot control and object dimensioning. It is this reach and application beyond vehicles that can bring sophisticated autonomous action to the broader device world.

7. B+B SmartWorx B+B SmartWorx hardware provides the infrastructure for machine-to-machine networks. With the capability of integrating existing equipment and network technologies, B+B SmartWorx products enable networks to adapt and evolve into smarter, more autonomous, responsive, and decisive systems. Unlike large packets delivered by Ethernet hubs, B+B SmartWorx hardware aggregates and transforms data at the edge so it can intelligently and efficiently transmit data only where is it needed, contributing to the

information highway just what is necessary to execute autonomous actions. Sophisticated networks with industrial applications like this will be instrumental, as many companies will be moving data between devices, appliances, and clouds. B+B Smartworx equipment is certified for UL Class 1/Division 2 hazardous locations, offering one of the few affordable, off-the-shelf solutions to connecting fringe devices and machines.

Above: B+B SmartWorx Wzzard Intelligent Sensing Platform 8. Filament Billed as an easy interface that lets users build networks without needing to become experts in the fine details of IT, Filament lets users deploy a wireless network at a range of up to 10 miles that can be integrated into individual hardware for projects. These networks work without dependency on Wi-Fi or cellular connectivity. Users can also monetize filament networks by selling access to their networks and devices via the Blockchain and digital smart certificates, while ensuring their own data remains secure.

The makers of this Reno, Nevada-based company are thinking big – smart cities powered by their encrypted networks. This type of low-power autonomous mesh networking technology could be key to machine autonomy, which will require cross-device awareness.

Craig Macy is CEO of Onstream, a software company that provides real-time reasoning and autonomy to smart machines. He has spent nearly two decades serving in a variety of technical, managerial, executive, advisory, and principal roles throughout the high-tech sector.

Could this really happen?

June 2, 2015

Earthquake blockbuster shakes up the box office, but CNN's Jeanne Moos asks how "San Andreas" measures on the accuracy scale.

In 'San Andreas,' It's the Science That's Shaky, Quake Experts Say May 30, 2015 If only the screenwriters for 'San Andreas' had done their science homework.

They could have kept their apocalyptic vision intact and still been scientifically accurate—just by moving the blockbuster movie's mega earthquakes and massive tsunami about a thousand miles north to Portland and Seattle.

But they opted for California and the San Andreas, which, scientists say, can't produce a magnitude 9 event, let alone a city-inundating wave of water.(Moviegoers beware: Spoilers ahead!)

"Even if the entire San Andreas were to break all at once from north to south you wouldn't get anything larger than an 8-ish earthquake," said Jean Paul Ampuero, an assistant professor at Caltech -- the institution from which the movie's scientist-hero, played by Paul Giamatti, is supposed to hail.

The disasters start early in the film, when a swarm of earthquakes on an undiscovered Nevada fault shakes the Hoover Dam to pieces.

Not too likely, said Graham Kent, director of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada and Nevada's state seismologist.

The engineers who built the dam knew there were faults in the area and designed it with earthquakes in mind, Kent says.

And the movie's magnitude 9-plus events on the San Andreas are not possible, experts say.

In simulations designed to estimate the magnitude of the largest possible earthquake on the San Andreas, the most anyone could come up with is a magnitude 8.3, Kent said.

And then there's the issue of the monster tsunami that drowns San Francisco, skyscrapers and all. Also impossible experts say, because of the orientation and location—inland, for the most part—of the San Andreas. Smaller surges are possible along California beaches. Those would be caused by underwater landslides, but there's no way this type of earthquake fault can spawn a huge tsunami.

Kent says he was surprised that the movie makers didn't choose to set the action in the Pacific Northwest, which could generate a magnitude 9 event. Earthquake magnitude is related to the area of the rock surfaces that grind by one another. In subduction zones, like the Cascadia Fault off the coasts of Seattle and Portland where the ocean crust is diving under the North American Plate, the faults are oriented at a shallow angle instead of the near 90 degrees of the San Andreas.

That geometry allows for a much larger fault surface. And, in fact, geologists have determined that the Cascadia Subduction Zone has experienced both mega earthquakes and monster tsunamis in the past.

"The good news," Kent said, "is that the movie, no matter how bad it is in terms of scientific content, is getting people starting to talk about the inevitable, which is alarge earthquake in the West. That is the silver lining."

There's no doubt that both Northern and Southern California are overdue for the "big one," the magnitude 7 to 8 event that will shake San Francisco and Los Angeles to their cores. But the aftermath will look a lot different from what is portrayed in 'San Andreas.'

The movie's computer-generated scenes showing tall buildings crumbling and toppling in both cities leave real-life geophysicist Jack Boatwright concerned that viewers will get the wrong impression about the safety of modern skyscrapers. “Those buildings are designed not to collapse in an earthquake," said Boatwright, the Northern California coordinator for the Earthquake Hazards Program at the U.S. Geological Survey. "The concern I have is that we don't want to get people panicked about how buildings are going to function. You're more likely to be hit by something falling in your office than by a building falling down."

A quake doesn't have to be nearly as bad as what's in 'San Andreas' to have serious consequences for cities.

San Francisco got a glimpse of what could happen during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which the USGS pegged at 7.1.

While skyscrapers did fine, certain areas of the city, like the Marina District, did not. City planners learned from that, said Patrick Otellini, chief resilience officer and director of the Earthquake Safety Implementation Program for the City and County of San Francisco.

"After Loma Prieta we noticed all the failures in unreinforced masonry buildings," Otellini said. "About 2,000 of those have been retrofitted."

Another issue was buildings that collapsed because they had too little structural support on their bottom floors, which were serving as either garages or shops. Legislation passed in 2013 mandated that some 5,000 of these buildings, which house about 125,000 San Franciscans, would need to be retrofitted by 2020, Otellini said.

And unlike the movie scenario, where residents of the city are encouraged to leave, city officials are hoping most people will be able to stay in their homes when the big one comes, Otellini said.

A big focus these days "is preparedness on the individual level," said Kate Long, deputy program manager for the California Emergency Management Agency's Earthquake and Tsunami Program. "In the movie The Rock comes from Los Angeles to San Francisco to save his daughter. In reality if you're rescued it's going to be by your neighbor. How prepared you and your co-workers and neighbors are is what will make all the difference in how well you survive."

Digital Natives Demand a Retail Revolution May 12, 2015 A fascinating case of Darwinian economic competition is occurring before our eyes.

Legacy consumer-packaged goods brands and retail giants, like Gillette and Sunglass Hut, are being challenged head-on by fastgrowing brand-retailer hybrids appealing to digital natives that expect to be engaged in a digital dialogue before and after purchase.

Whether it is Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker or Birch Box, these companies have traded large brick-and-mortar retail spaces for direct-to-consumer distribution. In the process, they have shown that the most valuable consumer interactions are now occurring in the digital space.

In the past, the absence of visual and tactile in-store experiences would have complicated the process of building a digital-only brand. But the omnipresence of digital engagement through video, photography and ratings and reviews has allowed these companies to build full-fledged brands driven by responsive, real-time engagement with loyal customers.

These digital native retailers have changed the conversation and marketing strategy for some of the world’s most established brands like Procter&Gamble or Luxottica eyewear. These established brands realize that they are now locked in competition with digital-first upstarts that intimately understand their customers because of deep, meaningful and consistent digital interactions. They know they must engage with consumers to compete in a marketplace increasingly driven by digital natives.

The backdrop to this retail revolution is a completely new way that consumers discover, engage with, and become loyal to brands. Traditional competitive advantages are disappearing.

Distribution infrastructure, brick-and-mortar retail locations and traditional media budgets are no longer a dominant advantage. Highly targeted consumer engagement is arising as the new key to retail dominance.

These new native digital retailers are succeeding in industries that were traditionally controlled by industry giants with unmatched advantages in scale, distribution and infrastructure. They are tailoring their message to a new Millennial consumer that is the first generation of what will be successive waves of native digital consumers.

As the competitive landscape is being democratized, this new marketplace is rewarding the companies equipped with new tools — consumer engagement across digital channels, data collection and activation, user-generated content, seamless digital customer experiences and peer-to-peer marketing. These are now the competitive advantages that distribution, manufacturing and brick-and-mortar store networks represented in the past.

Retailers like Warby Parker are taking these deep insights into customers’ wants and needs — gleaned from engaging customers through social, mobile or digital methods — and using it to drive sales strategy, product design and even the look and feel of its few brick-and-mortar storefronts. As a Fast Company article on Warby Parker put it, the stores “are not profit centers as much as marketing collateral, giant advertisements for Warby Parker’s website.”

The eyewear company has built a brand off of a willingness to engage with customers in unconventional ways. Warby Parker employees have sent out thousands of “customer-response” videos, often distributed via Twitter, where they update customers on the status of their order.

This two-way digital conversation lengthens the relationship with consumers and initiates a dialogue that can lead to valuable insights about customer experience or product preference.

These tools are not just used to angle for a single sale, they are being used to build long-term relationships with consumers that drive lifetime value. Dollar Shave Club’s subscription model

for a consumer-packaged good that is used almost every day by its clientele opens up huge lifetime value potential and years worth of sales for each new customer acquired.

Gillette recently launched a subscription service, trying to adapt to customers’ demand for new pricing, new distribution and new payment models. This shows that the retail transformation is not only giving rise to fast-growing companies like Dollar Shave Club, it is re-wiring the way that companies like Gillette do business.

Eyewear giant Luxottica have responded to competition from digital-first competitors like Warby Parker by acquiring Glasses.com, an online eyewear outlet with an app that allows 3D modeling of how the glasses fit and look on a customer’s face, generating photos that can be shared on social media and voted on by friends.

This trend will only accelerate. It will challenge the world’s largest brands like Procter&Gamble to continually meet the changing demands of customers in a digital world through deep customer engagement and an intimate understanding of the digital consumer.

Retailers and consumer-packaged goods companies face both increasing pressure and increasing opportunity from a Millennial and post-Millennial generations of native digital consumers where consumer loyalty, trust and purchase decisions are dictated by digital engagement with brands, not store-shelf product placement, broadcast advertising or distribution advantages.

This is only the first wave of new digital consumers. Successive waves will make consumer engagement the norm through frictionless digital retailing. That will be the key to understanding and capturing the native digital retail clients of the future.

Wendell Lansford is the CEO and Co-founder of Offerpop, a consumer engagement platform that works with the world’s largest brands.

Hyatt Regency Maui Says 'I Do' to Social Marketing January 7, 2014 The resort proposes its site as a wedding destination to prospective customers through a targeted social sweepstakes.

Sad stories—even succinct narratives—sometimes have happy endings. Just ask the sales team responsible for booking luxury weddings at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa. Even better, ask Josh and Todd.

Last October Josh and Todd got hitched in Hawaii on the breathtaking grounds of the Hyatt Regency Maui as part of their reward for winning a Facebook photo contest the resort offered with the help of Offerpop, a digital marketing software-as-a-service platform.

From a strategic perspective, the contest was a success: Hyatt Regency Maui created the program to generate wedding-sales leads (80 of them) and to raise brand awareness.

On a personal level, the story was heart-warming. “When I proposed to Todd…this past January, he was so thrilled—and immediately sad,” Josh writes in the entry form. “Living in Arizona, marriage isn't an option for us.” For several years the couple “watched as state after state struck down bans against gay marriage.” Arizona was not among those states, but Hawaii was—thanks to the Aloha State's Marriage Equality Act of 2013, which built on previous allowances of samesex civil unions by granting the legal green light to same-sex marriage.

Challenge and choice Hyatt Regency Maui is well-known for its allure as a destination for family vacations, corporate retreats, and romantic getaways. But Marketing Manager Jessica Kapoor and her team wanted to increase awareness of the resort as a destination for large and luxurious weddings.

Specifically, she wanted to generate more qualified leads to share with her sales colleagues responsible for booking weddings.

Given Hyatt's loyal Facebook following (where people also enjoy posting pictures of their engagements and weddings) and her desire to reach a broad audience, Kapoor opted for a photo contest.

The campaign, which featured two stages, began March 10, 2014 and ran through April 14, 2014. The first facet consisted of submissions: engaged couples throughout the United States were asked to provide a photo and100 words explaining why they wanted to get married in Maui.

Seventy-five couples completed submissions. The second facet enabled Facebook users to vote for the winning couple (from April 2 through April 12). More than 1,200 people voted. People could vote once per day and share the contest on their own social media channels.

Offerpop Account Manager Ashley Astolfi typically recommends that companies run promotional photo contests for two to four weeks. Since Hyatt's contest featured separate submission and voting periods, Astolfi suggested the longer end of that range “to allow for plenty of time for engagement.”

Hyatt Regency Maui promoted the contest with ads to supplement the organic social-media sharing. To do so, the marketing team targeted key demographics in its database (age,

relationship status, etc.) and then used Offerpop's analytics to track the sources and ad campaigns that drove the campaign participation across Hyatt.com, Twitter, and ads from Facebook, The Wedding Channel, and The Knot, among other sources. This integrated, multichannel approach to promotion “was essential to success,” Kapoor reports. “Facebook ads in particular were effective and inexpensive for us to run.”

For each contest entry, Hyatt also collected key information—such as wedding budgets and date options; and opt-in communications for information about weddings, honeymoons, and vacations—for the sales team to use. The marketing team offered a follow-up contest to everyone who voted: a shot at winning a three-night stay at the resort. Additionally, everyone who participated in the campaign (those who submitted entries as well as those who voted) received a 10% vacation discount offer. “This promotion extended the reach of our brand beyond weddings,” Kapoor adds, “and gave us a way to further engage consumers already interacting with us.”

Astolfi credits Hyatt Regency Maui's marketing team for having a “clear understanding of crosspromotion.” It helped that Kapoor and her team established a clear promotion schedule and developed a specific budget for the campaign. “This allowed them to reach a very wide audience with a combination of email, Facebook advertising, and on-site promotion,” Astolfi says.

Of course, it also helped to enlist the help of outside content-producers, including the storytelling skills of happily couples.

Offerpop app is source of Inspiration for brands August 11, 2014 by Tanya Lewis , Be the first to comment

Offerpop enables brands to maximize their Pinterest activity by crowdsourcing and curating content from their fans.

Specifications Offerpop’s Inspiration app allows brands to capture and curate user-nominated pins and publish them to branded Pinterest boards, landing pages, Facebook tabs or websites. Clients can store pins for future use. The app also provides real-time metrics, including unique visitors, performance tracking, follower increases, and participation timelines.

Cost Price varies depending on the scope of a campaign, but it typically starts at $1,000 per year.

User Julie Booth, digital director at Nine West Group, has been using Offerpop’s Inspiration app since April 2014.

How do you use it?

We log into our overall Offerpop account on the Nine West Facebook page. Facebook allows us to create a hub for any promotions or contests through Offerpop's Inspiration.

To set up a contest with Inspiration, you just fill out the fields, such as contest information, rules, and images. It’s a copy-and-paste format that takes no longer than 30 minutes to set up.

How does it serve your business needs?

Being in the social space is important. As a fashion brand, it’s especially important to leverage Pinterest as an online wish list of what our customers are sharing so they can get inspiration from each other. We want to ensure we’re part of that wish list conversation.

You have to be nimble because the social world is always changing. Simplicity is also important to us, and we need tools that are very user friendly. Inspiration gets the job done, and it is also very easy for us to use and manage.

When you look at the history of social media and the history of launching contests, there was always development time, which delayed execution of ideas to engage your customers. Having a turnkey tool like Inspiration that allows us to get an idea up within 20 minutes is essential.

This spring we launched an ad campaign centered on the concept of the dream closet.

The creative was an array of key items for spring situated in a pink inspired dream closet. The messaging was that women were going to need a bigger closet because there are so many great shoes to have for spring.

We’re always thinking about how to leverage each social platform in a unique way to support our seasonal messaging and campaigns. For last spring’s campaign we decided to use Pinterest to make the biggest virtual shoe closet ever, and Offerpop’s Inspiration app allowed us to do that, gathering the initial content on Facebook.

The call to action was really simple. We asked our audience to create a pin of a pair of shoes they loved and submit the link through the entry form on our Facebook page. We didn’t limit them to specific brands, but we subtly encouraged them to check out ninewest.com for inspiration. Entrants were eligible to win weekly giveaways of $100 gift cards throughout April.

We then used the Facebook submissions to populate our branded Nine West Pinterest pinboard, which was branded as a gigantic virtual shoe closet. We did moderate submissions to make sure we didn’t post any shoes that were obviously competitors but, for the most part, we were pretty agnostic because wanted authentic sharing.

It was our largest, most successful contest at that point in terms of entries and participation. It increased brand awareness and drove a significant number of new Pinterest followers for us.

How does it integrate with your existing infrastructure from an IT standpoint?

It’s a simple, web-based app. We had the option to easily embed the contest on ninewest.com. We didn’t do that for the April contest, but we will look into doing it in the future.

What are the main benefits?

It is very simple and easy to use for both the brand and social fans.

We didn’t have to use outside developers. We want a turnkey option to get something up immediately, and it’s great we can do that in-house with our own team.

What are the main drawbacks?

There are no drawbacks so far.

What would you like to see improved/added?

There’s nothing I can think of at this time.

The two-way dialog we have with the Offerpop team is really great. We can give them ideas and know they’ll be addressed. Offerpop is great about continuously updating its suite of apps.

Competitors Woobox: provides social marketing apps for sweepstakes, polls, contests, coupons, and more.

'Design Mine': Get home design ideas with free app May 5, 2015 For many homeowners, spring's arrival means it's time for a major cleaning and perhaps refreshing the look and feel of home.

Whether you're considering a small makeover project or a more ambitious renovation, a new app called DesignMine might just be able to help.

DesignMine by HomeAdvisor lets you see thousands of home improvement projects, which can serve as inspiration for your DIY venture, or to help you find a professional in your area to do the work for you. The photo-centric app for iPad lets you see "featured" jobs among the DesignMine community, or you can tap to look at projects by space or style.

Under "Space," you'll find photos and design boards (a collage of photos) for areas like Basement, Bathroom, Kitchen, Deck, Family Room, Home Office, Nursery and Pool, to name a few. For "Style," you'll see options including art deco, arts & crafts, Asian, Colonial, cottage, contemporary, rustic, Tudor, Victorian, and so on.

Alternatively, you can also search by keyword, such as "theater," "Denver," "modern" or "landscape."

Select which of the high-quality photos you want to add to your custom album or design boards (e.g. call it "Basement Ideas"), which can be organized in one of four templates. Your design board can also include your notes and drawings. If you want to share your own completed project or ideas as a design board, you can publish it to the rest of the DesignMine community or share via email or social media (Twitter, Facebook).

The "Find a Pro" features a directory of pre-screened, local professionals who've been rated and reviewed by homeowners like you, says the app. You can select the type of pro you're looking for (designers and decorators, cabinets, flooring and carpet, decks, pools, painting, and so on) and/or enter your current location (e.g. "San Diego").

Other than no Android option, there isn't much to complain about with the attractive, easy-to-use and helpful DesignMine app. Consider it a cross between Pinterest and Yellow Pages, as it can provide homeowners with ideas and preselected contacts to help fulfill their remodeling projects.

4 Tactics for Surviving Facebook's Algorithm Changes (Infographic) April 25, 2014

As Facebook’s organic reach plummets, brands that have built their social-marketing strategy on a simple, single-platform Facebook strategy will suffer the most.

In recent months Facebook released a series of changes to its algorithm, resulting in the reach of page posts dropping as low as 2 percent for large companies from a reported 16 percent two years ago. Organic reach is the number of people who see a Facebook post without any paid promotion or advertising boosting its performance.

What's the solution? Develop the social marketing strategy the company should have had from the beginning: a results-driven effort diversified across multiple social-media platforms and connected to other marketing campaigns.

Businesses should harness the power of Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and Vine as well as Facebook. And they should look at the content and the data collected during these campaigns in more creative ways.

Here are four ways companies can react to Facebook’s declining organic reach and build a more resilient social marketing strategy:

Related: A Guide to the Best Times to Post on Social Media (Infographic) 1. Build a presence on other social networks. In some ways, Facebook has become a victim of its own success. The vast volume of content that streams through the world’s largest social network is one of the main reasons its suddenly decreasing organic reach. Facebook is crowded, and sometimes posts and photos get lost in this sea of social content.

Twitter, Vine, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram are smaller, more targeted and have passionate and engaged users.

Social reach is still alive and well on these networks, and companies should leverage this to engage with fans, followers and potential customers.

Does the thought of consistently being active on all these networks seem overwhelming? Consider using a single hashtag to combine usergenerated content from all social networks into one campaign. By using a branded hashtag, campaigns can elicit responses from Facebook, Vine, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter. With tools like Hashtag Gallery, responses with the same hashtag from numerous social networks can be collected and showcased on a website or Facebook landing page, displaying the combined social response to a campaign.

A campaign that taps into the entire social media universe will connect with consumers on whatever platform they prefer. This will also help companies gauge the effectiveness of Facebook versus its smaller social siblings.

Related: The Hashtag: The Search Bar for the Social Web (Infographic) 2. Cross-promote campaigns. The decline of Facebook’s organic reach means that some campaigns never get off the ground because some content never gains any traction. Don’t let your campaign become a dud; be sure to publicize it outside of social media. Using email newsletters, television advertising and online ads, a social media campaign will gain a steady stream of participants even without a big Facebook launch. This generates momentum that gives the company an advantage over other firms just relying on organic reach to spread their messages through the social sphere.

Cross-promote campaigns by including the hashtag of a social campaign in newsletters, contests and advertising, giving social users easy access and a direct connection to the company’s social campaign.

3. Measure and optimize social-media performance. The company's Facebook post impressions might be on the decline, but it's still possible to drive business value from social networks. Marketers should shift their focus to measuring the outcomes that matter.

Retool the firm's social post strategy by figuring out what content results in engagement, clicks and sales. Test a variety of types of content (like status updates, photos, videos, links), and monitor performance. Analyze the days and times when the organization's posts receive the most traction, and change posting habits accordingly. Put the ad budget behind the content that can boost the company's bottom line such as product listings, event promotions and coupons. Monitor, report, and retest the approach.

Related: The Science Behind Crafting Contagious Content 4. Leverage social data. The changes to Facebook’s algorithm add up to a growing social-media problem for companies. As companies' social audience shrink, they also realize that they are renting, not owning, their audience. Renting an audience means that companies must pay each time they want to communicate effectively with consumers. Savvy companies are pushing for more ownership of their audiences, and that means collecting during campaigns contact information and other data that allows them to connect with consumers directly.

Use contests to gather email addresses and mailing addresses.

Discover fans’ interests and then retarget them with ad campaigns. Find the company's most influential fans and followers and form 1:1 connections. Then use this information to connect with consumers, drive them to the company's website and take ownership of them as an audience. This lasting connection with consumers will be a valuable marketing tool even if Facebook’s organic reach disappears completely.

Related: 5 Ways to Harness Hashtags to Drive Business Value Bonus idea: Collect and showcase user-generated content. Facebook and Twitter built the framework for social sharing, and users provide a constant stream of free content. This concept can be replicated by companies on a much smaller scale, using social networks. Use the company's customers, fans and followers as content producers. Their images, reviews and feedback are powerful and authentic content that can be more persuasive than marketing materials but rarely fully leveraged by companies.

If the organization's Facebook posts are getting limited exposure, run contests with prizes or giveaways that encourage fans to submit photos, video or blog content. Take that content and use it in email newsletters or on the company's blog or website or in-store displays.

Don’t limit social content to social media. As the company's Facebook reach declines, make sure that its social content receives exposure in the blog, website and newsletter.

Companies can even take that user-generated content a step further by developing regular blog ambassadors or on-the-ground photo teams.

Below find an infographic that explains these ideas:

How Four Eco Brands Are Using Social Media Marketing Effectively April 22, 2014

Environmentally conscious companies don’t just sell products, they promote a mission and sustain a lifestyle that benefits their customers and simultaneously makes the world a better place. It is natural then that when these “triple bottom line” businesses take to social media, they use their authentic voice and positioning to simultaneously promote philanthropy and increase e-commerce sales.

However, according to Offerpop, a NYC-based social marketing platform, the most effective green brands “not only raise awareness for causes on multiple networks, but tailor their campaigns to leverage the visual web and user generated content by allowing users to submit conscious content, give back and gain exclusive information.”

Here are four sustainable brands that are doing it well: 1. TOMS TOMS gained popularity with their “one for one” policy (where they donate one pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair purchased).

They now have over 2 Million twitter followers. They’ve captured that audience using a variety of social tools and campaigns that keep philanthropy on the forefront of their fans’ minds.

Best Campaign: One Day Without Shoes

TOMS annual One Day Without Shoes campaign asks patrons to go barefoot to raise “global awareness for children’s health and education,” and they are rocking it on social media. Not only do they have a dedicated page on their website, but they hostInstagram meet-ups in several social-savvy cities, offer a toolkit for those who want to participate, and a Pinterest board (with 33k+ followers) full of shareable fact photos and participant photos. TOMS delivers a fantastic example of a social awareness campaign that actively engages fans and spreads its message far and wide.

2. EcoTools EcoTools is a company that offers quality eco-friendly beauty products and gives back to great causes. EcoTools utilizes social content from their team and fans to create unique social offerings.

Best Campaign: Hashtag #Ecotools

EcoTools used their brand hashtag #Ecotools to aggregate Instagram content from their fans and share it via the Hashtag Gallery tool fromOfferpop. They also use their team of experts toshare tips and reward fans across platforms. They know how to create useful branded content extremely well. They have a $10k giveback program for customers to win money to donate back to charities of their choice.

3. Recyclebank.

Recyclebank is a company that rewards people with deals and discounts for taking everyday green actions. They are leveraging their position as green-lifestyle educators to be a hub for social buzz.

Best Campaign: LivingEarthMonth

Recyclebank is using Earth Month (April) to create community awareness on social media under #LivingEarthMonth. They have created a microsite that features content from Twitter and Instagram and aims to inspire readers to make the most of Earth Month. The site also directs viewers back to their website to purchase products that are environmentally-friendly.

4. Loomstate.

Loomstate is an eco-friendly clothing company that has a lot of projects to help make the planet a better place. They excel at blogging and their social content is perfect for sustainable hipsters to share and like.

Best Campaign: Act Natural Blog Loomstate offers easy-to-read, interesting blog posts. Content marketing is a key feeder of social media marketing; they go hand-in-hand. Many companies attempt to create blogs that impact readers, but few accomplish it the way Loomstate has. Their blog posts are relevant to the eco/sustainable current culture, and feature easy-to-digest bullets on how to get involved and how Loomstate is supporting each particular cause. They are a great example of how effective ongoing, well-composed content can work for a brand’s messaging.

All four of these companies are using social media for social good and engagement. They are proof that the two can be done in conjunction to create the most impactful messaging for brands and our planet.

Is Your Co-Founder 'the One'? 7 Ways to Tell You'll spend more time with your business partner than your spouse--make sure you pick the right one.

March 27, 2014

For years I had a friend who kept suggesting he and I should start a cafe-book store together. It was tempting in a way--I loved the idea of a cozy place full of people reading, chatting, and sipping lattes. But I always said no. Though I enjoyed this friend, I knew he was always looking for get-rich-quick endeavors. He seemed to expect the greatest return for the least effort. Would he put in the long hours it takes to get a successful business off the ground?

Unlikely. Would I wind up putting in extra hours to make up the slack? Likely.

That was an easy decision, but often it's not so obvious whether a friend, acquaintance, or co-worker would or would not make a good business partner.

Yet it's not a choice you can afford to flub. Not only will picking the right partner affect your very livelihood, for a while at least, you will spend more time with him or her than you do with your spouse.

How can you tell if someone is "the one"? For the past 21 years, Bill John and Lain Hensley have been partners in Odyssey Teams, which creates leadership development and team building programs. Here's their advice:

Try before you buy.

Not every potential business couple has this luxury. But if you can, spend some time working together in the business before you both commit. In Odyssey Teams' case, John was already running the company. Hensley attended one of its programs, became friends with John, and began helping out, first as a volunteer, then as a paid contractor. John promised a month's work, then a few months, then a few more.

Hensley had recently graduated from college and wanted to be a business owner. At the time, Odyssey Teams couldn't afford to pay either man a substantial salary, so making Hensley a partner was both a way to recognize his contributions and make sure that he stuck around. "He was just so helpful that it made sense," John says.

Share off hours.

John and Hensley's relationship was cemented not only at Odyssey Teams programs, but also while fly fishing, snowboarding, and building things together. "We're both project-a-holics and we like swinging hammers and building stuff," John says. It was during these extracurricular activities that they both learned how compatible they were.

Travel together.

Anyone who's ever taken a trip with a friend knows that there's no quicker way to find out just how well you do or don't get along. "Take a trip to the Grand Canyon and see who wants to stay on schedule and who's looking to go off and see the world's biggest ball of string," Hensley suggests.

You'll learn if you have a real connection, he adds. "When there's down time, do you have healthy conversations? Do you talk about how you want to change the world or do you turn the radio up? You can learn a lot about someone in a short time."

Look for matching values...

One thing John and Hensley learned in their off hours is that each brought the same high standards and energy to what they did. "He was a good fisherman and I was a good fisherman," Hensley says. "He would build something well and so would I. If we were going to run a race, we would both expect to do well."

That translated into a similar work ethic at Odyssey Teams. "We would both have the same high expectation for what we were going to give customers," he says. "And we can both work from 7 in the morning to 9 at night without complaining."

...But dovetailing skills.

If having similar values and expectations makes for a solid partnership, having different abilities makes for a successful one. "Now that I look back, I can see how perfectly Bill and I complement each other," Hensley says. "Bill is really good at Web stuff and financial complexity, where I'm more on the people side. I love the delivery but I don't have the patience to work through the detail side of the business."

Decide about decisions.

One of the most challenging aspects of any business partnership is determining how decisions will be made if the partners don't agree. John and Hensley learned this the hard way when they took on a third partner who had academic training in their area but turned out to be a terrible fit.

"If we were in a debate, he would reach a point where he would say, 'I'm doing it with or without you!'" Hensley recalls. "Bill and I would just look at each other. We couldn't process that. We were a team."

Mercifully, the third partner soon departed. But the experience taught John and Hensley the importance of creating a delineated decision-making process.

"We're wrestling with that right now," John says.

Pick someone who's fun to be with.

In retrospect, both partners say, the fun was missing with that third partner.

And it's the single most important element, they agree. "There has to be that X

factor," Hensley says. "You need some of that friend side where you have a relationship that will survive whatever conflict comes your way. If it's just a business deal, then when those conflicts arise, the off-ramp will come up and you might make that choice."

"To me, it was all about character outside of work," John adds. "I realized that if I partnered with Lain it was going to be fun on this journey."

3 Companies Share How They Stay True to Company Culture Amidst Rapid Growth March 27, 2014

Most companies start off steeped in culture. They begin as programmers pulling all-nighters writing code or scrappy advertising agencies teeming with wild ideas hashed out over informal brain-storming sessions.

But as companies grow, and specifically when they grow rapidly, structure sets in -- often at the culture's expense. Soon a company that was founded on a wildly creative, loose and fun company culture runs the risk of becoming bureaucratic, stale and uninspired.

More and more companies are realizing that rapid growth when not paired with an equivalent emphasis on company culture, poses a threat to a company’s ability to recruit and retain employees, innovate, inspire creativity and build brand loyalty.

Feeling like your company may fall in the same trap? Check out our advice from two fast-growing companies and one corporate culture expert.

1. Ditch the hierarchy and focus on a flat company culture. Offerpop is a rapidly growing company in a fast-moving industry. Based in New York City and backed by venture investors, the social marketing software-as-a-service company has added more than

45 employees and opened offices in London and San Francisco in the last year.

Related: Creating and Keeping a Positive Company Culture But walk into their three-floor offices in Manhattan and you will see company CEO and founder Wendell Lansford sitting next to an Offerpop employee six months out of college. This flat company culture, room for career advancement and company sports teams are all key to Offerpop’s success in recruiting and retaining employees in a market that has them compete directly with high-paying industries like investment banking.

“The company is very flat in terms of the work chart,” says Kevin Bobowski, vice president of marketing for Offerpop. “Informally, it is an incredibly flat structure because anyone can come up and talk directly to the CEO, co-founders and executives.”

Besides having a flat culture, Offerpop builds on that camaraderie by fielding soccer and basketball teams, which allow employees to interact outside of the work environment. They hold trivia nights at the office, and when they launch a new product, they celebrate with a company-wide Poplaunch party where popcorn is served and different departments mix and mingle.

“It allows people to connect, which is harder as the company grows,” says Bobowski.

The emphasis on a vibrant workplace has paid off for Offerpop. Some of the company’s more successful new employees are often hired from referrals, as Offerpop builds a culture of “doers, not delegators,” says Bobowski.

2. Instill passion and personal values. Reno, Nev.-based digital agencyNoble Studios has grown 40 percent in the last year, a year after being named one of fastest-growing companies in the nation. Much of the company’s rapid revenue growth came from an early company culture formed without a thought toward the bottom line.

Related: Making Gratitude Part of Your Company Culture “We care about our clients -- money was the last thing that we actually thought about,” says Noble Studios founder Jarrod Lopiccolo. “We love creating and we love giving value.”

One way the company does this is through book clubs, where teams read and discuss the same text. Team leads pick the books with an eye for topics that specific teams needs to delve into. The book clubs help align teams, spur discussion and ingrain a culture of learning in the company.

The book clubs are one component of what Noble Studios has become known for in Reno -- building the talent and knowledge of a homegrown team in a second-tier technology city.

“A lot of the talent we had to grow,” says Lipoccolo. “But they had to have the right ingredients -- the ability to think long term and not short term. It’s exciting for companies to think that secondary markets can foster and maintain this level of talent.”

3. Remember the big picture. Odyssey Teams is a Chico, Calif.-based corporate training company that has worked with some of the globe’s largest enterprises to build and maintain culture.

Related: Google Employees Confess the Worst Things About Working at Google One of the fundamental ideas behind Odyssey Teams success is that many employees have lost track of the “why” of their work. They feel lost in a sea of co-workers all dealing with one miniscule portion of a very large task and fall into the uninspired monotony and ritual of completing their work day after day.

Odyssey Teams breaks through that apathy by reconnecting their audiences with the reason they work, the difference they can make and the value of communication and collaboration in the workplace.

That says, Odyssey Teams co-founder Lain Hensley realizes that companies cannot always keep the same culture they had when they founded. They must be willing to evolve and adapt as they grow.

“You can't retain company culture when you are growing, you must carefully architect its evolution and surrender to the fact that it will never be the same as it was in the past,” says Hensley. “Look forward and build something new that would put any startup, like you used to be, out of business in a flash.”

Hensley says that good company culture does not always mean a conflict-free environment. But strong cultures can survive conflict, and even benefit from it.

“You need explosive ingredients to make a dynamite team, so be ready to work carefully and deal with a few explosions now and again. If that happens you are on the right track,” says Hensley.

Websites help dwellers remodel with just a click Jody Brettkelly Updated 10:28 am, Friday, March 14, 2014

Do you long to reboot your decor, but you don't have the time or money to hire an interior designer, or just don't know where to start? Three new easy-to-use interior design programs aim to help you find that perfect new chair, transform your kitchen or even remodel your entire home with a tap of your keyboard.

Decorist Gretchen Wolfe Hansen, a former consumer products developer, co-founded Decorist after struggling with her own design dilemma. "I didn't want to spent a fortune on a designer - like most women, I wanted bite-sized help," the San Francisco mother of three says.

How it works: Services range from a quick free assessment of your style to a $169 mini-makeover. For the makeover you upload pictures of your room and describe your style challenge and budget. Within five days, one of Decorist's 20 designers will create a customized and interactive board with all the ingredients for a room, and a clickable shopping list.

Best feature: The website is beautifully laid out and fun to use. For the free service I was asked to select my favorite pieces from seven boards of sofas, chairs, rugs, mats, etc. to create a living room. I was then asked to sign in using my e-mail address (not something I usually like to do) after which I received a half page assessment of my style, including phrases like "less is more, modernist, ethnic accents, worldly look."

Bottom line: Spot on. (Though I must admit to being a bit miffed that the nuances of my design sensibilities could be discerned so easily.) This does lead to weekly e-mails suggesting furniture pieces and ideas tailored to you, but you can unsubscribe. www.decorist.com DesignMine Home Advisor, a website connecting homeowners with pre-screened home repair and improvement professionals, has just launched DesignMine, described as "Pinterest with a purpose." Users create personalized design boards from 30,000 photos that can be shared with anyone. From there you can search for home professionals who might share your style. It's available online, though until March 24 the mood board is only accessible through an iPad app that requires at least iOS 6.0.

How it works: The website lists five styles and 20 spaces. I selected Contemporary and then Kitchen, which brought up 2,056 photos, some of which were dark and not high quality, with listings for the professional who provided the image. Clickable links are provided for Home Advisor's pre-screened professionals. The app is better; photos appear slightly brighter, with 32 styles and 37 spaces. You can also draw and write on the photos.

Best feature: Making a mood board was simple. (Your e-mail address is required.)

Bottom line: It's a useful tool for organizing ideas before you meet a professional designer, but not to identify specific items, though they are currently working with manufacturers to provide that service. www.homeadvisor.com/designmine. Also available as an iPad app:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/designmine-home-designideas/id625335650?mt=8 Furnish Furnish is a simple way to gauge if a particular chair is perfect for that corner in your living room without hauling it home or subjecting yourself to the nightmare of assemblage. The app is free for iPads, iPhones and Androids. Though it was first launched at the end of 2012, Furnish was recently remodeled for easier use, and 100 more products will be added to the existing 450 in the next couple of weeks.

How it works: It allows you to use your phone or tablet to superimpose images of furniture - from Ikea, Herman Miller and Crate and Barrel, among others - onto the backdrop of your room along with the ability to buy immediately. Just touch the furniture image and hover your phone or iPad over the space where you're considering it. Furniture can be scaled and rotated.

Best feature: I could see a red Eames rocker was perfect for the seating area of our kitchen, but the color needed to be orange, and the black stand of a Crate and Barrel lamp was too heavy.

Bottom line: Money saved, but I guess that's not really the purpose at all. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/furnish/id552805870?mt=8 Jody Brettkelly is an Oakland freelance writer. E-mail: home@sfchronicle.com. Â Â

What's Your Workday Exercise?

March 13, 2014

Bill John President and co-founder, Odyssey Teams, Chico, Calif.

“Every few weeks I afford myself a midday run—10-plus miles—on the fire roads of Redwood Regional Park. Usually by midweek my brain is on overload, and the only way to clear it is to go fast or long.

When I ask a lot from my body, my best clarity and ideas come.”

Theresa Fette CEO, ProvidentTrust Group, Las Vegas

“I used to sit all day, and at some point I looked up and had gained 50 pounds. Now we do ‘Walks With the Boss’: We take 5- to 60minute walks around the buildings outside while going over strategy and projects. So far I’ve lost 16 pounds.”

Richard Simmons Exercise guru and creator of Project Hope weight-loss system, Beverly Hills (He responded in all caps)

“THE FIRST EXERCISE THAT I DO EVERY MORNING IS TO COUNT MY BLESSINGS. THEN I HONOR MY ANATOMY BY STRETCHING, DOING CARDIO, PUSH-UPS, SIT-UPS AND PLANKING. THEN I GIVE MYSELF A FEW COMPLIMENTS AND START MY DAY IN A VERY POSITIVE WAY!” Chris Terrill CEO, homeadvisor.com, Golden, Colo.

“I wish I could say I do some kind of amazing Brazilian gut crunches. The reality is that I put my wrists and elbows through an intense routine of pinball in our game room by playing Pin-Bot, the greatest pinball machine ever created. I only allow myself two games, because it’s simply too addictive.”

Websites help dwellers remodel with just a click Jody Brettkelly | March 13, 2014 | Updated: March 14, 2014 12:28pm Do you long to reboot your decor, but you don't have the time or money to hire an interior designer, or just don't know where to start? Three new easy-to-use interior design programs aim to help you find that perfect new chair, transform your kitchen or even remodel your entire home with a tap of your keyboard.

Decorist Gretchen Wolfe Hansen, a former consumer products developer, co-founded Decorist after struggling with her own design dilemma. "I didn't want to spent a fortune on a designer - like most women, I wanted bite-sized help," the San Francisco mother of three says.

How it works: Services range from a quick free assessment of your style to a $169 mini-makeover. For the makeover you upload pictures of your room and describe your style challenge and budget. Within five days, one of Decorist's 20 designers will create a customized and interactive board with all the ingredients for a room, and a clickable shopping list.

Best feature: The website is beautifully laid out and fun to use. For the free service I was asked to select my favorite pieces from seven boards of sofas, chairs, rugs, mats, etc. to create a living room. I was then asked to sign in using my e-mail address (not something I usually like to do) after which I received a half page assessment of my style, including phrases like "less is more, modernist, ethnic accents, worldly look."

Bottom line: Spot on. (Though I must admit to being a bit miffed that the nuances of my design sensibilities could be discerned so easily.) This does lead to weekly e-mails suggesting furniture pieces and ideas tailored to you, but you can unsubscribe. www.decorist.com DesignMine Home Advisor, a website connecting homeowners with pre-screened home repair and improvement professionals, has just launched DesignMine, described as "Pinterest with a purpose." Users create personalized design boards from 30,000 photos that can be shared with anyone. From there you can search for home professionals who might share your style. It's available online, though until March 24 the mood board is only accessible through an iPad app that requires at least iOS 6.0.

How it works: The website lists five styles and 20 spaces. I selected Contemporary and then Kitchen, which brought up 2,056 photos, some of which were dark and not high quality, with listings for the professional who provided the image. Clickable links are provided for Home Advisor's pre-screened professionals. The app is better; photos appear slightly brighter, with 32 styles and 37 spaces. You can also draw and write on the photos.

Best feature: Making a mood board was simple. (Your e-mail address is required.)

Bottom line: It's a useful tool for organizing ideas before you meet a professional designer, but not to identify specific items, though they are currently working with manufacturers to provide that service. www.homeadvisor.com/designmine. Also available as an iPad app:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/designmine-home-design-ideas/id625335650?mt=8 Furnish Furnish is a simple way to gauge if a particular chair is perfect for that corner in your living room without hauling it home or subjecting yourself to the nightmare of assemblage. The app is free for iPads, iPhones and Androids. Though it was first launched at the end of 2012, Furnish was recently remodeled for easier use, and 100 more products will be added to the existing 450 in the next couple of weeks.

How it works: It allows you to use your phone or tablet to superimpose images of furniture - from Ikea, Herman Miller and Crate and Barrel, among others - onto the backdrop of your room along with the ability to buy immediately. Just touch the furniture image and hover your phone or iPad over the space where you're considering it. Furniture can be scaled and rotated.

Best feature: I could see a red Eames rocker was perfect for the seating area of our kitchen, but the color needed to be orange, and the black stand of a Crate and Barrel lamp was too heavy.

Bottom line: Money saved, but I guess that's not really the purpose at all. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/furnish/id552805870?mt=8 Jody Brettkelly is an Oakland freelance writer. E-mail: home@sfchronicle.com.

Best home improvement apps for iPad: Houzz, DesignMine, ColorSmart, and more!

By Allyson Kazmucha, Wednesday, Mar 5, 2014 a 4:48 pm

WHETHER YOU'RE UPDATING YOUR HOME DECOR OR PICKING OUT NEW KITCHEN COUNTERTOPS, THESE ARE THE BEST HOME IMPROVEMENT APPS FOR IPAD!

Do-it-yourself can save you money. It can let you get away without having to hire a designer or avoid having to bring in contractors entirely. But what if you need a little help getting started? From estimating budgets, to finding out the perfect paint colors for the kitchen, to double-checking directions for laying down new tile, there are lots of iPad apps available to do just that.

Here are the best ones!

Houzz

Houzz is your interior design go-to app when you need inspiration. Not only does it have the largest database of interior design ideas, it's beautifully designed and fun to use. Design different rooms to your liking, browse Houzz's Ideabooks for creative ideas, and more. You can even look up professionals in your area to do the work. From architects to tile layers, it's all there right at your fingertips, complete with reviews.

If you need some home design inspiration, the possibilities are endless with Houzz. 

Free - Download Now

Digs by Zillow

Digs by Zillow specializes in remodeling and has thousands of ideas available. From featured remodels to those contributed by members, you can browse through ideas for virtually any room in your home. The unique thing about Digs is that it gives you estimates up front on what a specific remodel costs. That way you're prepared ahead of time before making any decisions.

If you need remodel ideas but want cost estimates before getting attached, check out Digs by Zillow.

Not Your Grandma’s Quilt: Hot to Speed Up a Timeless Art Form February 24, 2014

Entrepreneur Stitches Together a Quilting Business Short cuts and video tutorials boost an outfit in Missouri January 31, 2014

HAMILTON, Mo.—This tiny farm town used to be known as the home of James Cash Penney Jr., founder of the namesake department store chain. These days, it is better known in some circles as the home of Jenny Doan.

Those would be quilting circles. Over the past few years, Mrs. Doan, 57 years old, has become a veritable superstar of the craft. Her YouTube tutorials on how to make quilts have drawn as many as a million viewers, some from as far away as South Africa.

Her family's Missouri Star Quilt Co. gets as many as 30,000 orders a month for pre-cut patches and other quilting supplies. The 5-year-old company has become the second-largest employer in

this town of 1,800, its operations covering a patchwork of formerly vacant downtown buildings that include a "sleep and sew" retreat hotel. Fans stop Mrs. Doan for autographs. "I can barely go to Wal-Mart without someone recognizing me," she says.

The key to Mrs. Doan's popularity: she appeals to "instant gratification" quilters. "I don't teach people how to be the best quilter," she says. "I teach them how to do it the easiest."

Instead of the weeks or months often required to complete a quilt, Mrs. Doan's method teaches how to make one in as little as a day—by using a variety of pre-cut fabric patches a quilter otherwise would have to painstakingly snip out and stitch together. She also supplies the materials to do so.

"I'll show you something that makes it look like you worked really hard," she says.

That simpler process was the appeal for Carmen Leticia Attie, a psychotherapist from Mexico City, who learned to quilt in 2010 by watching Mrs. Doan's videos. She also found Mrs. Doan's

breezy style less intimidating than that of other quilting tutors. "She makes you feel as if it is not only possible, but easy."

Some quilters reject the shortcuts, saying it takes away from the history of the craft. "Traditional quilting is the historical way to do it," said Linda Courtney, a shopkeeper from Stewartsville, Mo., who learned quilting from her mother.

Bonnie Browning, executive show director of the American Quilter's Society, said interest in quilting has been on the rise, especially people wanting to learn via the Internet. One reason Mrs. Doan is so successful, she said, is she was one of the first quilters to start making online tutorials.

Today, there are several, teaching various approaches. "You know what, there's a place for everyone in the quilter's world," said Mrs. Browning, whose group is based in Paducah, Ky. Among America's estimated 21 million-plus quilters, Mrs. Doan is a relative newbie. She didn't take up the hobby until 1997, shortly after she and her husband, Ron, left California to move to this town 65 miles northeast of Kansas City, Mo., with their seven children. "We literally picked a place in the middle of the U.S.," she says.

Her husband landed a job as a machinist for a local newspaper, but by 2008 his shop had been cut from 25 people to five. "It wasn't a question of if I lost my job, but when," says Mr. Doan, 60.

Concerned for their parents' future, two of their grown children, Al Doan and Sarah Galbraith, that year took out a $36,000 loan to buy their mother a professional quilting machine. "We were thinking if we didn't do something, Mom is living in our basement when she gets old," says Mr. Doan, 31.

To accommodate the 12-foot-long machine, the younger Mr. Doan and his sister spent $24,000 buying a former antique store for their mother to work in. Not long after she got it up and running, Mrs. Doan says, her family noticed quilting searches were a hot topic on the Internet.

"Al said, 'Mom, we need to do tutorials,' " she recalled. "I said, 'Sure. What's a tutorial?' " Their first, shot in her cluttered shop in February 2009, didn't go well. Mrs. Doan tripped on an electrical cord and broke her leg. She still managed to grimace through the video. "She was so awkward," her son says.

Subsequent efforts were better. Mrs. Doan turned on the charm, sometimes hamming it up. She started an "Iron Quilter" competition, mimicking the Food Network's "Iron Chef" cooking contest, with two of her daughters squaring off in samurai-style bandannas. About 500 people sent in pictures of entries.

In the precise craft of sewing, Mrs. Doan isn't always the most polished instructor, but that just seems to add to her appeal. "One time, she was making a quilt block but she almost cut it wrong‌and she laughed and said, 'How many of you were saying: NO, No‌don't do that!'" said Monique Atkinson, a 53-year-old quilter from Quebec. "I thought it was just hilarious!"

In 2009, Al Doan and his family decided Missouri Star could be a serious business. They noticed that his mother's video fans would want to use the precise fabric she showed in a tutorial. So they began stocking up on those fabrics to sell. "One day, we got eight sales in one day," Mr. Doan recalled. "We were so excited."

Almost five years later, Missouri Star sells an average of 1,000 orders a day. Mr. Doan won't divulge the company's revenue, but noted the business invested $750,000 last year to upgrade its buildings, and now employs 80 workers.

Along the way, Hamilton has become a tourism destination for the quilting crowd. Most days, 50 to 100 visitors arrive to meet Mrs. Doan and members of her family in their 5,000-square-foot main shop.

City Administrator Dale Wallace says the tourism is great, and that maybe the town just needs to patch up its array of amenities. "For example, we really need to find something for the men to do," he said of the husbands who sometimes come in tow with their quilting spouses. "Maybe we'll put in a gun shop."

For now, Hamilton Hardware, once the location of the 500th department store in Mr. Penney's retail chain, serves as a way station for bored spouses. "The quilters don't come in, but their husbands do," said owner Eddie Ernat. "We have some pretty neat conversations."

HOW TO REALLY HIRE (AND RETAIN) MORE WOMEN IN TECH THE BALANCE STILL TILTS IN FAVOR OF GUYS AT TECH GIANTS LIKE FACEBOOK AND GOOGLE, BUT A FEW SMALLER TECH COMPANIES ARE MAKING BIG STRIDES TO ATTRACT AND RETAIN FEMALE STAFF. JANUARY 15, 2014 As the conversation around how to get more women into tech jobs continues apace, the fact remains that women make up about a quarter of all employees at tech giants Facebook, Apple, Google, Oracle, and Microsoft and less than half of new hires in the industry.

Hiring more women is the ideal, but it’s a tricky proposition (not to mention a legal sticking point) because a company can’t simply say men need not apply. So Fast Company talked to two tech companies that have been bucking the trend and adding more women to their staffs to learn how companies can really hire more women in tech.

Both Offerpop, a platform for social marketing campaigns, and HomeAdvisor, a home improvement website and mobile app, have drastically increased their numbers of female employees in the last couple of years.

And while vice president of HomeAdvisor’s human resources Shannon Garcia-Lewis and Offerpop’s CFO Cindy Smith both point out that they hire for the best fit, not based on gender, they agree that there are ways to encourage women to lead in tech and other sectors by cultivating an inclusive culture.

CREATING A SUPPORT SYSTEM

As a senior financial executive, Smith says she’s used to being the only woman at the table. It’s one reason she started LOOP, shorthand for Ladies of Offerpop. "I started it when we had just a dozen women in the company," she says, in effort to develop a cross-functional group that could share ideas and support each other. What started as small group discussions has evolved into a much bigger entity.

Offerpop funds LOOP breakfasts to brainstorm social strategy, systems, and productivity. LOOP has a book club (planning to read Lean In) and an on-site Zumba class.

LOOP members also launched Women in Tech and Social Marketers in NYC meetups at Offerpop’s headquarters. Smith says these gatherings have served to attract and recruit more female applicants.

Though Smith admits that starting LOOP was personal, she also says there is a business case for supporting staff outside their workstations. "In a tech company you have to make decisions quickly," she observes. The way to make good decisions is to ensure the decision-makers are a diverse group. Male or female, she posits, you have to get the right people together and make them feel valued and that their contributions are acknowledged. "If you feel respected, you feel confident to share ideas," Smith says, which in turn, helps groom leaders who keep the company competitive.

ADVOCATE BEYOND YOUR COMPANY

Similarly, HomeAdvisor created WELL (Women's Executive Leadership and Learning Group) after a noticeable increase in female leadership among it’s 1,000-plus employees. Once the group got together, they saw a need to split into smaller groups to tackle specific issues including a community "Dress for Success" outreach program aimed at getting women back into the workforce. HomeAdvisor’s recruiting team helped with career coaching in addition to donating clothing, Garcia-Lewis says. Internally, pulling together the donations opened up a conversation about the finer points of dressing professionally.

WELL also sponsors Lunch and Learn programs. "Like mini TED talks," says Brooke Gabbert, HomeAdvisor’s director of communications. The more recent one featured a woman VP in tech, Gabbert says, and because she fielded so many questions abouttechnology careers, the next will focus exclusively on that. While these Lunch and

Learn programs are not exclusive to female staffers, Gabbert says the audience has been comprised of 90% women.

She also points out that discussions about tech have seeped into other departments.

Thanks to exposure from HomeAdvisor’s mentoring program, the finance staffwanted to learn more about what was going on in the tech department and have now incorporated new systems into their workflow.

Garcia-Lewis says it would be difficult to calculate the results on a balance sheet but it’s had an impact on morale, inspiring employees and increasing retention. Speaking specifically about the Lunch and Learns, she says, "Our biggest intent is for [participants] to raise their hand. After the event, they can take that information into meetings and get in front of executives and talk more about what it looks like in tech.

We are trying to invest in what they are interested in."

DesignMine

DesignMine is similar to Digs and Houzz. The workflow is slightly different though and gives you design boards that can be laid out many ways. You can then add ideas to each. For example, create a board for kitchen remodel ideas and then pin remodels you like to it. It's a great way to visualize what types of colors and elements blend well together. And like Houzz you can also find professionals in your area to help with harder or more complicated home projects.

If you need help matching colors, elements, and styles, DesignMine is a great source of inspiration. 

Free - Download Now

Digital Editions by Benjamin Moore

Benjamin Moore arguably makes some of the best paint colors on the planet.

The Digital Editions app for iPad lets you browse through different collections as well as view the entire product portfolio for the year. Different editions feature different collections and most have illustrations and photography to go along with so you can visualize specific color palettes.

If you need help deciding what color palettes to go with or how to theme a room, Digital Editions gives great suggestions. 

Free - Download Now

ColorSmart by BEHR

ColorSmart is an excellent app for matching tones before you paint, whether you're going with BEHR paint or not. You can choose tone families so if you're trying to avoid a grey that looks purple in certain lights, a tap rules out colors that fit that gamut. It doesn't get any easier this when it comes to picking paint colors and palettes.

If your picky about color tones and palettes, ColorSmart is a great app to help you pick great ones. 

Free - Download Now

wikiHow

wikiHow isn't technically a home improvement app but it does offer tutorials on pretty much every topic on the planet. That includes home improvement.

Whether you want to tackle hanging drywall on your own or want to tackle installing tile for the first time, wikiHow has you covered from start to finish. Â

Hashtags Breathe Life Back Into Social Commerce Already Showing Promise as the Actual Mechanism of Payment By: Kevin Bobowski Published: November 13, 2013

Social commerce ‐‐ the purchasing of products through social media ‐‐ is on the rebound. And that rebound is being aided by an unlikely ally ‐‐ the simple hashtag.

Hashtags have migrated to Facebook from their origins on Twitter and are growing in use from Google+ to Tumblr as well. They have particularly benefited from the explosive growth of Instagram, where they makes photos and videos easily categorized and searchable.

Now hashtags have an increasing presence in online search, and brands are realizing the hashtag's potential to be a link that unites messages in an increasingly fractured social-media landscape. While social networks will come and go, the hashtag is a tool that allows brands to be identified across any of them; content can then engage the social-media audience on whatever site individuals prefer.

Hashtags are also helping brands make the jump from social marketing to social commerce, adding the sought-after viral element to purchasing. When a consumer's social "friends" see when and what their friend purchases, it opens up a powerful viral element to online transactions that can be leveraged with coupons, discounts or offers. Unlike social commerce campaigns that are linked to only Facebook, a hashtag-driven campaign brings in a social audience from any social network, multiplying the number of online consumers a campaign can reach. And a hashtag can be as specific or general as needed, relating to a single product or to an overall brand, depending on the campaign strategy.

Gartner research shows that 74% of consumers rely on social networks to guide their purchasing decisions, but that influence is now divided across many social networks. Hashtags can unite and bolster that influence, while keeping campaigns simple and user-friendly. Given that social commerce is a $14.25 billion industry, the implications are huge.

The hashtag also has shown promise as the actual mechanism of payment in social commerce.

Both Chirpify and an American Express partnership with Twitter are creating ways for social users to purchase items with a hashtag. Chirpify has a name for this tweet-to-purchase symbol -- the actiontag. In both examples, social media users tweet or post a unique hashtag that triggers an online purchase through a connection to a pre-determined online account or credit card. After a simple confirmation, the transaction is complete.

Hashtags are also crossing over to sites like Polyvore and Wanelo -- social shopping sites that have harnessed the look and feel of social media for the sole purpose of online shopping. Wanelo and Polyvore use the hashtag for internal search functions of their online inventory of merchandise, allowing site users to discover collections and see new styles by searching for a hashtag under which all the items are organized.

Co-buying website Buyapowa.com allows users to request that an item be offered on the website by tweeting #buyapowarequest. ModCloth is using hashtags to allow social media users to compete todesign the brand's new styles — giving engagement a whole new meaning that transcends the social realm. By requiring that aspiring ModCloth designers tag each entry with "#modcloth" and "#wedding," the brand has used the contest to drive branded hashtag traffic right into the Pinterest feeds of socialmedia users actively planning wedding purchases. Adding in offerings of coupon codes in exchange for hashtag participation helps a brand's deals and discounts go viral across social channels.

The connection of the hashtag to social commerce is still in its infancy. We'll see that connection grow stronger as brands use the symbol more effectively, and in more innovative ways. The thing we don't know is where the symbol ultimately will take us.

If you have a laptop system, you might be familiar with the frustrations that can be involved with using it in a desktop environment where you might need to clear a space on your desk to set it up, or have it sit awkwardly to the side while you connect a keyboard, mouse, an adapter for an external display, and other peripherals.

There are several options available to help in these situations, with one that I recently outlined being the new Thunderbolt docking solutions that are beginning to enter the market. While these options reduce the number of cables to attach, they do still leave you with the problem of where to put your system.

While smaller systems like the MacBook Air are relatively easy to tuck away, the 15-inch and older 17inch systems are substantially larger and may still take up space on a desk. If you find yourself in this situation, then one solution is to use a full system dock like the horizontal dock from Henge Docks.

Henge Docks is a company based in Virginia that since 2009 has made form-fitting docking cradles for Apple's laptop systems, which offer a convenient way to not only attach all of your peripheral devices, but additionally hold the Mac in a way that both does its natural style a bit of justice and ensures it stays ventilated and accessible.

For its uses, the dock takes advantage of the MacBook's "clamshell" mode of operation, where if you close the lid and attach an external keyboard and monitor, you will be able to use it as a desktop system. The advantage that the Henge Docks dock offers is the ability to hold the laptop in a vertical position conveniently off to the side, and provide a means to attach your needed peripherals simply by seating the system into the dock.

The Henge Docks dock works essentially as a frame that grips the ends of power, USB, FireWire, audio, and Thunderbolt connectors, and holds them in-line with the system's chassis so all you need to do is press the system into the dock to connect them all at once.

Setting up While this setup is ultimately convenient in the long run, it does take a little assembly to get going. Out of the box you get a molded plastic dock cradle and a set of extension cables for USB, FireWire, and audio, along with a set of adapters for Apple's various MagSafe power connectors.

You then have to configure the dock for your uses by choosing which connections you want and then mounting them in the dock using the provided set-screws. This process does take a little time, though one easy approach is to attach the needed cords to your system and then feed them through the dock, followed by seating the system into the dock and tightening them down. While you can configure the dock with a select set of connections, one option is to simply connect them all so they are available for use at any time down the road.

Even though it's a touch cumbersome, the setup of the dock is relatively straightforward and should for the most part be a onetime deal.

Using the dock Once set up, you can then attach your system to the dock by sliding it into the cradle, where it should align with the attachments you have chosen and then seat into them when you press down. This works well for the most part; however, in using it with my 17-inch MacBook Pro there have been times when a connection was slightly off and needed a slight jiggle to seat down properly. This can be prevented by ensuring the system is both vertical when seating it and also inserting it with care, but it does mean that the dock is not an option in which you can quickly plunk your system and be off and running, since doing so may chance scratching or nicking the edges of your ports.

When connected the system behaves as it would in any clamshell configuration, and is quite pleasant to have cranking away at the side of the desk instead of obtrusively laying flat and being in the way.

One detail to note is the ports on the MacBook will be hidden within the dock, so if you need to attach a temporary peripheral such as a USB flash drive then you will need to be sure to configure the dock with one of the included USB extension cables to leave dangling for such purposes. The same goes for the audio and FireWire ports, so even though the system is customizable in what ports you can add, if there is a chance you may need them at a later point then you might consider simply adding them all to the dock when setting it up.

Like most MacBook systems, my 17-inch MacBook Pro

has all of its I/O ports on one side of the system so the dock only requires the system be inserted to be powered and connected; however, some systems like the MacBook Air have the power port on the opposite side than the I/O ports, so you will have to be sure to attach the power after inserting these systems into their docks.

Limitations While the dock does have its benefits, it also comes with some limitations. The first is that being molded plastic, the dock is lightweight enough so if you lift the system then the grip of the connections will carry the dock along with it. Therefore, in order to disconnect it you will have to grip the system and pull it from the dock while providing resistance against the dock's base. This is a bit cumbersome since the aluminum shell on Apple's systems is not the best gripping surface.

Additionally, for the larger and heavier 17-inch MacBook Pro, the grip needed to pull the system out of the dock is a bit concerning, so I've found myself preferring to pry it up from the side. Granted this may only be a requirement for the larger and heavier systems, but in this respect, one detail the dock could benefit greatly from is a quick-release latch that could be used to push the system up from the ports and allow it to be gently lifted, instead of having to grip and pull.

A final issue with the Henge Docks dock is it form fits to the closed MacBook chassis, and thereby requires the system to operate in clamshell mode at all times. While this is the intent of the dock, it does limit you from using the display both for extended desktop purposes and for troubleshooting. If for some reason your system stops outputting video to the external monitor, then the only way to manage the situation is to pull the system from the dock, which will unplug everything, including sensitive storage drives that may experience corruption if pulled while in use. Granted in these situations you can undo the set screws for the connectors and slide the system out of the dock with everything attached, but having a quick means to open the MacBook's display if needed would be nice.

Overall Even though the Henge Docks dock has its limitations, the device is still a remarkably effective and attractive docking solution. The dock would benefit from a lever release of some kind, especially for larger systems, and it would be nice to have an option for quickly opening the display if needed; however, despite this it does function quite well.

While Thunderbolt docking options may provide additional capability to your system, the Henge Docks docking station offers a quick way to hold the system in a convenient place and give you most of what is needed to dock your Mac. In addition, the price makes it an attractive alternative.

Currently Thunderbolt docks start at around $250, but this dock costs between $55 for the MacBook Air to $75 for the 17-inch MacBook Pro. In addition to the docks for MacBooks, Henge Docks makes a holder for Apple's Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad called "Clique," and a number of docking options for iOS devices.

Henge wants to add functionality and connectivity to your mobile Apple gear with two new docking stations the company is showing off at CES. First up is the Horizontal Dock, which is designed specifically the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display and the 11- and 13-inch MacBook Air. Weighing roughly five and a half pounds, its solid metal chassis matches the Apple aesthetic while expanding connectivity options to include three external displays, six USB 3.0 peripherals, two audio devices, an Ethernet connection, an SD Card, and a FireWire 800 device.

The rear of the Horizontal Dock also houses a Kensington Security Slot, adding a helpful layer of physical security previously unavailable in newer MacBooks. The Horizontal Dock utilizes a unique four-point positioning system that properly aligns the system during insertion. Undocking the system, meanwhile, is easily accomplished by the mere push of a button. All said, the docking and undocking process takes under two seconds, effectively making the transition from portable to desktop a fluid endeavor.

Optional expansion software complements the physical aspect of docking by allowing users to create multiple profiles on their laptops for desktop and portable computing. The Horizontal Dock is slated for release in the third quarter for $249. A Thunderbolt-enabled version will be released in Q4, for $349.

For smaller iOS devices like the Apple iPhone, iPad, and iPod, Henge offers up its Gravitas Dock. Although its all-metal chassis measures just 3 inches in diameter and is only 2 inches tall, it's constructed out of a dense metal alloy, whose weight lends a measure of stability to docked devices, while ensuring that the Gravitas stays put when they're undocked..

The Gravitas will be available in Lightning or 30-pin connector versions; both models featuring a USB port and an audio line-out.

You also get three interchangeable inserts designed to accommodate the different iOS devices and most third-party cases. Both versions of the Gravitas dock will be available in Q2 for $69 apiece.

(Reuters) - Slot-machine maker Bally Technologies is exploring a bid for online poker game developer 3G Studios, in what would be the latest deal to combine online gambling and casino gaming on social media, said two sources with knowledge of the talks.

One source said several Bally Technologies executives were scheduled to visit 3G's offices in Reno, Nevada on Tuesday to determine whether to make a formal bid.

Bally had no immediate comment. Abbi Whitaker, a spokeswoman for Reno, Nevada-based 3G Studios declined comment but acknowledged the company recently hired Wedbush Securities as its financial adviser.

Another source familiar with the matter said 3G, which helped develop a mobile version of the music video game Rock Band for Harmonix Music Systems, had been talking with others about a potential acquisition or partnerships.

"3G is holding initial talks with potential buyers," said that source, mentioning video game maker Activision Blizzard, slot-machine maker International Game Technology and video game giant Electronic Arts as potential buyers or partners.

A sale of 3G could range between $60 million and $100 million, the source said.

Activision Blizzard had no immediate comment, while IGT and Electronic Arts declined comment.

In August, 3G Studios applied to the Nevada Gaming Control Board for an online gaming license, and it is scheduled to start an online poker site called SlotALot with casino operator Eldorado Hotels in the spring. It also makes a free game available on tablets and smart phones that is played for virtual currency.

Other slot makers have made moves to enter social gaming, which they view as a way to market to younger gamblers as well as tap a potentially lucrative market for online market that generates revenues by charging users to pay for virtual chips.

Several U.S. casino operators are teaming with online game developers as they gear up for the Internet gambling market which is expected to reach $10 billion in bets a year by 2017.

Market leader IGT paid $500 million in January for DoubleDown Interactive, which makes free slots, poker and other games for Facebook. DoubleDown produced $35.8 million in fourth-quarter revenues, IGT said, a 20 percent hike from the third quarter.

"The social gaming business is up for grabs. I think we're in a space where we'll see deal activity, largely on the technology side. For casinos, social gaming content is king right now," said Carlo Santarelli, analyst with Deutsche Bank.

Online gambling is now legal in Nevada and Delaware, while Wisconsin, New Jersey, California, and nine other states are moving towards legalization after the Justice Department ruled last year that only online betting on sporting contests was unlawful.

According to the American Gaming Association, about 85 countries have legalized online gambling and an estimated $35 billion is being bet worldwide online each year, including by millions of people in the United States.

Slot maker WMS Industries Inc said in October it expected to announce partnerships to provide online game platforms to land-based casino operators.

Both IGT and Bally have been granted online gaming licenses in Nevada, which allows them to partner with Nevada's casinos to provide online poker and other games through their machines.

Social gaming company Zynga, a market leader with 34 million online users of its virtual currency poker title on Facebook, has said it plans to move into real money gambling.

But some industry executives see Zynga as an attractive takeover target with its stock price hoving just above $2 a share down from a 52-week high of $15.91.

By Kate Abbott on July 27, 2012 3G Studios, a video game developer in Reno, Nev., is betting on online gambling. The private company, with 47 U.S. employees, has hired almost 80 new contractors in India and China and expects to have 200 dedicated solely to making gambling games by the end of the year. 3G is one of a handful of game makers jockeying for gambling business, expecting states, hungry for new tax revenue, to open the floodgates for Internet casinos.

Nevada is accepting applications for online gambling licenses, and in June, Delaware became the first state to approve online casino gambling for state residents, starting next year. States

including California and New Jersey are considering loosening the rules for wagering on the Web after the Department of Justice reversed a longtime ban on many types of Internet betting in December.

3G Chief Executive Officer James Kosta thinks online gambling will draw bettors beyond the casino crowd, just as casual games such as Angry Birds attracted new players who would never log on to World of Warcraft. “Gambling is fundamentally going to change from something … where you had to sit in a casino and physically spin the wheel, to something that you could do casually while you have a three-minute break at work,” he says.

(Kosta, who once worked for the CIA, has a colorful past. He settled a lawsuit with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004 over his alleged involvement in a pump-and-dump stock scheme and was ultimately required to pay $50,000. Kosta said in a statement that he was “never a subject of a criminal investigation” and “there was no admission or proof of wrongdoing in the agreement.”)

The 6-year-old game developer, which helped produce Jillian Michaels’ Fitness Ultimatum 2009 and released its own first-person shooter title, Brave Arms, on Facebook (FB), plans to launch an online slot machine site in August. Americans will play for free with virtual currency until it is legal to wager cash, Kosta says, while European customers will be able to play for real money.

3G isn’t alone in anticipating looser gambling rules. Betable, a London startup, recently announced plans to help game developers add real-money betting, both on the Web and on mobile phones, in jurisdictions where online wagering is legal. In February, Zynga (ZNGA) CEO Marc Pincus said the company is open to the possibility of entering the social gambling sphere. International Game Technology (IGT) acquired one of Facebook’s more popular virtual casinos, Double Down Interactive, for $500 million in January.

But John Acres, founder of casino consultant group Acres 4.0, says game studios are wasting their efforts. Even if online gambling is legalized, there will be so much red tape that most tech companies won’t be able to make money, he says. “It’s not a matter of tech but a matter of licensing,” Acres says. States must provide licenses for Internet gambling, and the process will be lengthy and complicated.

That means the deck is stacked in favor of companies that already have licenses: existing casino giants such as MGM Resorts (MGM) and Bally (BYI). Like 3G and other upstarts, established gambling companies are currently building Web presences with play-money games to draw in potential players. In addition building to its own games, 3G has partnered with Bally to help the casino develop online offerings. Other game makers that don’t partner with the casinos could be pushed out of the profits.

The giants could still benefit even if online gambling isn’t legalized. Chicago-based slot-machine maker WMS Industries (WMS) in mid-July announced the creation of a new division, Williams Interactive, to oversee its products on the Web. The group recently released its second Facebook offering: Jackpot Party Casino, which builds on popular brands currently available in brick-andmortar casinos.

Williams Interactive CEO Orrin Edidin says having slots both online and in the real world could attract new customers for casinos. “We help build a community of players … that you can market to convert from free-to-play to pay-for-play,” he says.

Kosta says 3G will profit as non-gamblers begin to places small bets on casual games. He anticipates the studio will invest $5 million in its gambling business over the next few years.

Even if online betting is slow to come to the U.S., he expects the investment to pay off as game players in Europe and elsewhere warm to the idea. “When people are going to be willing to bet $5 or $10 a week … when you get 140 million of those devices together, it’s going to make for a whole lot of money changing hands every week,” he says. Kosta, at least, appears to be going all in.

James Kosta, 3G Studios: A Wild Ride For Jailed Teen Hacker Turned Video Game Entrepreneur Posted: 07/23/2012 2:48 pm Updated: 07/23/2012 3:26 pm

James Kosta woke up at 5 a.m. to the sound of someone pounding on his door. Groggy and naked, he opened the door and was tackled by members of an FBI tactical team, armed with MP5 submachine guns, who started securing all his computers. Kosta was 14 years old.

Kosta's life has often played out like some surreal video game. At 13 years old, he emancipated himself from his parents, only to be busted by the feds one year later for illegal hacking. After his release, Kosta worked for the CIA, and by 24, he was a tech entrepreneur making millions.

Today, Kosta, 37, runs 3G Studios Inc., a video game business that's set to pull in $10.5 million in revenue this year.

But startup success wasn't what Kosta expected for himself as a teenager facing 45 years of jail time for 45 counts of technical burglary, including hacking into the systems of major banks, GE and IBM. When a judge gave him a break, Kosta seized the opportunity to turn his life around.

HuffPost Small Business found out how Kosta's intense reality eventually led to virtual success.

Why did you seek emancipation from your parents?

I was making money from consulting work, so I approached the school with the idea of formalizing the high school computer club I had started into a business. By my 13th birthday, I was earning about $1,500 a month ... and spending money with friends, coming home late, skipping school. When I had an 18-year-old girlfriend, my parents said if I lived under their roof, I'd have to concentrate on school, give up my girlfriend and shut down my business. I went to court and proved to a judge I was responsible enough to be on my own.

How did you turn your computer skills to hacking?

I fell in with a bad crowd focused on what networks we could get into, both military and commercial. Just like gangs and the mob have initiations, if you want to be part of the most highprofile, advanced hacking groups, you have to cut your teeth. It was nothing destructive. A lot of it was for bragging rights, to say you pulled something off.

You might have been a global hacker when you were arrested, but you were still a kid.

Were you scared?

I was terrified. When you're that young, because your parents always give you warnings, you expect someone to say, hey, knock it off. I never expected any action like that. Also, what came to light very quickly was that I wasn't technically a kid. When you're emancipated, they have the right to charge you as an adult.

How were you able to get out of the 45-year sentence?

After being in for almost a year, the judge agreed to suspend my sentence if I didn't commit another crime and I agreed to join the military when I was eligible. I think what he saw was an intelligent kid who needed discipline. For me, it was a no-brainer. I knew if I went to maximum security for youth, a guy like me probably woudn't have a good experience.

In between, they stuck me in a boys camp in Santa Barbara. We were on the second line of fighting forest fires. To see those firefighters in action and have them respect me meant a lot, and shaped me as a man. That's when I first realized I could be helpful to people instead of being nefarious.

At 18, you started serving in the Navy. How did you end up in the analyst division of the CIA by age 20?

I was working on a Naval Intelligence project that got transferred to the CIA. I was responsible for tracking the money going to various warlords and radical sheiks in North Africa and the Middle East. Then I was doing penetration testing on military installations, working with IT groups to see if I could steal data from outside. It was the beginning preparation for technological warfare.

How did you transition from the military to making millions?

I got recruited as a Microsoft contractor straight out of CIA. I was consulting with multiple companies, then my brother and I started one of the first commercial websites focused on financial markets. In 1999, we sold our dotcoms for tens of millions of dollars.

After 9/11, how did you start working for the CIA again?

I offered to simulate Las Vegas getting hit with a dirty bomb and how rescuers could lock down the city. We were using a game engine by the company that did Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, where we dropped these bad guys into Las Vegas and started [pursuing] them. We thought that was more fun than the simulation business, and our heart was aching to move toward commercial video game development, so we steered the company in that direction.

Your reality has been so intense, what drew you to virtual world?

I fell in love with the concept of interactive entertainment, allowing people to make their own story. The analyst side of me loves that it's like watching ants from above. You get to see how people are experiencing a story, reacting to stimuli you put in place. In intelligence, looking at human patterns, I was fascinated by social hacking, using a person's belief systems to get what you want. The real question with video games is that suspension of disbelief -- can I fool an audience that thinks they're in control when they're really not?

Do you see any way the story of your own life has come full circle?

I was an intelligent, rebellious youth, but my grades and attendance records weren't the sole indicators for my potential contribution to society. Ultimately, society suffers when we're that myopic. When you look a little deeper, as people did with me, you're able to get kids focused on their potential. A huge part of my company is focusing on teen mentoring for troubled youth.

That's something I owe to the people who helped me.

Entrepreneur Spotlight Name: James Kosta Company: 3G Studios Inc. Age: 37 Location: Reno, Nev. Founded: 2006 Employees: 47 2012 Projected Revenue: $10.5 million Website: http://www.3gstudios.com/pages/home/

New Tools Emerge to Help Develop Facebook Pages

By Tony Bradley, PCWorld

Feb 15, 2011 9:06 AM

Businesses need Facebook Pages. The Facebook Page is replacing both blogs and corporate Web sites as the primary means of engaging customers and promoting products and services. The need to be unique and stand out from the crowd has given rise to new products and services to help businesses design better Facebook Pages.

Creating a Facebook Page itself, is quite simple. Just go to the Facebook "Create a Page" section and follow the prompts. The tricky part is tweaking and customizing it to make it more appealing, or to promote specific products and services.

Facebook has its own flavor of HTML called FBML--Facebook Markup Language.

The Static FBML app lets companies add custom tabs to the Facebook Page. I used the

FBML app to create the Welcome! And Buy My Books tabs on my Facebook Page. With a little HTML--or FBML as the case may be--skill, a business can use Static FBML to create dynamic, eye-catching tabs for a Facebook Page.

For those who like a more user-friendly, no coding necessary, plug and play solution, there is Shortstack. Developed by Pancake Laboratories--hence the clever name--Shortstack provides an easy to use, affordable tool enabling businesses to create custom tabs for Facebook Business pages.

A spokesperson for Pancake Laboratories commented, "Facebook has become a key advertising, communication, and engagement tool for companies ranging from your momand-pop corner store in Bismark, North Dakota, to Nike and Victoria's Secret. Capturing an audience and keeping engaged on Facebook business pages is a task not easily accomplished, even for knowledgeable and experienced agencies handling social media outreach."

Ad agencies and Web developers can get in on the action as well. FaceItPages offers a turn-key custom Facebook solution. The FaceItPages White Label option works for Web site creation services, hosting services, or marketing services, interested in offering Facebook Page customization seamlessly integrated into their existing product offerings.

Companies should step back and take some time to understand the benefits and limitations of a Facebook Page, though, rather than just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

Perhaps you remember when the World Wide Web was in its infancy, and every business had to scramble to buy a .COM domain. Then, they'd throw up a Web site with little idea of what to with it, and even less idea why. Then, we did the whole thing over again when companies felt compelled to start blogs, or jump on the MySpace.com bandwagon.

Facebook Pages are the next essential medium for engaging customers, and businesses do need to embrace them and get on board. But, it should be done in a way that shows an understanding of social media and not just blasting the same marketing slogans.