Las Vegas Web Design

Brand sponsored social media campaigns are everywhere. From SeaWorld, Starbucks, and Dunkin’ Donuts, to Cadbury, A&E, and even Universal, it’s officially the hot trend to replace or supplement traditional marketing campaigns with social media.

Huggies, the maker of diapers, training pants, and other products for babies and young kids, has decided to jump on the social media bandwagon too, but by going straight to their target audience — moms — by way of the popular mommy social site, Circle of Moms. The mom-centric site is leveraging its partnerships with MindShare and AppsSavvy to fully integrate a Huggie’s branded experience within their site and Facebook app.

The Huggies and Circle of Moms deal will give birth to a Huggies Zone. The customized content will include an expert advice column, a mom-to-mom forum with relevant tips, age specific diaper information, parenting polls, and ways for parents to share their baby photos.

For their participation, moms are given Huggies rewards codes and the opportunity to win a one year’s supply of diapers. Of course, since the campaign will exist on the Circle of Moms site and within their Facebook app, both the startup and the brand are hoping that moms share their participation with other moms and create a massive word of mouth marketing and viral social media effect.

It remains to be seen how these moms will respond to the branded content, but we have to applaud Huggies for a creative social media marketing campaign that’s built around engaging with potential customers, as opposed to just marketing to them. If you’re a mom, use the comments section to let us know what you think of the campaign, and whether or not you’d share the Huggies’ branded content with your friends.

See Also: HOW TO: Attract and Engage Social Media Moms

Reviews: Facebook

Tags: Circle of Moms, Facebook app, huggies, Moms, social media, social media marketing

More: continued here

A new week, and a new scam to attempt to steal our social networking passwords is underway. Today, the target is Twitter, and the scam involves fake Twitter blogs.

Over the past hour, hundreds of tweets have gone out with the message “omg!! is it true what they wrote about you in their twit blog?” and linking to a subdomain of the site twittersblogs.com. When clicked, the linked site looks exactly like Twitter’s homepage. However, if you provide it with your username and password, it tweets out the message, and hence, the scam spreads.

You would think this scam would be fairly easy to avoid. After all, each tweet says “is it true what they wrote about you” but isn’t actually directed at anyone specific. Nonetheless, users that are too quick to the trigger are falling for it, and it’s been spreading like wildfire this morning.

However, it appears that Twitter might be getting a better handle on these types of scams. Since I started writing this, the tweets for Twittersblogs seem to have stopped. Nonetheless, be on the lookout as it isn’t uncommon for these scams to re-emerge under new names after initially getting shutdown.

Reviews: Twitter

Tags: phishing, twitter

More: continued here

The New York Times has a fascinating story about the kidnapping of one of its reporters, Pulitzer prize winner David Rohde. He, along with his interpreter and driver, were kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan on Nov. 10., and for 7 months – until Rohde managed to escape – the NYT kept the news from breaking out to increase his chance of survival. The hardest part of it? Keeping the news off Wikipedia.

Anyone that’s ever worked in a media publication knows that however tense or difficult their relations between other media publications may be, when a horrible accident happens or when human lives are at stake, it’s generally not hard to keep the news a secret. A couple of phone calls to other editors should do the trick, but what do you do when you want to keep the news off a site like Wikipedia, which has thousands of editors?

According to the NYT, you call Jimmy Wales, and he, with the help of some admins, makes sure the relevant entries are erased and fixed every time someone tries to edit them and add the information that may compromise David Rohde’s safety. The New York Times and Wales are happy with how they handled the situation, and if indeed these efforts helped save Rohde’s life, it’s quite an accomplishment.

But there’s a problem: this is exactly the opposite of what Wikipedia stands for.

Wikipedia is supposed to be a democratic system; editors fix each other’s work until a consensus about the correctness of an article is reached. On this particular occasion, it wasn’t; an invisible hand of the Wikipedia overseers simply erased a part of the truth. Of course, had the editor(s) who edited the article in question known that Rohde’s life may be at stake here, they might’ve acted differently. And herein lies the problem. As Jimmy Wales puts it:

“We had no idea who it was. There was no way to reach out quietly and say ‘Dude, stop and think about this.’”

That’s the thing with semi-anonymous editing: since anyone can edit Wikipedia without providing their correct real life info and contact, you can’t even reach out to them, let alone persuade them to do this or that. In most cases, it ensures that the democratic process of editing on Wikipedia is preserved. In some cases, including this one, it’s a problem.

I doubt that anyone would question the validity of what Jimmy Wales did here; if you can save a life by breaking or bending the rules a little, refusing to do so would be irresponsible. But there are a lot of grey, unexplained areas here. Had it been a small blog, and not the New York Times, that asked Wikipedia to keep information like this off the site, would Jimmy Wales have acted the same? Can Wales even be reached by just anyone? And who judges what news is dangerous and what’s OK to publish? Hopefully, these questions will be answered in the form of some rules or guidelines for situations such as this one. It’s obvious that giving everyone the exact same rights carries a lot of problems, but we need to know the exact duties, responsibilities, rules and limitations for those that are more equal than others.

Reviews: Wikipedia

Tags: crowdsourcing, David Rohde, new york times, News, wikipedia

More: continued here

It’s a brand new week, which means it’s time for Mashable’s guide to upcoming social media and web events, parties, and conferences. For more upcoming event listings, check out Mashable’s Events section.

Not on this list? Contact us and let’s establish a media partnership.

Mashable’s Weekly Social Media and Marketing Event Guide is proudly supported by Eventbrite, the Web’s Event Marketplace.

June 29-30, 2009, New York, NY: America’s foremost leaders and luminaries from all segments of the Internet, new media and political arenas will converge in New York at Lincoln Center, Frederick P. Rose Hall, for the 6th annual Personal Democracy Forum—the world’s largest conference examining how technological advances and Internet trends are reinventing politics, democracy, society and government. This year’s theme is “We.gov,” focusing attention on how people are using the Internet and interactive communications technologies to transform governance through political campaigns, media, and civic action. And if you want $100 off, use code pdfmash100.

July 8-9, 2009, online: Event for eCommerce and Affiliate Marketers: eComXpo is the leading virtual show for e-commerce and affiliate marketers that addresses the latest trends and issues in affiliate and search marketing for retailers, affiliates and networks. Benefit from expert insights on latest affiliate marketing tactics shared at the eComXpo July 2009 Show.

July 13, 2009, Minneapolis, MN: PR 2.0: New Tools of the Trade will explore the most cutting edge and innovative thinking on how to navigate this rapidly changing industry. The conference will feature keynote presenter, Jason Kintzler, founder of PitchEgine and breakout sessions that will demystify the applications that are quickly becoming the new tools of the trade. Mashable readers receive a $50 discount when they register with code, MASH.

July 16, 2009, online: This summit will feature live webcast presentations by marketing experts, offering best practice advice, case studies and actionable tips on important social media marketing tools for your small business. Topics and speakers include: “42 Rules of Social Media for Small Business” – Jennifer Jacobson, Author, 42 Rules of Social Media for Small Business; “How to Build an Online Community for your Small Business” – Katie Moore, Founder, Business Start Up Community; “How to Effectively Combine Offline & Online Networking” – Dave Clarke, CEO, NRG Networks. Mashable readers can view the full program and sign up for free at: http://www.brighttalk.com/summit/smallbizmarketing

July 23, 2009, New York City: When social media emerged, many thought it was a fad or simply a communication technology for young people. It’s now clear that social media will continue to make a significant impact on how consumers and organizations communicate and operate. The Social Communications and Healthcare event will showcase the best examples and case studies on how leading healthcare organizations achieve marketing and communications objectives through the strategic use of social media. Get a discount when registering with promo code MASH.

July 24-26, 2009, Napa and Sonoma, CA: Did you know blogging is changing the wine industry as we know it? Love wine? Love blogging? Join as fellow wine bloggers, new media innovators in the wine industry, and wine industry leaders converge on California wine country on July 24-26 for the premier conference for new media and the wine industry. This three day symposium brings you a unique opportunity to learn about and discuss the intersection of wine with the world of new media including blogging, social media, and more. We hope to see you there – it’s going to be a fantastic wine country experience! Get a discount by entering MASH when you register!

July 26, 2009, Oxford, UK: BarCamp Transparency brings together technologists, experts, campaigners and commentators for the UK’s first event on open government, social media ethics and cyberactivism. With some big names on the guest list and an open agenda that any attendee can contribute to, the organizers aim for tough talking and innovative thinking about some of the integral social issues of our day. Attendance is free; all you need to bring is a willingness to share your ideas and opinions.

July 27, 2009, Seattle, WA: Cool Twitter Conferences will be holding its third event and provides an environment for developers, people in business, and enthusiasts from multiple disciplines, who seek to understand and maximize the power of Twitter, the chance to contribute to the discussion and tap into this real-time use of the web. This forum is ideal for advertising, marketing professionals and business owners looking to increase visibility and improve customer experience. Use the code: mashable to save 25% on registration.

July 31, 2009, Los Angeles, CA: Cool Twitter Conferences will be holding its fourth event. The Cool Twitter Conference provides an environment for developers, people in business, and enthusiasts from multiple disciplines, who seek to understand and maximize the power of Twitter, the chance to contribute to the discussion and tap into this real-time use of the web. This forum is ideal for advertising, marketing professionals and business owners looking to increase visibility and improve customer experience. Use the code: mashable to save 25% on registration.

August 3-6, 2009, Chicago, IL: Attend the Advanced Learning Institute’s 26th forum on Internal Branding: How To Use Strategic Communications To Drive Employee Engagement, Build Your Brand, & Impact Your Organization’s Bottom Line, to learn how to create brand champions and advance your organizational goals. Hear how to build bigger and better brands and drive bottom-line results through practical solutions from top branding experts at: Hyatt Corporation; AAA Northern CA, NV & UT; American Express Canada; Benetton USA; Pitney Bowes; Group Health Cooperative; DLA Piper; Illinois Tool Works (ITW) – Redhead; U.S. Department of the Interior; Booz Allen Hamilton, and many others. Mention mashable for a $200 discount.

August 24, 2009, Charlotte, NC: Social Fresh is a 1 day Social Media Conference in the Southeast. Speakers range the spectrum of Fortune 500, e-commerce, advertising/marketing, major media and more. Social Fresh content is focused on two things, the future of social media technology and tangible social media examples of how businesses are using the social web successfully. Get 15% off by using code Mashable.

September 14-17, 2009, Chicago, IL: Attend the Advanced Learning Institute’s 11th Forum on Social Media for Government: How To Engage Your Employees And Citizens By Using The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Drive Communication Results to learn how to capture the power of social media in your organization, along with helpful tools, tips and techniques to get started. Hear from leading experts at Transportation Security Administration; Salt Lake Valley Health Department; U.S. Department of State; Los Angeles County Department of Public Health; Court Services & Offender Supervision Agency; University of Wisconsin – Madison; Houston Public Library; San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and more, on how to engage your employees and citizens by using social media. Mention Mashable when registering to save $200.

September 21-23, 2009, Portland, OR: LinuxCon is a technical conference providing an unmatched collaboration and education space covering all matters Linux. The best and brightest in the community will come together for top notch speaking talent, innovative content, and an array of networking opportunities. Speakers include: Linux creator, Linus Torvalds, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth, Bob Sutor of IBM, Joe Brockmeier of OpenSuse and many more industry experts and top technical talent. Get 20% off if you register with code LCOR20.

September 22-23, 2009, Singapore: The Social Networking World Forum Asia is a two day conference dedicated to social networking and social media, featuring key speakers from social networking publishers, advertising agencies, industry analysts, software developers and equipment manufacturers, pay-TV and network service providers, mobile operators, plus many more. There will be a joint exhibition combining social networking and mobile social networking formats and an evening networking reception. Mention you are a Mashable reader to receive 15% discount.

September 24, 2009, online: With customers and professionals around the world rushing into online communities and social networks, companies are trying to follow their customers and join the conversation. This summit will feature social media marketing experts who will present live and interactive webcasts throughout the day to debate the value of social media in the marketing mix. They will discuss the best methods for companies to create a social media presence and uncover the paths to leverage social media for a strong ROI. Mashable readers can view the full program and sign up for free at: http://www.brighttalk.com/summit/socialmediamarketing2

September 28-29, 2009, London: At the Social TV Forum, learn from broadcasters, content providers, social networks, brands, advertisers and analysts. Understand the key trends driving social TV, the challenges being faced and what the future outlook is for social television. Take advantage of the Evening Networking Reception and Network immediately with our first-class pre-show online meeting planner. Mention you are a Mashable reader to receive 15% discount.

October 5-8, 2009, Ottawa, Canada: For 16 years, GTEC is recognized as Canada’s most significant forum on the use of technology to improve government services and operations. The event features an annual Distinction Awards program and gala, a comprehensive Professional Development Forum, and the GTEC Exhibition. The conference program and trade show are attended annually by an estimated 7,000 professionals. $100 off for Mashable readers can be had using discount code MASHUP09.

October 7-8, 2009, Boston, MA: The Inbound Marketing Summit is where the online marketing community gathers to solve today’s marketing and business communications challenges. This fast-paced and information-packed event is your check-up on your existing business communications strategies, and your prescription for the coming months. The Inbound Marketing Summit is organized by thought-leaders Chris Brogan and Justin Levy of New Marketing Labs. This event brings together experts in the field of new media marketing to share the latest strategies, tools, and best practices to utilize new marketing methods to grow your business. Speakers include: Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, Brian Solis, Tim Street and many more. Use the code MASH200 to get $200 off!

October 9-11, 2009, Atlanta, GA: In its inaugural year, BLOGALICIOUS 2009 will provide women bloggers of color an amazing opportunity to come together to celebrate their diversity and their love for blogging. If you’re interested in meeting, learning about, and interacting with women bloggers of color, this conference is for you. In addition to igniting a sense of unity within our community, BLOGALICIOUS 2009 will educate marketers on the importance of our demographic in today’s marketplace, all while allowing bloggers to network and achieve the ultimate success for their blogs. It’s an event not to be missed!

October 15-16, 2009, New York City: The Social Media Seminars will explore innovative strategies of Fortune 500 companies and other early adopters and provide practical guidance on tools and technologies to help you develop, implement, refine and measure outcomes of social media strategies. Day one will be in a roundtable format where you’ll hear from market leaders including: American Express OPEN Forum, IBM Corporation and Symantec. Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era (Prentice Hall 2009) will share insights from her book which is used as a text at The Harvard Business School. Day two will provide a hands on working session, where experiential learning will help you figure out the best social media strategies and tactics for your own business. Use Code CL1 for $300 off.

November 5-6, 2009, Berlin, Germany: The European Venture Market is a platform for investors, service providers and entrepreneurs to meet, network and further develop business ideas and projects, in a relaxed yet professional atmosphere. During the event the participating entrepreneurs will be able to pitch their business projects for around 5 minutes to a crowd of interested investors and service providers. The two conference days will also feature keynotes speeches, specific industry presentations, coffee and lunch breaks, a large dinner reception on the Thursday night and, finally, a themed club party on the Friday night. Get 10% off by using code evm_mashable

The Mashable Weekly Social Media and Marketing Event Guide is proudly supported by Eventbrite, the Web’s Event Marketplace.

Eventbrite is an online events marketplace where tens of thousands of individuals, businesses and organizations of all sizes manage, promote and sell tickets to their events. Make your event a success on Eventbrite.

Reviews: Mashable, Twitter, Ubuntu, linux

Tags: conferences, Events, mashable

More: continued here

We’re one month into the Summer of Social Good and we’d like to provide a few tips for newcomers and previous donors about how to get more involved in the campaign.

After a lot of great feedback and help from you, our readers, I’d like to introduce two main new initiatives: #Teams4Good and “Promotion for Donation.”

Looking for Team Leaders – #Teams4Good

Through the GlobalGiving platform, we are going to set up a competition between 10 teams to see who can raise the most money for the Summer of Social Good fund. If you believe in the Summer of Social Good and feel you can motivate your base to come out ahead, then this competition is for you. Apply to be a Fundraising Team Leader here: http://bit.ly/sosg-leader and on Friday we’ll announce the teams who will then have one month to raise as much money as possible for the charitable cause.

The Prize: Winners will have a choice between:

- 2 VIP tickets and $500 reimbursement for travel expenses to the August 28th Social Good Conference in NYC

*or*

- A 32GB iPod Touch

*Winning team must raise minimum of $5,000 to be eligible for prize.

Promotion for Donation – Special One Week Promotion

This week, we are promoting individuals and companies who donate more than $20 in a blog post and with retweets. In either of the cases below, please forward your email receipt of the donation to socialgood (at) mashable |dot| com to receive promotion.

$20 – $99 Donation: Tweet that you’ve donated and @socialgood will retweet you. Mashable will also include your avatar and link to your Twitter account (or Facebook Fan Page or LinkedIn profile) on Friday’s Post.

* Be sure to include your profile URL you’d like us to promote in your email

$100+ Donation: Tweet that you’ve donated and @socialgood will retweet you. Mashable will also include your avatar and link to your Twitter account (or Facebook Fan Page or LinkedIn profile) on Friday’s Post. In addition, you’ll receive prominent placement on the post and you can include up to 3 social profile URLs or links you are looking to promote.

* Be sure to include your profile URLs and/or promotional links you’d like us to promote in your email

$2,000 Donation: In addition to the above, Mashable will also give you 1 week of 125×125 advertising to be used any time between now and December 31st, 2009 (subject to availability).

* Be sure to include your profile URLs and/or promotional links you’d like us to promote in your email

$4,000 Donation: In addition to the above, Mashable will also give you 1 MONTH of 125×125 advertising to be used any time between now and December 31st, 2009 (subject to availability).

* Be sure to include your profile URLs and/or promotional links you’d like us to promote in your email

Corporate Donation Matching and Prize Donations: We need your help. Contact us to get involved. There are plenty of great opportunities available.

Thanks to the Summer of Social Good Sponsors

Thanks to Zappos and MailChimp for sponsoring the Summer of Social Good. Their generous sponsorship covers the campaign and event costs, so that 100% of your donations and ticket sales go to the fund.

“Visit Zappos.com and outfit your life with a new head-to-toe wardrobe for men, women, and kids! Step into all the clothes, bags, shoes and more from all your favorite brand names! Plus, enjoy our 365-day return policy, fast & free shipping, free return shipping & 24-hour customer service!”

“MailChimp is a powerful, easy-to-use email marketing service. You design, me deliver.

We make it easy to send email newsletters to your customers, manage your subscriber lists, and track campaign performance. Unlike some of our competitors, we don’t ‘dumb things down.’ We take extremely powerful tools that sophisticated marketers use (like segmentation, a/b testing, and ROI tracking), and we make them accessible to anyone.”

Thanks to our Summer of Social Good Partners

Thanks to the following partners for lending their generous support to the Summer of Social Good.

Reviews: LinkedIn, Mashable, Twitter

Tags: social good teams4good, socialgood, summer of social good

More: continued here

Okay, so you’re one of the cool kids that got yourself the spiffy new iPhone 3G S, and you probably really want to take advantage of its best new feature — video. Sure the new phone gives you a quick post to YouTube option, but did you know there’s already a few great ways that you can post your videos directly to Twitter?

We’ll show you how to quickly get your video creations from your iPhone to Twitter. We’ll also help you understand some of the dos and don’ts for each particular option, to make sure that your newly tweeted videos show up just as you envisioned them. Happy video recording and tweeting!

1. Use YouTube to Post to Twitter

Earlier this month we half-jokingly noted that YouTube is now the TwitPic of video. Why? Well, they finally enabled a long sought after feature: auto-posting of videos to Twitter. Given that the new iPhone now lets you post your videos straight to YouTube from the camera app, you can combine these two great new things and push your videos from your phone to Twitter in no time at all.

Here’s how: Before you share video with YouTube, make sure you update your autoshare settings for the site. All you need to do is connect the services you want to integrate with YouTube. In this case, it will be Twitter, but you also might want to make the connection between YouTube and Facebook and/or Google Reader as well. Once you’ve made the connection, you can forget about manually sharing your YouTube videos with Twitter ever again.

Now every time you record a video, just tap to post it to YouTube from your phone’s camera app, add a title, description, category, and a few tags, and hit publish. Once your video is uploaded, a tweet will be auto-generated and posted to Twitter on your behalf.

The great thing about this method for tweeting iPhone 3G S videos is that you don’t have to worry about shooting your video in widescreen/landscape or standard mode. You can film horizontally, vertically, and for longer periods of time, and YouTube will still format the video appropriately.

2. Email Your Videos to Twitter

The simplest method is just to email your videos to Twitter. The ever-evolving email-to-blog platform, Posterous (now with blog import), has created a dead simple way to get your iPhone 3GS videos from your phone to Twitter via email.

As you would with any other content you want to post to Posterous, simply email the video to post@posterous.com. If you’ve already configured your Twitter auto-posting settings for Posterous, which you can do here, then your video will post to Posterous and automatically tweet out a link.

The Posterous advantage is that if you have cross-posting enabled for a ton of other sites — they do support quite a few — and you just want to share your video with Twitter, you can use the twitter@posterous.com email address. Also pretty nifty is that the subject line of your email becomes the title, the email body becomes the video post description, and tags can be added using the syntax ((tag: video, iphone)) in the subject line.

Posterous is perfect for recording video in widescreen/landscape mode or standard mode, and it will format your video accordingly. The only downside is that videos will need to be short in length, as any videos longer than a minute cannot be sent via email.

3. Get a Video-Friendly App

Although the deluge of video recording and posting Twitter apps has yet to happen, there are a few worthwhile apps that are already supporting posting iPhone 3G S videos to Twitter.

The unreleased TweetReel really is the TwitPic for video, but it’s only available as an iPhone app (coming soon). This nifty app lets you shoot videos (and photos), or grab them from your library, add your Twitter text, and post it to the web. Videos are posted to your TweetReel site (tweetreel.com/twittername), and immediately shared with Twitter.

If you’re looking for something already on the market, check out Twittelator Pro 3.0 [iTunes Link]. The updated app, which costs $4.99, includes a video recording and sharing option that lets you attach videos to tweets, and upload them to the photo and video sharing site yFrog. Just remember to shoot your videos in widescreen mode if you want them to render correctly (ie. not post sideways). We’d also advise you to record videos from the camera app instead, as videos recorded in Twittelator Pro aren’t saved to your library and might disappear should you choose to tweet without a WiFi connection.

Another possibility for mobile video fans is Kyte’s updated premium iPhone app [iTunes link]. The app also comes with a $4.99 price tag and supports video record and upload, with videos uploading to your Kyte channel. To tweet your video uploads from the app, just add your Twitter login credentials to your Kyte integration settings.

More Twitter resources from Mashable:

- 19 Twitter Desktop Apps Compared

- Top 10 Twitter SEO Tips

- Top 5 Ways to Share Video on Twitter

- 5 Ways to Share Images on Twitter

- 5 Terrific Twitter Research Tools

Reviews: Facebook, Google Reader, Posterous, Twitpic, Twitter, YouTube

Tags: iphone 3Gs, iphone app, tweetreel, twittelator pro, twitter, video, video uploads

More: continued here

Users with good FICO scores might soon start seeing ads for more expensive luxury goods and services than those with lower scores, as Google has started to experiment with targeting ads based on users’ credit score.

According to Google’s senior industry marketing manager for financial services, Masha Korsunsky, this is one of the initiatives Google has been launching together with Compete, which has a database of about 2 million users who agreed to give info on their credit score when they applied for a new credit card.

Korsunsky tells MediaPost:

“Let’s say we have an advertiser who wants to reach consumers with a high FICO score who applied for mortgages in the first quarter. We can provide the advertiser with a list of Web sites on our Google content network that index against this segment.”

Of course, this data will primarily be used to target users looking for a credit card (especially those within the Super Prime segment, who have a FICO score of 720 or more). However, naturally any company that sells luxury goods or services might be interested in displaying ads only to customers with a high credit score.

Sound cruel? Well, it’s only business. Ad providers will usually make sure they don’t display ads based on race or religious beliefs, but when it comes to whether you’re poor or rich, it’s simple common sense.

Reviews: Google

Tags: advertisement, credit score, Google

More: continued here

We’ve previously covered a number of Facebook scams, most designed to steal your Facebook login details to spam your friends. Today another such scam popped up: the Mashable team currently has multiple mails from “Junfunrun [dot] com” and “Bulitre [dot] com” (don’t visit those domains).

We’re not yet sure whether this is a fresh attack designed to steal login details, or whether it’s spam being sent from previously compromised accounts. Either way, the message is simple: if you get a link to one of these domains from a Facebook friend today, don’t click it. The scam is easy to spot because the automatically generated subject lines are in the format “Hi {RAND}”.

You should also check that your Facebook account is not sending these mails, as explained below.

What To Do

If you receive one of these Facebook mails, simply delete it – one of your friends is affected but not you. If you find, however, that your account is sending the mails:

1. As a precaution, go to your browser settings and clear your cookies.

2. Change your Facebook password

3. Make sure your antivirus software is up to date and run a full system scan

4. Never enter your Facebook password on a 3rd party site, and be cautious about downloading untrusted software like a “free video player” – both methods have been used to steal login details in the past

Reviews: Facebook, Mashable

Tags: facebook, scam, spam

More: continued here

Much-loved TV pitchman Billy Mays passed away yesterday: his passing is currently among the top Twitter topics and inspired the #wearblueforbilly hashtag on the social media site (some users wore blue today to celebrate his life). Meanwhile, Billy’s son Billy Mays III (@youngbillymays) is using the service to converse with fans of his late father.

In tribute to the king of pitchmen, tonight we bring you some of Billy’s best bits, courtesy of YouTube.

Oxi Clean

In his most famous ad, Billy pitches Oxi Clean stain removal. Here’s a classic pitch for the Oxi Clean ball:

Big City Slider

Billy pitches the best way to make burgers, with his usual high enthusiasm:

Billy Orders Food From A McDonald’s Drive Thru

In a piece for The MJ Morning Show, Billy took his booming voice to the drive thru:

Billy Mays at The Office

In this hilarious video, created for the Electronic Retailers Association’s 2008 Awards Gala, Mays shows a good sense of humor through a self-parodying role:

Reviews: Twitter, YouTube

Tags: billy mays, youtube

More: continued here

It’s been nearly a year since Facebook announced Facebook Connect, featuring Hulu as one of its marquee partners. However, we’re yet to see Facebook’s identity service rolled out as an option for signing up on the site, and now, rival TV.com has beaten them to the punch.

The CBS-owned site has launched Facebook Connect integration, which lets anyone use their Facebook login to participate in TV.com’s various community features– like adding reviews, quotes, and ratings – all without creating a TV.com account. Some of that activity can then broadcast back to Facebook, and in turn, create more traffic for TV.com.

In reality, while people go to sites like Hulu and TV.com to watch free shows, creating a separate community on them is a challenge, which is where tools like Facebook Connect and Sign-in With Twitter come into play, allowing users to port their profiles and connections without much effort.

Meanwhile, while Hulu might get more hype, the aptly named TV.com is not that distant a competitor in terms of traffic:

Hulu, for its part, allows you to connect with Facebook after you sign-up for a Hulu account. But for now, TV.com has at least a short-term opportunity to make gains as users sign up with their Facebook account and share content from the site back to their news feeds.

Reviews: Facebook, Hulu

Tags: facebook, facebook connect, hulu, tv, tv.com, video

More: continued here