Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “What Do You Love: Google’s Ultimate Mashup”

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Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “What Do You Love: Google’s Ultimate Mashup”

What Do You Love: Google’s Ultimate Mashup

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 02:55 AM PDT


Google has launched a new, mysterious service called What Do You Love. It’s a simple search box, similar to the one on Google’s homepage, but it returns results from over 20 different Google services, including Google Translate, Trends, YouTube, Maps, Groups etc.

The results are presented in little boxes which can, in some cases, be expanded by clicking on the icon in the lower right corner; if you need even more results, you can always click the button in the upper right corner of the box and go directly to the chosen service.

The concept reminds us of iGoogle, a service that lets you add simple apps to your own personalized portal. What Do You Love, however, instantly creates a mini-portal about any term you choose, which makes it a nice option for users who don’t have the time to tinker with options and simply want to have access to Google’s many services on one page.

The service, located on the address www.wdyl.com and google.com/whatdoyoulove/, bears Google’s copyright mark, but very little explanation, and it hasn’t so far been announced on any of Google’s official blogs. Tell us how you like it in the comments!

[via TechCrunch]

More About: Google, mashup, Search, WDYL, What Do You Love

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Samsung to Create the First Ice Cream Sandwich Phone [RUMOR]

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 01:44 AM PDT


Samsung will be the manufacturer to create the first smartphone based on the upcoming flavor of Google’s Android platform, Ice Cream Sandwich, BGR reports.

The device, which is reportedly slated for a Thanksgiving release, will be the high end of Android smartphones, with a dual-core 1.2 or even a 1.5 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and 4G (LTE) connectivity.

BGR also claims that this will be the first device to sport a 720p, Super AMOLED HD display, manufactured by Samsung. A possible name for the device is “Google Nexus Prime”.

While all of these fall strictly under rumor territory, we definitely wouldn’t mind seeing such a beast as a flagship phone for Ice Cream Sandwich, which will be the version that unifies Android for smartphones, tablets and other connected devices.

[via BGR]

More About: android, Google, ice cream sandwich, Mobile 2.0, samsung, smartphone

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Introducing Pokki, an Apple-Style App Store for PCs

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 12:03 AM PDT


Mobile applications are most often slick containers of web content, packaged in such a way that they’re more lovely to look at and fun to use than the browser. San Diego-based startup SweetLabs looks to bring these rich mobile app experiences to the desktop with the release of Pokki on Tuesday.

Pokki is an application store and platform for the desktop, inspired by mobile with Apple-esque design appeal. Pokki is PC-only at launch, but a Mac release is slated for later this year.

“What we saw as developers and users were these fantastic app experiences on mobile and tablets that make it easy for consumers to discover and install apps in one-click, and easy for developers to distribute their apps,” SweetLabs co-founder Chester Ng says. “But, ironically billions of consumers spend a majority of their waking hours on the desktop, and the desktop experience is prehistoric.”

The PC user need only install Pokki once to have access to “Pokkis,” the service’s web connected desktop applications, via the Pokki store. The Pokki store sits conveniently alongside installed Pokkis in the menu bar, where users are presented with a simple always-connected, yet browser-free way to interface with web content.

Pokkis look and feel much like applications you’d find on mobile. They’re built in HTML5, CSS and Javascript for a modernized web application experience.

SweetLabs has seeded the Pokki store with eight rich and elegant applications including Pokkis for Gmail, Facebook, eBay, LivingSocial and The Wall Street Journal. The applications pop with color and personality, and offer users real-time notifications for new activity.

The Pokki store is noticeably sparse to start, but today’s release is specifically targeted at developers. SweetLabs hopes the applications that it has created — most developed in-house with some assistance from the third-party app makers — will inspire developers, media companies and startups to build and release their own Pokkis.

SweetLabs’ desktop app platform undertaking is rather ambitious. “It’s a huge challenge,” Ng says. “There’s a huge land grab going on between Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, but we believe that the world needs an agnostic app platform … and we’re in a good position to take a swing at it.”

SweetLabs is the newly rebranded parent company of OpenCandy and Pokki. The 3-year-old startup has grown to more than 50 employees and will be opening a satellite office in San Francisco.

More About: apps, desktop, OpenCandy, PCs, Pokki, startup, SweetLabs

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Why Social Networking ‘Utopia’ Isn’t Coming

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 10:52 PM PDT


Just before 2011 dawned, Facebook released a map that spoke to our era of social media in much the same way the first pictures of Earth from space spoke to the 1960s. The map showed the connections between the world’s Facebook friends — a number now approaching 700 million — as beams of light. Gossamer-thin threads linked every major city on the planet. The cities shone like stars.

No one has done this, but just think what that map would look like if you were to add Twitter users, whose numbers last month surpassed 300 million. A grand total of 1 billion accounts, and who knows how many billions of connections? (Facebook friends max out at 5,000, but there’s no limit to the number of people who can follow you on Twitter.) Then consider that all these threads connected in the last five years. And that at the rate of growth both services are enjoying, the connecting party is just getting started.

You might be forgiven for looking at this imaginary map and thinking some very 1960s-style thoughts — that we are forging some kind of global consciousness where everyone will end up friending and following everyone else, right? Not so fast, man. A study released this month shows that digital tribalism is alive and well in the social network era.

More About: facebook, social networking, twitter

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How Much Data Will Humans Create & Store This Year? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 09:02 PM PDT

If you’ve spent any amount time watching your Facebook or Twitter feed stream by, it should be obvious that the world is creating a lot of data. But because all that data is really just a collection of ones and zeros it can be hard to actually visualize how much is really there.

Sure, we can put a number on it, like 1.8 zettabytes being created and replicated (as in copied to DVDs and shared in the cloud) this year alone — a number that doubles every two years, according to a recent study by IDC and EMC. But how much is that, really? Not only is data itself ethereal and hard to visualize, but the numbers are so gargantuan that they quickly become too abstract to grasp.

One way to put it all into perspective is to hypothetically plug all that data into physical objects we all recognize. That 1.8 zettabytes of data, for example, would require 57.5 billion 32GB iPads to store. How much is that? About $34.4 trillion worth. That’s equivalent to the GDP of the United States, Japan, China, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy combined. And that’s how much data we’ll create and store just this year.

The infographic below contains a few more mind-blowing comparisons to help you make sense of the numbers.

Click to enlarge


Image by Sasha McCune

More About: data, inforgraphics, Mashable Infographics

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Scan-to-Pay Features Coming Soon To a Mobile App Near You

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 08:24 PM PDT


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: Card.io

Quick Pitch: Fast and easy mobile credit card scanning.

Genius Idea: Pay by credit card without the manual entry.

It stands to reason that we’re likely to buy and spend more when there’s less friction involved in the purchase experience.

Former AdMob product manager and current Card.io co-founder and CEO Michael Mettler know this all too well. At AdMob, Mettler saw firsthand how mobile consumers were quick to spend $0.99 on apps but much more reluctant to make big-ticket purchases.

“One key to getting better performance in mobile advertising … was getting commerce to move from the web to mobile,” says Mettler. “But, the purchasing experience on the phone is still very poor, and we wanted to build something really simple and really elegant to try and fix it.”

So Mettler and co-founder Josh Bleecher Synder, also formerly of AdMob, came up with the idea to scan credit cards to make mobile application payments faster.

“Card.io is mostly about taking friction out of the purchase process,” says Mettler.

Card.io is a software development kit for mobile application developers. Developers sign up, download the SDK, copy and paste some code into their apps, and can then begin to accept credit card payments by scan from within their applications.

For application users, Card.io means a faster way to pay — simply hold your credit card up to your mobile phone’s camera instead of manually entering your credit card information.

Card.io’s scanning technology resembles something you might find in other mobile applications, and there are a few off-the-shelf optical character recognition (OCR) solutions available to app makers. But Card.io has built its own computer vision and machine learning algorithms to read cards quickly, Mettler says.

Still, Card.io only addresses part of the friction in the mobile credit card payment process. One must still have an actual credit card handy; there’s no avoiding that trek across the room to locate your wallet, at least for the time being.

“Eventually, if we can make it so that all your payment information is stored on your phone, it’s all secure, and you’re comfortable provisioning it out, we can hopefully fix that purchase experience on your phone,” Mettler says.

Select developers were granted access to Card.io’s SDK last week, so we’ll start to see the startup’s credit card scanning technology inside applications in the very near future. Mettler says several, including Card.io-enhanced versions of MogoTix and TaskRabbit, are nearing release.

Card.io has raised $1 million in a seed round led by former eBay executive Michael Dearing.

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

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.

More About: bizspark, card.io, Lumber Labs, mobile payments, spark-of-genius

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Google +1 Goes Global

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 07:28 PM PDT


Google’s +1 button, the search giant’s challenger to the Facebook Like button, is making its worldwide debut.

“Today, +1's will start appearing on Google search pages globally,” Google Product Manager Nick Radicevic announced on Google’s AdSense blog.

“We’ll be starting off with sites like google.co.uk, google.de, google.jp and google.fr, then expanding quickly to most other Google search sites soon after.”

In addition to an international rollout on search result pages, Google is expanding its rollout of the +1 button on websites across the world. The company announced partnerships with several publications, including The Telegraph, The Independent, Last.fm, SnapDeal, and El Pais.

Google launched the +1 button last month as an attempt to increase its presence on the web. The button acts much like the Facebook Like or Twitter Tweet button. The company says it may use +1 data as a signal for improving search results in the future.

More About: Google, Google +1

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Apple Hopes to Thwart Jailbreakers with iOS 5

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 05:42 PM PDT


When Apple releases iOS 5 later this fall, users who like to jailbreak their devices might find the process more complex than usual.

While perusing the code for iOS 5 beta 2, the members of the iPhone Dev Team discovered Apple is putting measures into place to make it more difficult for iOS 5 users to rollback to earlier versions of iOS.

It isn’t uncommon for more advanced users to want to try out the latest non-jailbroken software and then revert back to an earlier version so that they can take advantage of their jailbroken features. The current workaround is for users to backup their SHSH blobs before upgrading the software. This ensures that an older version of the OS and firmware can be restored at a later time.

With iOS 5, Apple is changing the way that the blobs are created. The blobs will be regenerated every time a device is rebooted, meaning that simply having an old version of the key around won’t allow users to install an older version of the software.

While this doesn’t prevent groups like the iPhone Dev Team from finding exploits and providing tools so that users can jailbreak their devices, it might make keeping a device in a jailbroken state more difficult.

With iOS 5, Apple will also be looking at doing over-the-air OS upgrades, meaning that the software can update itself without needing to connect with iTunes. In theory, this means that Apple could push out small updates to patch exploits, preventing a user who has agreed to install said update from jailbreaking their device.

On its blog, the Dev Team doesn’t sound overly concerned about what this means for jailbreaking in general but does note that Apple has “stepped up their game” when it comes to locking down the OS. We’re sure the cat-and-mouse game will continue.

More About: apple, iOS 5, iphone, jailbreak, jailbreaking

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Publishers Launch First Digital-Only Textbook for K-12

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 04:29 PM PDT


McGraw-Hill launched its first all-digital, cloud-based textbook for the K-12 market on Monday at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference.

Unlike the company’s previous digital efforts for this age group, the books are intended to be used as primary texts (other McGraw-Hill digital texts have been sold as a companion of physical textbooks). This is the first time a major publisher has launched such a platform.

Grade schools and high schools have been slower to adopt digital textbooks than universities, at least partly because K-12 textbooks are traditionally provided by schools — many of which lack hardware to ensure that all of their students can access them.

But textbook makers have good reason to innovate in this area. K-12 textbook sales this April — traditionally the start of the classroom curriculum buying period — dropped more than 15% since the same time last year, according to the Association of American Publishers. Digital books might offer one way to help reverse the trend.

Polly Stansell, director of product development for McGraw-Hill, acknowledges “it’s a pretty small market if you rely on one-to-one” sales. But she cites rotating carts that some schools have set up to give students computer access at some points in the day — and a trend of allowing kids to bring their own devices to school.

McGraw-Hill’s new format, CINCH, is a cloud-based curriculum for K-12 math and 7-12 science. It makes all course materials, which include ebooks, presentations, assessments and animation clips, available from any device with a browser. Students in a class can also participate in Facebook-like conversations that stay with the text. “We’re trying to meet students and teachers where they’re at digitally,” Stansell says.

McGraw-Hill will also be launching a new payment model with CINCH: schools will be charged for each student to use the textbooks on a yearly basis. It comes out to about the cost of a workbook for each student.

Another publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, has taken another tack on making digital textbooks more appealing to the K-12 market. At the same conference, it announced schools that implement its supplemental online product, SkillsTutor, will now be provided with hardware at favorable pricing as a result of a new partnership with Intel and Equus Computer.

Also at ISTE, Pearson announced that its digital K-8 program for mathematics and reading would be joining McGraw-Hill’s new CINCH texts on the cloud.

A lesson from one of McGraw-Hill’s new all-digital textbook, CINCH

More About: digital textbooks, ebooks, education, Houghton Mifflin, ISTE, McGraw-Hill, pearson

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Turntable.fm Kicks Out International Users

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 02:54 PM PDT


Buzzy music service Turntable.fm isn’t even out of the gate yet, and it’s already coming up against issues — namely, keeping it legal. Since it’s currently trying to operate under DMCA rules, and the DMCA is U.S.-only, international users were booted from the service this past weekend.

"To all our international friends, we're sorry you can't use turntable right now due to licensing constraints," Turntable.fm told its Twitter followers on Saturday.

For those who are unfamiliar, Turntable.fm (from the Stickybits team) is a series of user-created browser-based chatroom/listening rooms where “DJs” (a.k.a. you and others) can play songs, vote on how “lame” or “awesome” those songs are, score points for picking good tunes, and chat with others in a sidebar. You can choose songs from a Medianet-powered library, or upload your own.

The service is still not open to all — you have to connect via Facebook, and you can only get in if one of your friends is already a member. But it has already crested 140,000 users.

According to All Things Digital, the recent Americanization of the site indicates that Turntable.fm is aiming to use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to make an honest website out of itself and avoid grappling with music licenses.

“[It] is trying to position itself — legally, at least — as a ‘non-interactive’ Web radio, which would be shielded by the DMCA,” says All Things D. It could be a tough road for the site, which allows users to upload any music they like for group listening — which could be construed as filesharing. However, users can’t download the music, only listen to a stream.

Still, we could see the immense interest in the product — and what it could add to the music industry — helping its case. Hypebot recently had a piece on how musicians could use the tool, we wrote one on how venues could capitalize on it, and I just received an email from a music PR company asking its list how they plan on utilizing it.

As Spotify most likely prepares for its U.S. launch, it seems we have a new contender for the most-discussed music startup.

More About: dmca, music, startups, turntable.fm, twitter

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13 of the Most Viral Award Show Moments [VIDEOS]

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 02:33 PM PDT

These days it seems as if the terms “viral” and “award show” go hand-in-hand. Social media users stand ready to tweet the controversies that celebs seem willing to hand us on a silver platter.

Last night’s BET Awards were no different. Presenter Tiffany Greene awkwardly announced both Rihanna and Chris Brown as Viewer’s Choice winners. Later Greene acknowledged the honest mistake on Twitter.

Here we’ve compiled a collection of award show incidents and antics that sparked the conversation, online and off, as far back as the ’90s — well before YouTube and the mainstream web culture. Which one is your favorite?


1. Tiffany Greene Misreads BET Winner


Last night's mix-up at the BET Awards went viral. Presenter Tiffany Greene read the Viewer's Choice Award winner as Chris Brown, but then declared Rihanna the winner after noting a difference on the teleprompter.


2. Kanye Interrupts Taylor Swift at the MTV VMAs


In one of the most shockingly offensive award show interruptions of all time, Kanye intercepted Swift's microphone to declare Beyonce the rightful winner.


3. Faith Hill Explodes at Carrie Underwood's Win


The camera catches Faith Hill's rage after announcers proclaim Carrie Underwood the winner at the CMAs.


4. Britney Spears' Gimme More VMAs Performance


Opening the VMAs back in 2007, Britney Spears appeared dazed and clumsy as she performed "Gimme More."


5. Dolphin Activism at the Oscars


One of the winners of the award for Best Documentary used the opportunity to promote a mobile-based activism campaign.


6. Melissa Leo Drops the F-Bomb


At this year's Academy Awards, Melissa Leo cursed heavily during her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress.


7. Michael Jackson & Lisa Marie Presley VMAs Kiss


To much fanfare, Jackson nodded to Presley, saying, "Just think, nobody thought this would last." Then the two performed the viral kiss of 1994.


8. Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis Grope Each Other


Rumored couple J-Tim and Kunis told fans that they are more like brother and sister...but then proceeded to grope each other onstage.


9. Courtney Love Interrupts Madonna at VMAs


Love managed to make Madonna very uncomfortable when she interrupted the Material Girl's interview by throwing things and stumbling on set.


10. Bruno Drops Over Eminem at VMAs


In what was later proclaimed a stunt, Eminem stormed off camera when Sascha Baron Cohen's Bruno character hovered over him sans pants.


11. Christina Aguilera Stumbles at Grammys


During a performance at this year's Grammys, Aguilera fell onstage only one week after she flubbed the National Anthem at the Superbowl.


12. Britney & Madonna Kiss


At the 2003 VMAs, Madonna and Spears locked lips for one of the most famous French kisses ever.


13. Gary Busey Harasses Jennifer Garner


Busey kissed Garner on the neck and stumbles around her, making onlookers very nervous indeed.

More About: Awards, celebrities, pop culture, Tiffany Greene, videos, youtube

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HOW TO: Unify Your SEO & SEM Strategies

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 02:12 PM PDT

search image

Matt Lawson is the vice president of marketing at Marin Software, the largest paid search management provider.

For years, advertisers have run their search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) programs separately. The SEM team would focus on bidding, campaign analytics and the complex science of managing millions of keyword buys to drive maximum conversion. The SEO team lived in a world of internal and external linking, and optimizing pages to maximize reach and relevance in organic search engine results.

But today, more marketers are realizing SEM and SEO are not separate disciplines. Instead, they are two sides of the same coin — complementary programs that, when managed correctly, can benefit each other to increase conversion rates and share of voice. Insights gained when buying pay per click (PPC) keyword ads can positively impact SEO creative initiatives, while natural search queries and clickpath data can, and should, influence keyword bidding.

But how do you more closely integrate the "bid kids" with the "white hats"? How can SEM and SEO teams work together to improve results on their respective programs, increase return on search marketing investment and drive a lasting lift in conversion across the board?

Here are three practical steps every marketer can take to begin this integration.

1. Identify Overlap

The first step in combining SEO and SEM programs is to identify where the programs overlap, where they don't and where they should. Paid search advertising programs cannot be successful without top-ranking natural search results and vice versa, so you need to use your search management platform or web analytics tools to identify which keywords are performing well on both sides of the table, and see which ones are "lone wolves" driving only PPC or organic search traffic.

When SEO and SEM teams are operating independently, there are often high-volume keyword terms that drive traffic from only one of the two search channels, either paid search or natural search. When you find these terms, you can better optimize them. For example, if you have a term for which traffic is only driven through paid search clicks, there is opportunity to focus SEO efforts on obtaining organic ranking on these terms. Conversely, if your organization is generating revenue from organic search terms that don't match any of the keywords in your paid search program, there is probably some incremental revenue you can capture with paid keyword expansion.

It would be impossible to compare organic and paid search coverage on each of the millions of search terms that are driving traffic to your site with even the best analytics tools. As with all analysis on large data sets, it is important to take a management-by-exception approach. Start by identifying the high-volume and top-converting search queries in each channel. Once you have filtered to find the most impactful search queries, the next step is to evaluate how they perform.

2. Measure the Paid Click Percentage

Measuring the click-share of each channel is a better way to find coverage holes and overlap than trying to compare the number of impressions, clicks and conversions that each channel is driving. Depending on the type of tracking system you use, there are a variety of ways to get this metric. To keep it generic: Match raw query search terms across paid and organic results, sum the total clicks, then calculate the paid clicks as a percentage of that total.

This single metric, called “Paid Click Percentage,” makes it easy for advertisers to quickly identify holes in either paid or organic search coverage. For example, you can look at paid click percentages greater than 75% to quickly identify key revenue-driving terms for your paid search program that are receiving fewer clicks from organic search results. Because searchers are more inclined to click on organic results instead of ads, you know that a term with zero organic clicks must not be resulting in first-page organic results.

Sorting these terms by paid search revenue impact will give the organic search team a ranked list of queries (and landing pages) to optimize against, allowing them to more efficiently prioritize SEO projects.

After you address this, you can use the same report to identify keywords that should be added or refined in your paid search campaigns.

3. Refine, Review, Repeat

When paid and organic search channels work together, marketers get maximum revenue from both programs. Identifying holes in paid and organic search campaigns using the method described above should help improve overall performance, but remember: It is not a one-time project.

Websites and advertising programs are continually changing. This analysis should be done on a regular basis. If your organization is large enough to have disparate paid and organic search teams, set up a regular meeting between both teams to ensure your SEM and SEO programs are friends, not distant relations.

Image courtesy of Flickr, alternativemeans

More About: business, MARKETING, Search, search optimization, SEM, SEO, social media

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Mashable Weekend Recap: 19 Stories You May Have Missed

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 01:45 PM PDT


Summer’s here, and that means it’s time to relax, get outside and hang out with all your real-life friends. Meanwhile, we denizens of Mashable continue working away to find you the best in social media, gadgetry, technology and more.

We kept an eye on the world for you, and we found a lot of videos, statistics, super fun apps and even a bit of craziness here and there to keep you entertained and informed.

You missed it? Not to worry — we’ve got you covered with everything we posted this weekend, all in one place:

News Essentials

LulzSec Shuts Down, Ends Hacking Campaign

BET Awards 2011: Behind the Scenes in the Social Media Lounge [PICS]

Gay Pride Celebrations Rock the Social Media World [TWITPICS]

Employment Site Monster Starting a Network on Facebook

NASA Successfully Tests Autonomous Lander [VIDEO]

Helpful Resources

9 Steps to Consider When Valuing Your Startup

44 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed

GitHub for Mac Makes Version Control Sexy

HOW TO: Land a Job at LinkedIn

47 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed

Top 10 Twitter Trends This Week [CHART]

Weekend Leisure

10 Creative Bar Code Designs [PICS]

Superphone Battle: Galaxy S II vs Droid Bionic [INFOGRAPHIC]

Clock-watching: 12 Terrific Timepieces For Your Office [PICS]

Seagull Snatches Camcorder, Flies Into Viral Video History [VIDEO]

Our Favorite YouTube Videos This Week: The Summer Edition

Smart Design: Switch Plug Saves Power [PICS]

3 Fresh Apps for Finders, Keepers & Seekers

Remembering Michael Jackson: 10 Terrific Tributes [VIDEOS]

More About: Weekend recap

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Watch the Casey Anthony Trial Live on YouTube [VIDEO]

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 01:31 PM PDT

As the end of the weeks-long, first-degree murder trial for Casey Anthony draws near, The Orlando Sentinel is livestreaming it on YouTube.

Prosecutors say that the 25-year-old mother smothered her daughter Caylee with duct tape in 2008. She then falsely claimed that the 2-year-old had been kidnapped.

Thumbnail image via YouTube, ABCnews

More About: Casey Anderson

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Fun With Fauxlaroids: Top 10 ShakeItPhoto iPhone Snaps

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 01:21 PM PDT

If you’re always on the lookout for exciting iPhotography apps, then ShakeItPhoto is well-worth a peek.

It emulates Polaroid cameras of years gone by with realistic sound effects and fun shake-to-process functionality. To give you an idea of the app’s creative capabilities, we’ve teamed up with the Banana Camera Co. (the company behind the app) to offer you a showcase of snaps.

“We are constantly taken aback by photos we’ve found that are shot with ShakeItPhoto. What’s amazing is that professional photographers, amateur photographers, and people who’ve never picked up a ‘real’ camera can create incredibly beautiful images, and we love being a part of that,” Nick Campbell creator of ShakeItPhoto, told Mashable. “We create apps that we love to use, and we are so grateful that so many people love to use them just as much as we do.”

Campbell and brand manager Alexia Brown have hand-picked their favorite images created with the ShakeItPhoto app. Take a look through the photo gallery below for their selections, and comment below to let us know what you think of these fabulous fauxlaroids.


1. Palm Shock by Andrew Reitsma





"Reitsma called the subject of his photo 'A veritable feast for the camera,' and he captured it so beautifully. The texture is remarkable, the colors are so vibrant and nicely enhanced and framed by ShakeItPhoto."


2. Umoja by Jim Darling




"The brick wall makes a great background and the man's face shows such emotion -- both strength and sadness. The colors of ShakeItPhoto really enhance such an already brilliant shot."


3. Damaged Goods by Dirk Dallas




"We love how Dallas captured the sadness in this beat up car. It almost looks like a face, and the trees in the background make it a great scene."


4. Egypt: Shop Talk by Matthew Burlem




"This is an interesting scene with so much going on. This man on the floor with his shoes off, looking tired or perturbed, the posters, and the worn-ness of everything mixed with the bright blues and greens made this shot stand out for us."


5. The Sea Inside by Sion Fullana




"The dog in this photo seems so afraid of the water, yet the woman is calmed by it. It is such an interesting moment, so well captured."


6. Bird on a Roof by Greg Briggs




"An intense and graphic image. Love the shadows."


7. At the Dentist by Carrie Landers




"The blood is such an intense bright red, especially against the color of the sink, that the beauty of it outweighs the gross factor. "


8. Darkness by Robert-Paul Jensen




"Angry and scary, yet somewhat serene. At first glance, this looks like a painting."


9. Wave by Nicholas Corsalini




"Great action in this photo, superbly captured and well-framed."


10. Super Shoes by Jenny Markley




"Jenny always takes such clean, retro shots. This photo is typical of her style (as well as of the ShakeItPhoto brand): simple, classic, retro and fun."


BONUS: Wear by Eric Einwiller




"The color in this shot is outstanding. The blue pops so perfectly. "

More About: apple, features, galleries, gallery, iOS, iphone, iphone apps, iphoneography, iphonography, iphotography, List, mobile photography, photography, photography apps, Photos, polaroid, retro, ShakeItPhoto, vintage

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Can’t Wait for the iPhone 5? Chew on This Edible Version [VIDEO]

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 01:05 PM PDT


Each day, Mashable highlights one noteworthy YouTube video. Check out all our viral video picks.

The word on the digital street is that the iPhone 5 will be making its grand entrance in September. For those of you champing at the bit to get your hands on the device, take a bite out of this video instead.

This little vid, from Top Fruit produce, features a giant iPhone made out of fruits and veggies. Talk about foodspotting.

More About: iPhone 5, video, viral-video-of-day, youtube

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Mashable Hits 100,000 Foursquare Followers

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 12:44 PM PDT

Foursquare

It’s been about a year since Mashable joined Foursquare, and we have an exciting milestone to report: We’ve just passed 100,000 followers.

The platform has been a great way for us to connect and explore with our community. What began as an offering of tips from our reporters on tech-savvy spots across the globe has become a resource that couldn’t be possible without our fans.

When we went to Austin for SXSW and Orlando for Mashable Connect, we asked our community for tips on what to do. We received awesome advice on where to get Wi-Fi, where to find great food and even where to rent a Segway.

We’ve also used it, like our Mashable HQ Tumblr, to give you a glimpse into the inner life of Mashable. That’s why you’ll find out where we eat, hang and shop.

If you’re one of the first 100,000, thanks. If you haven’t followed us yet, we hope you’ll join us. We invite you to contribute tips for your city in the comments below.


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Can Silicon Valley-Style Entrepreneurship Help Ease the Greek Debt Crisis? [OPINION]

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 12:18 PM PDT


This post reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily those of Mashable as a publication.

Alex Christoforou is the CEO of Wadja, Inc., a social media site focused on interest based networking, with offices in Athens, Greece. You can follow Alex on Twitter and read his wadja pages.

The other day, someone told me that Silicon Valley was built on the failures endured by countless entrepreneurs. Failure in the Valley is nothing to be ashamed of, and, in many ways, is considered a badge of honor. It signifies that you had the guts, passion and desire to go for it. You took the risk and stared uncertainty down. This is how progress is made, how great companies are built and how ideas spread.

I arrived here three months ago from Athens, Greece, under an exploratory initiative by the Ministry of Education who, with the leadership of local Greek Valley VCs and entrepreneurs, had chosen my company as one of four to take residence at the Plug and Play Tech Center in Silicon Valley. We were to be part of an accelerator program that would introduce us to the Valley ecosystem. The goal for the government was to learn why and how the Valley community is so good at building businesses that change the world.

And so I find myself, for the first time in ten years, living outside of Athens, witnessing the collapse of Greece play out on CNN. I watched as angry crowds amassed in front of the Parliament, organized through Facebook pages and tweets.

It's a surreal experience to see a country you know so well unravel from so far away. We all saw this coming, and if any Greek citizen says otherwise, he is lying. Greece was the ultimate bubble, and most of society was content with that — the promise of stress-free living was impossible to pass up. Over the years, I witnessed the powers-that-be strip away all mechanisms of entrepreneurship, risk and innovation in favor of the alternatives: a bloated public sector and a guaranteed employment structure. The government (on both the left and right side of the political aisle) ensured that everyone was well-fed, regardless of competency and effectiveness, but always with the precondition that those who ruled were first to the dinner table.

And so we all played along because life was predictable and comfortable. Our homes, our jobs and our relationships were all neatly laid out for us. The government and the parea (Greek for “group of friends”) would take care of everything as long as we fell in line. We failed to realize that by removing risk, we gutted opportunity, and fell victim to our own complacencies. We are now up to our ears in debt with no means to negotiate our way out.

Now Europe, and arguably the world, seeks change in Greece. The coffers that kept us propped up for so many years are empty, and in their place is a heavy burden that must be paid back. The alternative — to simply walk away — is a road better left untraveled.

Once upon a time, Greece was the Silicon Valley of the world, full of brilliant people taking artistic, philosophical and mathematical risks. Challenging the status quo and upending common beliefs was what made the ancient Greeks so great.

So as this tragedy unfolds, I am left feeling that somehow, some way, we need to channel the free thinkers and risk takers of the Bay Area in order to build lasting and sustainable change back home. The Valley ecosystem understands that it’s hard enough developing product, defining market position and getting customers, and that red tape (an integral part of Greek society) only reduces the already low chances of success. The Valley can provide us with a plethora of structural examples that would move the business environment in Greece from hostile to friendly. But external guidelines need to be accompanied by internal change.

As a society we need to look within and change our mentality, or face dire consequences. And for this too, the Valley can serve as an example that believing in a dream and embracing its risks will help reinvent our community and country.

If I can take away one thing from my experience here and ingrain it into Greek society, it would be to move toward uncertainty, embrace the challenges ahead and find the joy in solving the problems of the present day. We need to drop the cynicism, forget the past indiscretions of our leaders (we are all guilty to some degree or another) and band together, roll up our sleeves and get to work.

The web is a force of nature unlike anything we have ever seen, and we need to recognize that tapping into this force requires trial and error. It is part of the game, and entrepreneurs play the game well.

For the last decade, Greece has been hindering entrepreneurship. Now it’s time to reverse course, embrace risk and welcome the entrepreneur back with open arms. Entrepreneurship is alive and well here in Silicon Valley, and while the semantics to overcome the debt in Greece are complicated, the spirit of the Valley entrepreneur is in the palm of our hands, splashed across the profile pages we use daily.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Nic_Taylor

More About: business, greece, op-ed, Opinion, Silicon Valley, social media, startups

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Ritz-Carlton Puts Concierge Tips on Foursquare

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 12:04 PM PDT


The Ritz-Carlton hotel chain is now offering destination advice via Foursquare. It’s the newest member of a small but growing coterie of luxury brands generating content — and thereby finding value — in location-based social networks.

The Ritz-Carlton’s Foursquare profile now includes dozens of tips about local destinations and landmarks from concierges at its 75 hotels — extending advice previously available only to patrons to anyone with a Foursquare account.

For instance guests checking in at the Massachusetts State House, might come across a suggestion to stroll around Beacon Hill, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Boston. “Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once lived here,” the tip reads. (Those who follow the Ritz-Carlton’s Foursquare account will see tips as notifications; those who do not will see it in the general “Tips” section on their app.)

Although the tips are intended in part to give the public a taste of the concierges’ range of knowledge, the service is intended primarily for Ritz-Carlton customers, Chris Gabaldon, chief marketing officer of the Ritz-Carlton, says.

“It’s part of our greater work to make sure we’re connecting with all of our customers in all of the ways they want to interact with the brand,” he says. “The affluent customer today is moving beyond online and into mobile and because they have that capability, they expect brands they know and trust to be available wherever they might look for them.”

Gabaldon dismissed the suggestion that making the tips publicly available lessened the value of the Ritz-Carlton’s concierge service. “There’s no way that you can ever fully tap into the wealth of knowledge of a concierge, their experience. [Foursquare] heightens awareness of the richness of the information they have, making it more attractive and making customers want to communicate and spend time with them,” he says.

The brand is also embracing the opportunity of connecting with a younger, more digitally savvy consumer, he says, noting that the typical Ritz-Carlton customer is “very diverse.”

Further tips will be added over time. At present, the Ritz-Carlton has no intention of rolling out the program on similar networks such as Gowalla.

Thumbnail courtesy of Flickr, Sarah Ackerman

More About: foursquare, hotels, luxury, ritz-carlton, travel

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Twitter Launches Guide for Journalists

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 11:47 AM PDT

Twitter

Twitter has become an invaluable tool for journalists when it comes to finding sources and sharing stories. Now the microblogging site has released a guide that shows reporters how to best use the tool in their daily travails.

The guide, titled “Twitter for Newsrooms,” is a little bit obvious for anyone who uses Twitter on a daily basis. There’s no new info here, just tips on how to report, engage with other users and followers and how to use tweets in the process of reporting. But the fact that Twitter has launched an official guide for journalists is indicative of the impact of social media on the news.

Facebook recently undertook a similar initiative, launching a Page for journalists on Facebook, intended to be a resource for journalists who want to incorporate social media into their reporting, networking and storytelling. The social network also kicked off a journalists meetup program.

Is Facebook or Twitter the better resource for reporters? Let us know in the comments.

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iPhone Postcard App Photogram Reaches 100,000 Downloads in First Week

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 11:35 AM PDT


Photogram, an iPhone application for sending up to four photos in one artsy digital postcard, is proving to be an early hit with mobile photo sharers. The application saw more than 100,000 downloads during its first week post release.

The figure was shared exclusively with Mashable by Photogram maker Timelines. The application’s early success is comparable to red hot social camera application Instagram, which also attracted 100,000 users in its first week.

“It fulfills a need that was previously unsatisfied,” explains Timelines CEO Bob Armour. “You can tell a story using multiple photos that are wrapped in a beautiful and memorable context and deliver it easily to people that are important to you.”

Photogram [iTunes link] has been downloaded in 152 countries, and 75% of its users are sending Photograms with three or four photos, the startup reports.

The app also appears to be especially popular with women — the startup estimates that 70% of users are female — and that’s by design.

“We targeted the app for young parents, and specifically young moms, because we felt that their needs weren't being met,” Armour says. “It seems that these needs are more universal than we expected.”

Timelines promises that a Photogram application for Android is in the works, but does not have a release date yet.

More About: mobile photos, photo sharing apps, Photogram, Photos, startup, timelines

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Tiffany Greene’s Award Reading Mix-Up Is BET Award’s Viral Moment [VIDEO]

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 11:20 AM PDT

Tiffany Greene at BET Awards

More than 500,000 tweets were shared about Sunday night's BET Awards according to a network rep, but the moment that everyone is still talking about on Monday is the awkward series of events surrounding the revelation of the "Viewer's Choice Award."

The award was initially presented on stage by Tiffany Greene, a contest winner. Reading from an HTC Evo View 4G tablet, which all presenters used to announce winners, Greene first declared Chris Brown the winner, then quickly backpeddled and said the award went to Rihanna.

Terrence Jenkins, who was also on stage, then presented the award to Drake, only to have show host Kevin Hart give the award back to Brown at the end of the broadcast.

SEE ALSO: 13 of the Most Viral Award Show Moments [VIDEOS]

Greene explained on Twitter that the tablet had said Chris Brown, but the teleprompter had said Rihanna, hence the on-stage change up (and Drake in turn accepting the award for the song he collaborated with Rihanna on, which seemed to confuse Jenkins). The AP captures the series of events in this video:

BET executive Stephen Hill quickly took to his own Twitter account to acknowledge that the error was his fault, but that hasn't stopped a plethora of tweets about Greene continuing into Monday, where she remained a trending topic on the site and a picture of the moment (and variations of it) of confusion going viral.

We were at the awards last night, which featured a variety of notable digital components in addition to the social media lounge where we watched the proceedings. You can check out our photo gallery from the evening below:


BET Awards Social Media Lounge




D'banj (@iamdbanj), who was winner of Artist of the Year at the MTV Africa Music Awards 2009.


BET Awards Social Media Lounge




LA LA (@lala) gives away a Ford Focus to a random Twitter user that used a special hashtag during the show.


BET Awards Social Media Lounge




Hosea Chanchez (@HoseaChanchez) and Pooch Hall (@iam_poochhall) from "The Game"


BET Awards Social Media Lounge




Necole Bitchie (@NECOLEBITCHIE) stops by the social media lounge.


BET Awards Social Media Lounge




Actress Meagan Good (@meagangood) stops by the social media lounge.


BET Awards Social Media Lounge




The Five Heartbeats


BET Awards Social Media Lounge




Taraji P. Henson (@therealtaraji) stops by the social media lounge.


BET Awards Social Media Lounge




One of these Twitter users will be winning a Ford Focus shortly.


BET Awards Social Media Lounge




Host Lala reads tweets from fans after Chris Brown wins the first award of the night.


BET Awards Social Media Lounge




The winners of the BET Awards will be revealed via an HTC Evo View 4G tablet.


BET Awards Social Media Lounge




Social media host LA LA (@lala) gets ready to go on camera.


BET Awards Social Media Lounge




Hosea Chanchez (@HoseaChanchez) from "The Game" with Tijuana Jackson (@tijuanajackson)


BET Awards Social Media Lounge





BET Awards Social Media Lounge





BET Awards Social Media Lounge





BET Awards Social Media Lounge





BET Awards Social Media Lounge




The 100" screen that Lala uses is touch-enabled so she can zoom in on specific updates.


BET Awards Social Media Lounge





BET Awards Social Media Lounge





BET Awards Social Media Lounge





BET Awards Social Media Lounge




More About: bet, bet awards, chris brown, drake, entertainment, rihanna, tiffany green

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Kutiman Teams Up With Boom Pam for Trippy Music Video

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 11:03 AM PDT


Each Monday, Mashable highlights an exclusive new video or song. Check out all our Music Monday picks.

YouTube mashup master Kutiman recently teamed up with Israeli surf rock band Boom Pam to create a quirky video for its growly single, “Light Up.”

We’ve covered Kutiman — a.k.a. Israel-based producer Ophir Kutiel — in the past for his musical/video creations, including a song composed entirely of mashed-up YouTube videos (“My Favorite Color”) and a music video titled “Thru-Jerusalem” that brings together local musicians to epitomize the sounds of their city. Kutiman also made it onto Time‘s “50 Best Inventions of 2009″ list for a past project, ThruYou.

Now, the artist is out with a new video in collaboration with Boom Pam, a collage of images and projections that characterize old-school rock song, “Light Up,” which guitarist Uri Brauner Kinrot says is about “spiritually lighting up.”

“It was just a test that became a video piece,” says Kutiman. “I didn’t really have any storyboard or any vision, I didn’t know what was going to come out of it. I was just playing around with it, and that was the result.”

We think the video is quite fitting for a song that is a true blending of genres: a classic rock song with Mediterranean undertones.

More About: boom pam, Kutiman, music, music monday, video

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Pope Benedict To Launch A Savvy New Vatican Web Presence

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 10:39 AM PDT


The Catholic Church is planning to take another step into the Internet age. On Wednesday, it will launch a news information portal that aggregates the Vatican’s various media into a one-stop site for all things papal.

Pope Benedict XVI will launch the site with a click of a tablet device on June 28, the 60th anniversary of his ordination into the priesthood.

The pope has overseen a number of the Vatican’s new media efforts since he was elected in 2005, including the launch of a YouTube channel, the creation of “Pope2You” mobile and Facebook apps and encouraging priests to blog.

According to The New York Times, the new social-media equipped portal, will at first aggregate Vatican news in English and Italian with other languages to follow. It will also livestream papal events, play audio feeds from Vatican Radio, and give access to texts of papal homilies, statements and speeches.

While the rather-drab-by-comparison main Vatican site launched under Pope John Paul II in 1995 will remain active, Vatican officials are hopeful that the portal will help the Church better communicate with itself and the outside world alike.

"I think that we must educate the Roman Curia of what is the real meaning of communication," Msgr. Claudio Maria Celli, who will maintain the portal, told The Times. "Little by little they will perceive that this is the real meaning to be present, to have a relevance."

A “sneak preview” of the Vatican’s new web portal, to be launched on Wednesday.

The Vatican’s main website, launched in 1995.

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There’s a New Way to Own a Piece of Facebook Before Its IPO

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 09:52 AM PDT


If you're looking to invest in Facebook before its IPO but not privy to the secondary markets where shares of the company have been trading, there's a new (albeit somewhat indirect) way to buy a stake.

The publicly traded investment fund GSV Capital announced on Monday that it has purchased 225,000 shares of Facebook at a price of $29.28 per share, which values the social network at $70 billion.

The investment represents about 15% of GSV's portfolio — enough to drive up shares of GSV (which trades on NASDAQ under the symbol GSVC) by more than 30% as of midday trading on Monday.

GSV does not currently show any other companies in its "portfolio" on its site, but the firm also recently announced an investment in Kno, a digital textbook outfit that raised $46 million in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz last year.

In a statement issued today, the company says it is "presently in the final stages with a handful of private company investments that it anticipates acquiring within the next 30 days."

More About: facebook, investing, ipo

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Song-a-Day Musician Jonathan Mann Pens Tune About Gay Marriage Bill [VIDEO]

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 09:38 AM PDT

Jonathan Mann has been writing and recording one song per day, every day, since January 1, 2009, for what he has dubbed the Song a Day project. Mann’s jams often touch on news and current events (in a humorous fashion), so it’s not surprising that today’s song — premiering on Mashable — is about the gay marriage bill that just passed in New York.

SEE ALSO: Rainbow Empire State Building Pic Goes Viral on Twitter

Since June 1, Mann has been adding another dimension to his project. After launching a successful Kickstarter campaign in April, Mann got together the funds to create a Song a Day album.

Teaming up with a group of his friends — collaboration is a first for Mann — the musician has been writing and recording more polished songs every day this month. Those sessions will result in a disc that will drop on September 28 — the day of his 1,000th song. Mann and Co. have been livestreaming their efforts on a dedicated website, taking votes on which 10 songs will appear on the album.

“I don’t really have any reason to stop at this point,” Mann says when asked if the 1,000th song will be his last. “With the law of physics and stuff, it just would be easier to keep going that it would be to stop.”

More About: jonathan-mann, music, song-a-day, video, youtube

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Analyst: Expect iPhone 5 in September

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 09:19 AM PDT


A Morgan Stanley analyst is pushing the iPhone 5 rumor mill into hyperdrive with reports that Apple will start production on its next phone this August.

Last week, analyst Katy Huberty met with unnamed individuals in Taiwan. After the meeting, Huberty sent a note to clients stating that “Apple’s next iPhone will begin production in mid to late August and ramp aggressively.” The note went on to say that consumers could expect to see the new handset sometime at the end of Apple’s third quarter, which wraps up in September.

SEE ALSO: iPhone 5 Rumor Roundup [INFOGRAPHIC]

Financial analysts are rarely the best sources for solid information on product release cycles, however, Huberty’s predictions do align with Apple’s projected iOS 5 time table.

At WWDC earlier this month, Apple revealed iOS 5 to developers with a planned release date of “Fall 2011.” Thus far, two beta versions of the software for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad are available to developers. Historically, Apple has aligned major iOS releases with new iPhone hardware.

Apple typically releases new iPod devices at the end of September, usually in conjunction with a new feature from the iTunes ecosystem. This year, Apple has announced its greater iCloud music strategy. Parts of the service are already available to users, with the full product launching this fall in-conjunction with iOS 5.

A September iPhone 5 release would also allow Apple to compete against other Android and Windows Phone handsets, leading up to the holiday shopping season.

[via AppleInsider]

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HOW TO: Claim Your Business On Facebook Places

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 09:00 AM PDT


This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Facebook Places is essentially free word-of-mouth advertising for your business. When customers check in, they’ll automatically be telling their Facebook friends about it. If you run a small business with a street entrance, there’s a good chance that it’s already a part of Facebook Places — with or without your input.

By claiming your Page, you have the opportunity to customize that free advertising. It also makes it easy to purchase pay-per-click advertising for your Places page.

Here’s how to get started.


1. Add Your Business To Facebook Places




Open the Facebook app on your mobile phone. Depending on which device you have, you'll either hit "Places" or "Check In" on the home screen of the app. Type the name of your business in the search bar. If there's no listing for your business, there will be an option in the search results menu to add it. You can do so by adding a description and selecting "add."

If your business has already been added to Facebook Places, you can skip this step.


2. Search For Your Business On Facebook




Open Facebook on your desktop and search for your business. Click on the Places result.


3. Claim Your Place




Beneath the image on the Places page there is a hyperlink that says, "Is this your business?" If it is, you can click it to start the verification process.


4. Verify Your Listing




Before Facebook will let you edit the page, they ask for either a business email address or a document that has your name and business' name on it. After you supply either, it can take as long as a week for Facebook to confirm your request.

Important Questions

Boingo & GoGo Unite, But Ignore Your Air Travel Wi-Fi Woes

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 08:09 AM PDT


Budget conscious Wi-Fi addicts have for some time faced a dilemma when traveling by airplane: Should they pay Boingo to use the Wi-Fi on the ground or pay GoGo to use it in the sky?

On Monday, Boingo provided a glimmer of hope for seamless Wi-Fi when it announced that its customers would now be able to log into GoGo using their existing Boingo accounts.

But users will benefit from the relationship only by avoiding the hassle of maintaining two separate accounts. GoGo’s in-flight Wi-Fi is not included in Boingo’s unlimited monthly subscriptions, and users will be charged for a $5 to $13 GoGo flight pass regardless of which plan they have with the startup’s grounded rhyming counterpart.

While the partnership might not be the unification of airport and airplane Wi-Fi we’ve been hoping for, it does make good business sense.

Boingo will add more than 1,100 planes from nine carriers to its list of Wi-Fi hotspots, thereby providing what is, according to a statement, their most-requested service enhancement.

Meanwhile, GoGo gets access to the customer base that Boingo has established with hotspots in 60 airports that cover 40% of all passenger traffic in North America.

More About: airport, boingo, GoGo, travel, wi-fi

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Breakup Leads to Explosion in New Video From InnerPartySystem

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 07:42 AM PDT


Each Monday, Mashable highlights an exclusive new video or song. Check out all our Music Monday picks.

Forget tears — every breakup song should include an explosion, like the one that caps InnerpartySystem’s new video for the jam, “Not Getting Any Better.”

The song is from the electronica band‘s latest EP, Never Be Content, which dropped in February.

“I like that they’re not exactly the same thing,” says the band’s drummer Jared Piccone of the song and video. “The song is definitely the story of someone yearning to be back with their significant other, so much that it’s super unhealthy, mentally.”

The video, on the other hand is a skittery jumble of illustrations and images all leading up to one, big bang.

“The song has such urgency to it, toward the end where it’s like, ‘I can’t take it anymore,’” Piccone says. “I like how even though the story in the video is a little different — it actually explodes — it’s kind of like the same feeling of urgency. You have to get out. It’s all falling apart.”

Check it out whilst ruing all your weekend-induced mistakes.

More About: innerpartystsem, music monday, video

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