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| MindSnacks Turns Learning a Language Into a Game | |  The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: MindSnacks Quick Pitch: MindSnacks are language-learning games for your brains. Genius Idea: Fun, interactive games that help users learn 13 different languages and SAT vocabulary. Memorizing flash cards and reading from a textbook aren't just ineffective ways to learn a new language - they're also, well, really boring. So to make learning a new language as much fun and as effective as possible, Jesse Pickard and two of his colleagues launched MindSnacks - an educational app that uses games to teach essential vocabulary, reading, writing, listening and conversation skills in 13 different languages. Each language app has six interactive games, 50 levels to complete and more than 1400 words to master. Every level features up to 25 words and phrases with pictures and matching audio clips from native speakers. To reach a new level, users have to complete fun challenges and unlock new games. One game, "Fish Tank," gives users a time limit to match words with their accurate translations. If a player doesn't choose the correct translation in the given time, a swimming fish falls to the bottom of the screen and dies. "The idea behind MindSnacks is to make learning as much fun as possible," Pickard told Mashable. "Over 26 million words have been mastered because the games are fun and addictive and users want to go back to beat challenges, unlock new games and watch their scores improve." Each game takes approximately 25 minutes to complete, but users can pause and return to the games whenever they choose. Although the first level is free, the price for all 50 levels is $5. MindSnacks apps are available for 13 languages - for English speakers, there are French, German, Italian, Chinese, Portugese and Spanish apps. For non-English speakers, there are Spanish, French, Italian, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Vietnamese apps. MindSnacks also has an SAT Vocab app that has 25 game levels and 500 SAT-level words to master. The app includes a new game that incorporates antonyms, which are important to know for the critical reading section of the SAT. MindSnacks was launched in 2011 and was voted by Apple as one of the best education apps of the year. It is currently only available for iPhone, iTouch and iPad devices. Image Courtesy of MindSnacks, MindSnacks Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today. |
| YouTube's 20 Most-Shared Ads in February [VIDEO] | | Thursday, March 01, 2012 11:49 PM | Brandon Smith |
|  It's probably no surprise that the most shared You Tube ads in February are from Super Bowl XLVI. Many of the ads appeared in last month's post, as well -- advertisers are keen on building buzz around their particular ads even before the Super Bowl airs. Accounting for more than half of the top 20, Super Bowl ad success shows that investing in America's most watched sporting event can pay dividends in the long run. Ads like Chevrolet's "2012" generated controversy by insinuating that not only are Chevy trucks better than the competition's -- specifically, Ford -- but that Ford owners would be doomed when faced with an apocalyptic robot alien war. Maybe that's okay, though, if all we're left with is a box of Twinkies. SEE ALSO: Super Bowl 2012 Commercials: Watch Them All Here Other ads were less controversial, but certainly caught the attention of comedians and writers, especially on Saturday Night Live. Clint Eastwood's "Halftime in America" ad was spoofed by the SNL team and Bill Hader. We also have to give a shoutout to the Old Spice/Bounce ad, directed by comedians Tim and Eric. It was a great way to incorporate two products into one hilarious, memorable 30-second spot. Finally, claiming the spot at the top of the heap, stars participated in a music video that touted the greatness and importance of Kim Dotcom's file locker service. Maybe Mr. Dotcom's recent release on bail helped spur the uptick in views? This ad was number-two last month, but has moved up to the top slot. Will it hold for another month? We'll let you be the judge. Which ads did you share with your friends in February that didn't make the list? Thanks to our friends at Unruly for compiling the list. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ozgurdonmaz |
| Buy or Sell Forgotten Deals On CoupFlip | | Thursday, March 01, 2012 11:33 PM | Kate Freeman |
|  The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: CoupFlip Quick Pitch: Buy and sell Groupon and LivingSocial vouchers. Genius Idea: Somewhere between 20% and 40% of Groupon vouchers go unredeemed. Miss a sale? Buy too many? CoupFlip lets you find great deals and nevers let a voucher go unused. The problem with timed deal sites is that sometimes you make purchases too hastily. Or, if you're an overly-cautious type, you might wait too long and miss the deal entirely. CoupFlip takes some of this pressure off. Miss an awesome deal on Groupon? See if it's for sale on CoupFlip. Buy tickets on LivingSocial to an event you no longer wan to attend? Sell the vouchers on CoupFlip. Launched in 2011, CoupFlip buys and sells LivingSocial and Groupon vouchers. Users shop deals according to price range, location on a map, keywords or category, like "clothing," "spa/beauty," "travel," etc. They can earn $5 for making a friend referral through Facebook Connect. Phil McDonnell, Fred Schwarz and Mike Cwalinsk co-founded CoupFlip. McDonnell recalls attending a small-business marketing pitch by Groupon in his hometown of Seattle, notes the CoupFlip site. He remembered a surprising statistic about Groupon vouchers: "20%-40% of Groupons went unused." McDonnell began thinking of how he could help buyers and sellers get those assets back. It was at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in 2010 where McDonnell met Schwarz and Cwalinski. The trio developed a business plan, and CoupFlip was co-founded in 2011. It received funding the following year. CoupFlip promises that, unlike other voucher-selling sites, you don't have to wait for someone to buy your deal to get the cash. Sites such as Lifesta (now defunct), CoupRecoup, and Dealigee all offer places where consumers can buy or sell their daily deals. These other sites accept a wider variety of vouchers than CoupFlip, which only deals with Groupon and LivingSocial vouchers. CoupFlip doesn't charge users to buy or sell vouchers on its site. But the site may offer sellers a lower price for their deals than what they paid. "CoupFlip uses complex algorithms that factor in measures of marketplace demand, expiration dates, coupon types, and many other factors to provide as fair an offer as possible to sellers," notes the site's FAQ page. What do you think about CoupFlip and sites that allow users to buy and sell daily deals? Have you used these sites? Tell us in the comments. ?Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, YinYang? Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today. |
| How a Mobile Game Dominated the App Store Without Any Press | | Thursday, March 01, 2012 9:28 PM | Sarah Kessler |
|  Draw Something, a Pictionary-like game for iOS and Android, had 1 million downloads before it had a single search result in Google News. "There was nothing written about us," says Dan Porter, the CEO of a company called OMGPOP that created the app. weren't interested. I tried, but I couldn't even get their attention." Press is often cited as the best way to get an app to stand apart from the approximately 500,000 others in the App Store, hopefully catalyzing its rise to visibility in one of Apple's top app lists. Draw Something, however, reached the top slot on that list with minimal media attention. At a little shy of four weeks old, the app has about 6 million downloads and users that are creating 1,000 drawings every second. "It's like the difference between winning the Super Bowl and having a football team where you win three games in a season," Porter says of the app's success compared to that of OMGPOP's more than 30 online and mobile games. Draw Something, he says, brings in more revenue in one day than all of OMGPOP's other properties combined do in a month. So what is the secret sauce behind Draw Something's viral quality? What about it is different than the other OMGPOP mobile games that did OK, but never dominated the app store -- and how can other app developers replicate it? Porter's answer, in short, is that Draw Something is just awesome -- and social. "What was the marketing plan for Facebook when it started?" he asks. "Create this amazing thing that people want to use and tell their friends...It has to do with how you make the product itself." Other than being awesome, here are some strategies Porter suggests for dominating the App Store: Build viral features into your app. Draw Something, for instance, urges users to invite their friends as opponents. Advertise in other apps. Companies like Tapjoy let developers advertise their apps within other apps. "The only place to advertise an app is in another app," Porter says. "Nowhere else matters." Don't depend on advertising. The first rule of apps is still to be awesome. You can buy your way to the top of the app store through advertising, but if you ignore this first rule, you'll just sink back down. Porter says that fewer than 5% of Draw Something's users came from advertising. "It was just enough to light the match," he says. "The huge fire came after that." Choose a less-competitive category. Maybe your app belongs in both "trivia" and "games." Choose the category with less competition. Check out Twitter. When your app goes live, look at what people are saying about it on Twitter and adjust accordingly. "It's like a real-time focus group," Porter says. Keep users in your app. When you do hit the top of the app list, make sure your app is cool enough to open again after it's downloaded. People who download apps are more likely to show their friends an app they actually use than one that just sits on their phone's third screen. "If you can keep those people in your app," Porter says, "you can kind of grow from there. But if they never open it again, it just doesn't matter." To be fair, OMGPOP did have some advantages in spreading the word about Draw Something. It was, for instance, able to drive 30,000 downloads in the app's first day through its own well-established website. Not everybody has a website that gets that much traffic, but Porter still thinks anyone has a shot at making the next killer app. "When you bake word-of-month and viral activity into the product, it doesn't have to be about the marketing," he says. "It's how you create the product." |
| Who Inspired Your Entrepreneurial Spirit? [CONTEST] | | Thursday, March 01, 2012 5:32 PM | Todd Olmstead |
|  This contest is presented by Babson, ranked #1 in entrepreneurship education for over 18 years. Babson is a living/learning laboratory focused on advancing Entrepreneurial Thought and Action® in organizations of all types and sizes, everywhere. Calling all entrepreneurs: Whether you've launched a thousand endeavors or are just launching your first one, we know you have a story to tell. We know that a brilliant idea can go a long way, but it takes more than an idea and luck to succeed. And no one can do it alone. Most entrepreneurs have someone who helped them get their start, whether it was by shaping them philosophically, giving them important training, offering advice that they needed, or providing that first investment to get them on their feet. Perhaps its even the person that first gave you the spark of an idea that set you on course. It could be someone as famous as Steve Jobs. Or it could be a college roommate or your parents. Whether it's someone you worked with closely or admired from afar, we bet everyone who calls themselves an entrepreneur has at least one. We want to give you the chance to honor them, and by doing so we're giving you the chance to win an iPad 2 and a $100 gift card to get you started in the App Store. Read on to learn how to enter. We're looking forward to seeing your responses! How To Enter the Contest Share your best entrepreneurial inspiration story in the comments below, and "like" this post on Facebook, OR Tweet your tale of inspiration with the hashtag #mashinspired Submit your answer by Monday, Mar. 5 at 5:00 P.M. ET. The winner will be announced on Tuesday, Mar. 6. Read our full contest rules here. Contest presented by Babson
This contest is presented by Babson, ranked #1 in entrepreneurship education for over 18 years. Babson is a living/learning laboratory focused on advancing Entrepreneurial Thought and Action® in organizations of all types and sizes, everywhere. |
| Social Networks Make You 'Entrepreneur of Your Own Life': LinkedIn Founder | | Thursday, March 01, 2012 11:23 AM | Adam Ostrow |
|  LONG BEACH, Calif. -- You may not be shocked to learn the founder of LinkedIn thinks the key to career success is understanding the dynamics of networks and how to leverage them to your benefit. But Reid Hoffman took that truism a step further at TED on Wednesday, detailing the four attributes that makes someone "network literate" and encouraging them to "be the entrepreneur of your own life." The first attribute Hoffman says is necessary is having a baseline understanding of how network technology works. He noted how his personal network on LinkedIn has around 2,600 people, but that there are more than 15 million within three degrees of him. He thinks the discussion of Dunbar's number - the idea that one can only maintain 150 connections at one time - may be true in your mind, but is made less relevant by technology. Moving on, Hoffman has a new spin on the familiar adage "you are the company you keep." Using the term "network identity" to describe the connections that one has, he says, "the brand of you is not just what you broadcast about yourself, but what others say about you." He notes that Zynga - one of the companies he's invested in - initially thought of itself as a gaming company, but its users do not think of themselves as gamers, but rather the games they play give them a network identity. Once you've established a network and a network identity, Hoffman believes the most important skill is being able to derive information from it. In fact, he argues that being an "expert" has more to do with being able to find the right information than actually knowing it. He notes how when he's looking for an opinion on a prospective startup investment, he'll reach out to members of his network and ask for a 1-10 rating of the entrepreneur. As an extension of that, Hoffman says the last piece of being network literate is understanding and developing your network's capabilities. Again using his investment philosophy as an example, Hoffman says that he doesn't, "form a thesis and find people that fit it . rather I network with the people that will bring me interesting entrepreneurs. " The timing of Hoffman's talk is not coincidental - he recently published the business book "The Start-Up of You," which explores many of the principles outlined in his TED talk and details why the network is the competitive advantage in today's career landscape. |
| Buy Frito-Lay Snacks, Get Free Items in Zynga Games | | Thursday, March 01, 2012 11:07 AM | Todd Wasserman |
|  Bridging the online and offline worlds, Zynga has inked a deal with Frito-Lay that rewards buyers of snacks such as Lay's Classic potato chips and Doritos with virtual items. The items apply to three Zynga games -- FarmVille, CastleVille and CityVille. Players can access the prizes by redeeming on-pack codes from specially marked Frito-Lay products on each game's Game Card Redemption tag on Facebook. The specially marked items will only be available at Walmart, where they will be sold beside $15 and $25 Game Cards. The promotion runs from March 1 to April 12. Prizes in the promotion include a spring llama in FarmVille with purchase of Funyuns, Lucent apartments in CityVille with a Ruffles purchase and a sunburst banner in CastleVille if you buy Cheetos. In addition, fans who redeem on-pack codes from the items plus a $15 or $25 Zynga Game Card in the same game will get "super items" including a spring pegacorn in FarmVille, glowing glass condos in CityVille and a red knight's horse in CastleVille. Zynga, which makes most of its money via the sale of virtual items, has been looking to expand its source of revenues. The company has been quietly testing "rewards advertising" in CityVille that offers such items in exchange for interacting with a sponsor. With an eye towards expanding its offline presence, Zynga has also been selling its Game Cards at retail since March 2010, when it rolled out a program at 7-Eleven, Best Buy, Target and Gamestore stores. |
| Sell Your Instagram Photos Online With Hashpix | | Thursday, March 01, 2012 10:33 AM | Sarah Kessler |
|  Instagram photos have evolved into an art form, and now they have an art dealer. A site launching Thursday called Hashpix sells prints of Instagram photos on behalf of their creators. To sell on the site, photographers need to apply. It's starting out by selling selected photos from 12 of the most popular Instagram photographers, who together have more than 800,000 followers on the photo sharing platform. "Some of these photographers have over 100K social media supporters," says founder Jason Culbertson, who is also the creative director at workplace social network Yammer. "These fans love their photos, and the photographers should be able to make money by continuing to do what they do every day." Buyers can choose between three sizes of prints that range from $18 to $22. Hashpix takes a 30% cut of profits after printing costs. There are already a number of ways to bring Instagram photos to the physical world. You can turn them into posters, postcards, canvas prints, bamboo shadowbox frames, magnets or pretty much anything else. Sure, you could just yank a photo from the profile of a photographer you admire and send it to the printing service of your choice. But then you'd be stealing. Hashpix can put Instagram artists' photos on your wall without offending your conscience. |
| Former Drudge Report Editor Andrew Breitbart Has Died | | Thursday, March 01, 2012 9:58 AM | Todd Wasserman |
| | Andrew Breitbart, a former editor of Drudge Report who also helped launch The Huffington Post, has died. Breitbart's website, Big Government, announced the news Thursday morning. "With a terrible feeling of pain and loss we announce the passing of Andrew Breitbart," the report reads. "Andrew passed away unexpectedly from natural causes shortly after midnight this morning in Los Angeles. We have lost a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a dear friend, a patriot and a happy warrior. Andrew lived boldly, so that we more timid souls would dare to live freely and fully, and fight for the fragile liberty he showed us how to love." Breitbart was 43 years old. Joel Pollak, editor-in-chief and in-house counsel at Breitbart.com, confirmed the report to Mashable: "Sadly, it is not a hoax." According to Cnet, Breitbart was working for E Entertainment Television in 1995, when he emailed Matt Drudge professing his admiration for The Drudge Report. "In the e-mail I said, 'Are you 50 people? A hundred people? Is there a building?'" Breitbart told CNet in 2005, noting that Drudge ran the site by himself at the time. "I thought what he was doing was by far the coolest thing on the Internet. And I still do." Drudge hired Breitbart as a paid assistant after that and Breitbart parlayed that association into the launch of Breitbart.com. Breitbart launched a bunch of other websites as well, including BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, BigJournalism.com and BigPeace.com. Despite his reputation as a right-wing firebrand, Breitbart also helped create the leftish Huffington Post. That association came after Drudge introduced Breitbart to Arianna Huffington, who was a Republican at the time. Breitbart was also known for breaking news of the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal in 2011. True to his image, Breitbart was arguing and tweeting until the very end. His last tweets, logged at 2:25 a.m. EST, rebuffed Lamar White, Jr., a blogger, who took issue with Breitbart's assertion that a report in The Atlantic defamed right-wing prankster James O'Keefe. Image courtesy of Flickr, Gage Skidmore |
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