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New location-based social search tool FourWhere shows Foursquare tips and comments using Google Maps so you can search and discover what everyone is saying about nearby places.

Users simply input a location or address into FourWhere, right-click (control click) on the map and select display preferences. The map can display all comments nearby, all venues in the vicinity and/or remove venues without tips.

It’s a simple app with a powerful purpose. For those of us preparing to journey out to Austin for SXSW, FourWhere’s release couldn’t have come at a better time. A search around the downtown area yields comments with insightful information about restaurants and bars. Essentially the application offers a map-based search experience for socialites looking to plan a fun night out.

FourWhere currently only pulls in data from Foursquare, but Sysomos, the company behind the app, has plans to integrate more social data in the future.

Reviews: Foursquare

Tags: foursquare, fourwhere, location-based, sysomos

Facebook’s move into location has seemed inevitable for some time, and it now appears that the company will officially reveal its plans at next month’s Facebook developer conference – f8.

According to The New York Times, the social network will incorporate location in two ways: (1) its own features for sharing location and (2) APIs to let other apps – like Foursquare and Gowalla – offer location services to Facebook users.

Presumably, Facebook will make sure to address privacy issues with its location features — for example, perhaps with settings that allow you to share your location only with a select group of friends. The Times’ report doesn’t detail the specifics of such features, though it notes that the social network updated its privacy policy late last year in preparation for a location launch.

Facebook will be rolling out its location features to an enormous user base — there are now more than 400 million users of the social network in total, 100 million of which access the site via mobile regularly. The company also has its own native apps for all of the major mobile platforms. All of this gives Facebook’s location features an enormous edge over the competition.

The Times’ report suggests that the competition isn’t the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla, however, but rather Google and its huge base of local small business advertisers. Of course, the startups aren’t ignoring this opportunity either — earlier today, Foursquare shared details of upcoming features it plans to release to help local businesses utilize checkin data.

With Facebook entering the space though, the other players will need to look to create value in ways beyond check-ins and knowing where your friends are located at any given point in time. That’s why Foursquare seems to be so focused on partnerships and gaming, while Gowalla is making moves (as recently as last night) in virtual goods.

In any event, location remains the huge trend so far in 2010, and literally each day seems to bring new indications of which way it will all play out.

Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Google, Gowalla

Tags: facebook, foursquare, social networking, trending

Mashable and the Google Wave team are proud to announce the Google Wave API Challenge, a month-long competition to create exciting new Google Wave extensions.

Google Wave’s latest updated clean API and new extension abilities allow for faster development, more opportunities for integrations and lots of exciting potential for many new Google Wave use cases. We invite developers from around the world to showcase their latest extensions.

Over the next several weeks, Mashable and the Google Wave team will be showcasing and discussing the most interesting submissions.

There will be 3 voting categories: Most Fun, Most Useful and Best Use of the Embed API. We’ll then pick a Judge’s Choice as the overall winner.

The winning developer/development team will receive 2 unlocked Nexus Ones, see their extension featured on Mashable AND receive free passes to the Google I/O conference.

4 Step Submission Process
Step 1: Developers install the “Mashable submitty extension” from the public read-only wave
Step 2: After installing this, you’ll get a “New Mashable Submission” in your new wave menu
Step 3: Just use our “Mashable Submitty” Google Extension and fill out the form.
Step 4: After approving valid entries, we’ll create a public discussion wave with entries including a voting gadget.

Timeline:
Submissions Open: March 8th, 2010
Submissions Close: April 9th, 2010 11:59 PM EST
Public Voting on Top 20 submissions: April 12th, 2010 – April 19th, 2010
Winner Announced: April 21st, 2010

Rules:
• Developer or Developer Team (Preferred max of 4 names submitted)
• Existing Extensions are eligible only if they use the new API (ports to the new API are fine)
• Full Credit for any work due must be entered in April 9th, 2010
• Over 18 to receive prize
• Final winning submission will be judged exclusively by Mashable and Google Wave team

Reviews: Google, Google Wave, Mashable

Tags: contest, Google, Google Wave, google wave api challenge

This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.

Name: ShiftPlanning

Quick Pitch: ShiftPlanning Provides free employee scheduling tools to businesses of all sizes.

Genius Idea: ShiftPlanning is a web-based tool for companies that want a way to easily and efficiently manage work schedules and availability.

Schedule management, especially for companies or individuals who work remotely, can be difficult. Sure, you can use stuff like Google Docs and Basecamp for setting company-wide events, but once you have more than a handful of employees, keeping track of all that information can be tough.

ShiftPlanning is a suite of shift and scheduling tools that both employers and employees can use. You can use the system to set up multiple schedules, trade shifts, handle vacation days and requests, and to create a record of availability.

We like that ShiftPlanning doesn’t keep your data behind its walled garden; you can print or export files, access the site from your mobile phone and even integrate the system into your own website.

ShiftPlanning is free and worth checking out if you have problems managing schedules and employee shifts in your business or organization. What tools do you use to manage schedules? Let us know!

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is 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.

Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”

Reviews: Basecamp, Google Docs, PHP, ShiftPlanning

Tags: business, scheduling, shiftplanning, web apps

3D is set to be big this year, and Samsung is hoping to tempt early adopters with a promotional offer that attempts to combat one of 3D TV’s main problems — lack of content — by bundling in a 3D movie with certain sales.

The promotion takes the form of a new “Starter Kit” that offers U.S. consumers the chance to enjoy 3D movies in their own living rooms, rather than having to head to nearest cinema to check out the eye-popping action.

In 2010, Samsung will offer a range of 3D-capable TVs, including the LED 7000/8000/9000 Series, LCD 750 Series and the Plasma 7000/8000 Series. Still, just two models will actually hit shop shelves this month: 46-inch and 55-inch models of the LED C7000.

The promotional Starter Kit will see anyone who buys a 2010 Samsung 3D TV and 3D Blu-ray Player or Home Theater System getting two pairs of Samsung 3D active glasses and a 3D version of DreamWorks Animation’s Monsters vs. Aliens on Blu-ray with 3D Shrek promised in the second half of the year.

As well as 3D abilities, the new LED TVs offer Internet@TV connectivity with the new Samsung App Store on board. To give you an idea of what you’ll have to cough up to go 3D in the comfort of your own home, pricing for the TVs alone ranges from $380 to $7,000.

Samsung’s 3D range arrives ahead of Sony’s due this summer and just a day ahead of Panasonic’s, due to launch in conjunction with Best Buy in the States on March 10.

Will you be splashing out for three-dimensional television? Let us know in the comments below.

Reviews: Blu

Tags: 3D, 3dtv, dreamworks, samsung, televisions

Marketers and agencies may at last surrender to the inevitable logic in having women not just create, but manage the development of conversations with other women.

The Foursquare platform currently caters to consumers and offers businesses the ability to provide specials. Today, however, we’re learning more information about a business dashboard — complete with checkin analytics — that’s being gradually rolled out to business owners.

While the dashboard is still an alpha product, it’s already able to make the distinction between staff and customers, and tracks checkins on a daily, weekly, 30/60/90-day or all-time basis.

Data includes total checkins, unique visitors, male-to-female ratio, social media-sharing (i.e. showing how many users are sending their checkins to Twitter), top visitors and checkin time breakdown. Users can opt-out of sharing their checkin data via settings section of the website.

According to The New York Times’ Bits blog, “Business owners will also be able to offer instant promotions to try to engage new customers and keep current ones,” and, “there will also be a Staff page available to each business that will allow employees to interact directly with customers using social networks.”

When we followed up with Tristan Walker of Foursquare we also learned that as of right now 30 venue owners have access to the new tool, which the company has been testing for a week. In the coming weeks, Foursquare plans to introduce the insightful utility to all businesses running specials with the company — close to 1,000 businesses.

Real-World Meets Checkin

This is just the beginning of the business dashboard, as Walker tells us that the company has plans to continue to innovate and integrate real-world phenomena with its valuable checkin data. For example, Walker tells us that Foursquare is “thinking about … correlating checkins with weather patterns,” so “for a merchant offering incentives there may be a way for them to offer better incentives on rainy days.”

But that’s just scratching the service. Remember Tasti D-Lite’s re-imagining of the customer loyalty program? The new TreatCard uses Foursquare’s API to automatically check customers into venues and tie purchase information with rewards. Tasti D-Lite’s Foursquare checkin/purchase setup sets the stage for the day when the business dashboard will include purchase information, to which Walker says, “Once we can add purchase information on top of checkins things can get pretty interesting.”

This is all fine and dandy for the neighborhood coffee shop or local bar, and very much supersedes what Yelp provides or Google offers businesses via Place Pages, but what about the Starbucks of the world? Clearly this type of analysis — if it could scale — would be killer for big businesses interested in tracking their trending venues and discerning what works by location.

Walker admits that the company will need to make adjustments to allow for aggregation, but that the dashboard will be for everyone. And while he wouldn’t give us any names, he did say, “We’ve been talking with quite a few [large corporations] who are excited about the potential for this.”

At the end of the day, the business features further contribute to Foursquare changing the world as we know it. In a previous post on the subject matter, I wrote that Foursquare was redefining what it meant to be a regular and pioneering a deeper connection between place and patron. Given that businesses using Foursquare will soon be able to interact with their checked-in customers, those two assertions are now more true than ever.

Just as businesses see a huge advantage to interacting with potential and existing customers (and naysayers) on Twitter, so too will they experience the same advantages on Foursquare, but with even more incentives and a plethora of data at their fingertips.

[img credits: MariSheibely, Bits]

Reviews: Foursquare, Google, Twitter, Yelp

Tags: business dashboard, foursquare, MARKETING, social media

Tweetie for Mac is the newest bonus edition to the MacHeist nanoBundle 2, which gives Mac users an opportunity to buy a variety of software for a discounted price. Additionally, buyers will also get early access to the pre-public beta for Tweetie 2 for Mac, plus a free upgrade to Tweetie 2 once it is released.

When Loren “Atebits” Brichter released Tweetie 2 for the iPhone last fall, one of the biggest new features in the app was that it was completely rewritten in such a way that the desktop version of Tweetie for Mac and the iPhone version could share the same codebase. From a development standpoint, that means that adding new features to both apps would be easier and more streamlined.

Tweetie for Mac is still a great Twitter client — especially for users like me who like to avoid Adobe AIR whenever possible — but it has grown a bit long-in-the-tooth, when compared with either its iPhone counterpart or some other newer Mac alternatives. That’s why getting early access to Tweetie 2 for Mac is so compelling. It’s a nice rejoinder to fans who have wanted to get updates on the status of Tweetie for Mac, while also offering up some promotion for the new version in the process.

One note about how MacHeist works: Users get licenses for most apps immediately upon purchase, but some apps have an “unlock” number that needs to be reached before serials are given out. Now, this is largely a marketing technique (I’ve never seen any MacHeist that didn’t end with all apps being unlocked for all buyers), but you might not get your Tweetie for Mac license until tomorrow afternoon (or whenever the “magic” number of sales hits).

MacHeist is $19.95 for eight apps (including Tweetie for Mac), plus you can get three other apps for free by taking part in a MacHeist “Tweetblast.” The sale runs through tomorrow night and the Tweetie 2 alpha preview is expected to start sometime next month.

What is your favorite Twitter client for Mac?

Reviews: Twitter, adobe AIR, tweetie

Tags: apple, mac apps, mac software, macheist, software, tweetie, tweetie 2 for mac, tweetie for mac

New Academy Award-winner Jeff Bridges reprises his role as arcade regular and computer programming genius Flynn in the trailer for Tron Legacy, which just made its official web debut today. The film is a long-anticipated sequel to the 1980s geek classic Tron, and this is the first full-length trailer.

The film (or at least the trailer) focuses on Flynn’s son, who goes looking for his father in the now-abandoned arcade that was the launching point for the first movie, only to find him in a more technologically advanced version of the fantastic and dangerous virtual world introduced in the first film (which won much acclaim for special effects).

Since the franchise has always been about the latest in filmmaking technology, Tron Legacy will be presented in 3D. A 3D trailer actually premiered before select showings of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Tron fans traveled from distant cities to see it. The movie is also trending on Twitter right now, so we think this has the makings of a hit.

Disney plans to release Tron Legacy on December 17, believing that it will draw a big audience during the lucrative holiday season.

We know many Mashable readers are going to be interested in seeing this film, but does it have any chance of living up to the iconic original? Watch the trailer and leave a comment letting us and other readers know what you think.

Watch the Trailer

Reviews: Mashable

Tags: 3D, disney, Film, jeff bridges, Movies, trailer, tron legacy, video

Rebecca Zook is an online female math tutor who has been helping students get math into their brains for seven years. She blogs about learning at Triangle Suitcase.

Over half a million votes were cast to decide Barbie’s newest career. But even though Computer Engineer Barbie was developed in consultation with the Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering, the new doll’s appearance has sparked controversy.

While some have embraced coder Barbie, others have attacked the concept, saying that her pink laptop, sparkly leggings, and trendy glasses are “too feminine” to be realistic.

The critics imply that real coders aren’t feminine, and feminine coders aren’t real. But women shouldn’t feel like they have to stop being feminine to work in technology.

The First Computer Programmer Was a Fashionista

That’s right. The first coder was a lady. Ada Lovelace, over a century ahead of her time, is widely considered to be the first computer programmer. She was the first person to conceptualize and articulate what computers were capable of doing, and the first to foresee that computers could create artificial intelligence, generate graphics, and create music.

So, is Barbie’s outfit really that unrealistic? If the very first person to conceptualize a computer did so while wearing a girly up-do and a frilly gown, why can’t someone write great code while wearing pink platform crocs and a t-shirt that spells “BARBIE” in binary?

Women and Tech Today

This false dichotomy — that you have to choose between being feminine and “looking the part” of a mathematician or scientist — might be part of what turns girls off from math and science in the first place.

Or maybe girls don’t aim for careers in math and science because they don’t see role models. Even Ada Lovelace had role models. Her mom, the “Princess of Parallelograms,” loved math and gave Lovelace a very intensive math education. And Lovelace was also mentored by legendary female science writer and polymath Mary Somerville.

Or maybe girls are afraid of being the only woman in their technology courses or workplaces. If that’s the case, their concerns are certainly warranted. Not only are fewer women entering the information technology field, but more women are leaving the field mid-career.

A recent Harvard Business Review report, The Athena Factor, notes that “52% of highly qualified females working for SET [science, engineering, and technology] companies quit their jobs, driven out by hostile work environments and extreme job pressures.” These women report that they lack mentors and feel intense isolation in the workplace.

Coder Barbie and the Future

In 2010, maybe Computer Engineer Barbie would feel uncomfortable writing code on a pink laptop that matched her glasses in a workplace where she was outnumbered by men 25-to-1. But perhaps we should aspire to create a world where Computer Engineer Barbie and her gloriously pink accessories could realistically exist. Allowing a vision of an ultra-feminine computer engineer might, even subconsciously, open girls — and the rest of society — up to the possibility.

As a female math tutor, I used to feel the need to “tone down” my feminine style. I’d wear black slacks when working with my students for fear of appearing “unprofessional.” But then I decided to show my true fashion colors and wear my homemade dresses and sparkly barrettes when tutoring.

Since then, some kids have been openly relieved when they met me and found I didn’t look like their stereotype of a math tutor. The “math geek” stereotype in their brains was more intimidating and less fun than the real-life tutor wearing fuzzy pink boots.

You don’t have to choose between looking feminine and being good at math, science, and engineering. We need all kinds of people, all kinds of minds, and all kinds of geeks to solve our technology problems.

More tech resources from Mashable:

- 10 Essential Chrome Extensions for Web Developers
- 10 Popular Firefox Add-ons for Web Developers
- 5 Must-Have Geek Collectibles

Tags: barbie, careers, coder, computer engineer, girls, Kids, mathematics, programming, Science, tech, trending, women

Cisco has announced a new routing system that it says is going to speed up the Internet in a big way. According to the company, Cisco CRS-3 — currently being tested by AT&T — is three times faster than its predecessor, which was introduced in 2004.

The company offers a few intriguing sound bites about the CRS-3 and what it enables:

- the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress to be downloaded in just over one second

- every man, woman and child in China to make a video call, simultaneously

- every motion picture ever created to be streamed in less than four minutes.

Of course, that’s not for end users, but ultimately allows the telecom companies (Cisco’s customers) to route traffic around the Internet faster. Speaking to the reasoning behind the new speed push, Cisco CEO John Chambers says in the video below that he expects Internet traffic to grow at “200-500 percent per year” as bandwidth-intensive activities like downloading and streaming video continue to explode.

At the same time, Google has its own ideas for speeding up the Internet, and is currently looking to test its own fiber network to deliver 1 gigabit per second Internet connections (and Topeka, Kansas wants in!). One way or another, it looks like the Internet is only going to continue to get faster.

Here’s Chambers’s video and another with more of the nitty-gritty details of CRS-3:

Reviews: Google

Tags: cisco, crs-3

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Apple went big on TV for the new iPad with multiple spots during the Oscars telecast, but don't expect "Meet iPad" to do huge numbers on the web.

Launching in beta today, Go Tribal tackles the other side of the equation from formal event services like Meetup or Plancast by helping members organize informal group plans. By identifying when users are free and available to hang out, Go Tribal hopes to eliminate some of the hassle involved in coordinating friends for spontaneous group activities.

Targeted primarily towards women, Go Tribal’s goal is to facilitate meaningful offline interaction via simple technology that lets users see which of their friends is “down to hang out” at any given time. Members can set status indicators for upcoming dates, allowing peer groups to identify the best times to arrange informal get-togethers. Once a group has agreed upon a physical meetup, members can coordinate on the specifics of time and place, plus use existing social networks like Facebook and Twitter to further socialize the event and send out more invites.

We spoke with Founder and CEO Shruti Challa about the service, which will be open to the first 10,000 signups in the U.S. for now. She said the inspiration for Go Tribal arose naturally out of the young founding team (which also includes Chris Baclig, Eric Ma and Amara Humphry), who upon recent graduation from Stanford discovered a lack of tools for maintaining existing friendships in the physical world.

“Technology seemed to be getting further away from creating and sustaining relationships in real life. Facebook and Twitter seemed distant, and we wanted to use technology to help create a physical connection,” Challa said of the new startup.

Future plans for Go Tribal include integrating more contextual local search and information tools to help members decide where to spend their group time once they settle on a date and time to get together. The startup also plans to eventually work more closely with businesses to help groups influence decisions when they’re actually being made — imagine a coalesced social group with some bargaining power to “shop around” for potential deals and experiences that clubs or venues might be willing to offer in exchange for securing business from a large group.

With an interesting twist on local and informal group event organization and a smart road map ahead, Go Tribal is a social service to watch. If you have a chance to check out the service, let us know what you think. What features would you want to see in a service facilitating informal meetups?

Reviews: Facebook, Twitter

Tags: Events, facebook, go tribal, informal plans, meetup, social media, startups, twitter

Ask any Kindle owner about browsing the web on the device, and you’ll get the same answer: Well, you can do it, but… And then you’ll hear how abysmal the browsing experience really is. Having tried it myself, it made me want to whip out my iPhone and its Safari at each turn.

Now, the folks at Webmonkey have noticed that Amazon has posted a job listing (the listing has been online for quite a while, but has only now been noticed), looking for a software development engineer to “design and implement new features” on an “innovative Embedded Web Browser.”

While it’s the current Kindle’s monochrome, slowish screen will never provide a beautiful browsing experience, improvements could definitely be made to the current browser. With the iPad coming to the U.S. market in less than a month, Amazon needs to do damage control in all areas in which Apple’s device is superior to the Kindle, and building a better web browser is probably a priority.

The real question, however, is this: Will users prefer the readability of the e-ink screen or the more beautiful (but perhaps less enjoyable when you’re reading a book), backlit color LCD? Or will a new technology emerge, connecting the best of both worlds? For example, Kindle doesn’t have a touchscreen, but Sony’s e-readers have shown that it is possible to have one on an e-ink display, at the expense of some glare. We’ll have some (but not all) answers when the iPad finally hits the market.

In the meantime, tell us what you think. Will Kindle (with its current e-ink screen) ever provide a good or even great browsing experience? Please write your opinion in the comments.

Tags: amazon, browser, Kindle, trending

A couple of days ago Foursquare’s iPhone application disappeared from the iPhone App Store due to a “hiccup.” If you doubted that was true, worry no more, as the application is back in the store.

Here’s the official explanation of what happened:

“Last week, Foursquare accidentally released to the App Store a new version of its app before it was totally ready. It was pulled shortly after, unfortunately, many users had already went through the update, and were left stuck with a non-functioning app.”

The version currently available is 1.6.1, but the folks at Foursquare say that the redesigned 1.7 update should appear in a few days.

Reviews: Foursquare

Tags: app store, apple, foursquare, iphone, Mobile 2.0, mobile app

John Gruber of Daring Fireball has an interesting story about the absence of certain iPhone apps — Stocks, Calculator, Clock, Weather, Voice Memos — on the iPad.

It seems that these apps, when scaled up to iPad’s bigger screen, simply didn’t look good enough to Steve Jobs, so he decided to scrap them. Gruber writes:

“Ends up that just blowing up iPhone apps to fill the iPad screen looks and feels weird, even if you use higher-resolution graphics so that nothing looks pixelated. So they were scrapped by you-know-who. Perhaps they’ll appear on the iPad in some re-imagined form this summer with OS 4.0, but when the iPad ships next month, there won’t be versions of these apps.”

If true, it would be a pity, because these are quite basic, no-brainer apps that everyone uses, especially Clock, Calculator and the Weather. On the other hand, if these simple apps don’t look good enough scaled up, how will all those thousands of third-party apps look? As far as apps go, the iPad experience (at least in the beginning) might turn out to be something that Apple otherwise struggles to avoid: good enough, but far from perfect.

Tags: apple, ipad, iphone

Foursquare is battling for your SXSW checkins with a musical scavenger hunt. Rival Gowalla is going to go after them with free gadgets — specifically free Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus devices as part of a promotion the location-based social networking service is unveiling in conjunction with their just-launched app for webOS.

The app should hit the Palm App Catalog on Tuesday, and like the company’s applications for other platforms (including its recently launched Android app) it detects your location to show you nearby venues, lets you know where your friends are located, and has a gaming element called “stamps” that can be accrued as you check in to various places.

The SXSW connection is part of a push by Gowalla into virtual goods. Users will be able to discover virtual Palm Pre and Pixi devices as they use the application (essentially, the more you use it, the better your chances –- it’s random), and then be able to redeem those at specific parties at the festival to get the actual device. Another partner –- Lomography –- has inserted virtual cameras into Gowalla, that once found can also be redeemed for free gear.

This is one way Gowalla hopes to differentiate itself from the competition, and, truth be told, it’s not a bad one. No one wants to leave an event like SXSW empty-handed, and by teaming up with brands to offer free gadgets to users at an event that will be loaded with tech enthusiasts could encourage some splitting (or at least doubling up) of the checkins across services.

Now that Gowalla’s starting to catch up in terms of platform support, much of the battle might come down to marketing — where Foursquare has also recently invested heavily by forming partnerships with a host of media companies.

In any event, here’s a look at some of the features of the webOS app:

Which service will you be using to check in at SXSW? Let us know in the comments!

Reviews: Foursquare, Gowalla

Tags: gowalla, palm, webOS

Today at the #140tc Twitter Conference in Seattle, Washington (which I keynoted this morning), HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes announced that its popular Twitter application will be integrating with both MySpace and Foursquare, starting this week at the South by Southwest Interactive conference.

HootSuite is one of the more popular Twitter applications, one specifically geared towards power users and businesses. It has been on a roll recently, launching integration with Wordpress and rolling out new updates to its iPhone and Android Apps.

While Mr. Holmes didn’t divulge many details about the MySpace and Foursquare integrations, we can make some educated guesses as to how they will work. MySpace integration will most likely look the same as it does in Tweedeck: You’ll gain access to your MySpace feed and gain the ability to update your MySpace status.

The Foursquare integration is far more interesting. It could possibly be part of the iPhone and Android apps, as Foursquare is a mobile application and not really meant for the desktop (though we won’t discount the possibility of some web integration).

We don’t know the full details yet, but being able to check in and shout via Hootsuite could be a killer use for the Hootsuite app, making it potentially even more useful than Tweetie, TweetDeck or Seesmic for mobile.

We’ll be sure to ask Mr. Holmes more about these integrations soon and get you more details.

Thanks to Shauna Causey for her help on this post.

Reviews: Android, Foursquare, HootSuite, MySpace, Seesmic, TweetDeck, Twitter, iPhone, tweetie

Tags: foursquare, hootsuite, myspace, twitter

Google’s latest blog post has revealed what Oscars-related searches topped the hot search list during the Oscars.

This is probably no surprise to most of you: Some of the most popular searches were related to stars’ fashion choices. So who topped the list? The leading fashion-related searches were Zoe Saldana’s elaborate, purple Givenchy dress, Miley Cyrus’s Jenny Packham number and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Designers who were popular in Google searches included Armani Prive, Elie Saab and Marchesa, who were worn by Amanda Seyfried, Anna Kendrick and Sandra Bullock, respectively.

The Hurt Locker led movie title searches — not surprising since it was a (comparatively) limited release that swept the awards at Avatar’s expense. The Hurt Locker also got a lot of blogger buzz. Precious, Avatar and A Serious Man performed well in searches too, but not nearly as well as director Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq war drama.

Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock won Best Actor and Best Actress respectively, so it’s no surprise that they led in Google searches. Sandra Bullock’s victory speech prompted quite a few searches when she mentioned a kiss with Meryl Streep.

Industry figures who were memorialized after they passed away this year got quite a few searches, including director John Hughes, whose memorial by Matthew Broderick and Molly Ringwald prompted viewers to look up several of his films, including Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

The blog post is simply more evidence that though Google’s a useful tool for tracking trends, it’s also a fascinating and amusing toy for taking a peek at the public zeitgeist.

Reviews: Google

Tags: a serious man, academy awards, amanda seyfried, anna kendrick, armani prive, avatar, celebrities, elie saab, fashion, ferris bueller's day off, Film, Google, jeff bridges, jenny packham, john hughes, marchesa, matthew broderick, meryl streep, miley cyrus, molly ringwald, Oscars, oscars-2010, precious, sanda bullock, sarah jessica parker, Search, sixteen candles, television, the breakfast club, the hurt locker, zoe saldana

The Social Analyst is a weekly column by Mashable Co-Editor Ben Parr, where he digs into social media trends and how they are affecting companies in the space.

Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; YouTube; Wordpress: these companies, built from the ground-up, are mainstays in social media. None of them were created by a large tech company, and all but one remains independent.

It’s an interesting phenomenon, when you think about it. Large tech companies have had limited to no success creating their own social media home runs. In an era where communication is increasingly taking place on these channels, the inability of these digital giants to build social networks is rather striking.

Two titans in particular are making social media headlines for different reasons: Yahoo has decided not to create it own social network, but is instead striking partnership deals with Facebook and Twitter. Google on the other hand, not only bought YouTube, but it is attempting to carve out its own piece of the social media pie with Google Buzz.

Partnership vs. in-house development; content vs. technology; Yahoo vs. Google: which company has the right social media strategy? What are the goals of both companies in the social realm? Do either have a chance against new and nimble startups like Facebook and Twitter?

Let’s take a look, shall we?

The Yahoo Strategy: Partner in Order to Drive Traffic

In 2006, Yahoo made a $1+ billion bid for Facebook. As we all know, Yahoo failed to close that deal and the story ever since has been the rise of Facebook and the slow decline of Yahoo, who was nearly acquired by Microsoft for over $40 billion in 2008.

Now with new leadership (led by CEO Carol Bartz), Yahoo is trying to make a turnaround and bring back some of the authority it once commanded. The Internet portal is turning to social media as a cornerstone of its growth strategy, but it isn’t focused on acquiring a Twitter or building its own social network, but on creating partnerships that integrate every facet of Yahoo into social networks, primarily Facebook and Twitter.

In September 2009, Yahoo announced that it would integrate Facebook Connect in its most popular web properties. The goal was to truly make Yahoo your portal to the web by not only delivering news, email, and finances, but also your social graph and the status updates of your friends. On the flip side, Yahoo would also benefit from the traffic bump that comes with sharing articles and content on Facebook’s news feed.

Yahoo has continued to push this partnership strategy in recent months. Two weeks ago, Yahoo partnered with Twitter to give users access to their Twitter feed from within Yahoo, update their status, and integrate Twitter content into the company’s search and media properties. A few days ago, Yahoo Mail hooked up with Facebook, the first integration between Facebook Connect and Yahoo.

Yahoo seems content in partnering with the major social services, rather than compete with them. Social media efforts like Yahoo Buzz, the tech giant’s answer to Digg, which hasn’t made a dent in the social voting powerhouse, have likely left a bitter taste in the mouths of its executives. Yahoo is now focused on using social media to generate traffic, eyeballs, and engagement times.

The Google Strategy: Dominate

Google’s strategy goes in a completely different direction to Yahoo’s approach; its strategy is also all over the map.

Like Yahoo, Google doesn’t have a good record in social media. Google Friend Connect isn’t even close to Facebook Connect in terms of adoption, Orkut never made inroads in the U.S., Blogger has nowhere near the traction of WordPress, and other acquisitions such as Jaiku and Dodgeball haven’t panned out.

You’d have a very good argument if you said that Google’s only social media hit has been YouTube, and that “only” cost the company $1.65 billion. Google has a lot more social properties than many people realize, but it’s a hodgepodge of acquisitions (Blogger, YouTube, Picasa) and internally-created services (Orkut, Google Knol, Friend Connect). The company’s batting average, though, has been pretty poor, especially by Google’s standards.

That was before Google Buzz, though. With the launch of its most advanced social product yet, Google’s strategy has finally begun to emerge, and it is a good one. If Google can stir up adoption for Buzz (which it has via Gmail), keep that engagement (this remains to be seen), and launch a standalone version of its social media tool, it can carve out a piece of the (very large) social media pie. Linking or integrating it to YouTube, Picasa, Orkut, Friend Connect, and its other social tools could provide a boost to those services as well.

There’s no reason to believe Google will succeed with Buzz, given Google’s social media track record. However, Buzz is the most complete product Google has put out yet and has some strong engagement numbers. It’s riskier than Yahoo’s strategy, but the payoff could be be titanic.

Google and Yahoo Are Very Different Companies

Yahoo’s strategy is focused around integrations with already-popular social services, while Google is focused around building and acquiring its own social media powerhouses. While Yahoo does acquire social media companies (e.g. Flickr) and Google has some strong partnerships (e.g. Twitter in Google Real-time search), that’s not the focus of their respective social strategies.

The reason their approaches to social media are so different has little to do with their leadership teams or the quality of their decision-making. No, it boils down to one simple truth: Google and Yahoo are very different companies.

I argue that Yahoo is, for the most part, a content company, while Google is focused on technology. There was a point where Yahoo was known for its tech innovations, but that mantle has long since passed to Google, Facebook, Twitter, and others.

I explored this phenomenon in my first Social Analyst column, Content vs. Technology: What MySpace and AOL Have in Common. MySpace and AOL were also tech giants, but at some point lost their technology edge (MySpace lost to Facebook, AOL lost to DSL and Cable Internet) and thus began to focus on ramping up content creation and driving traffic to their web properties. Yahoo falls into the same camp.

Because of this key difference between Yahoo and Google, it’s no surprise that they are implementing different approaches. Google’s is focused on building technology that will drive adoption, revenue, and information through its doors. Yahoo’s focus is on bringing more eyeballs to this content and keeping them on Yahoo for longer periods of time.

Who Has the Right Social Media Strategy?

Now for the big question: is Google or Yahoo doing better at social media? Which one has the right social media strategy?

If you’ve read this column carefully, you can probably guess that I’m not going to outright declare that one company is “right” or that one is “wrong.” What I want you to take away from this week’s column is simple: your long-term plan and company composition should determine your social strategy.

Yahoo is simply better at content than Google. Yahoo Finance is, in my opinion, simply a better product than Google’s version. Its array of hosted news content is bigger, and it owns properties such as OMG, which is doing well as a celebrity news hub.

Google doesn’t write its own news or acquire a newspaper for a simple reason: it’s just not their focus, and they wouldn’t be very good at it. Would it make any sense for Google to focus on using social media to drive traffic to its content? The answer is no.

On the flip side, Google’s technology prowess trumps Yahoo by large margins. Google can build better technical products (e.g., Search, Gmail, Buzz, Android, Chrome) in a shorter amount of time than Yahoo can, and it can iterate faster than almost any large-scale public Internet company (its rapid privacy changes to Buzz is one good example).

These things are no longer Yahoo’s strength. So does it make sense for Yahoo to try to build a social network to rival Buzz, Facebook, or Twitter? Could it really keep up with any of them over the long haul? I severely doubt it.

So here is my conclusion: neither company’s direction is “wrong” because each one requires a different social strategy to succeed. Based on their strengths, Yahoo and Google are implementing the right strategies.

Now it’s just about executing them.

Reviews: Android, Chrome, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Gmail, Google, Google Buzz, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut, Picasa, Twitter, WordPress, YouTube, blogger, google friend connect

Tags: facebook, Google, google buzz, social media, The Social Analyst, trending, twitter, Yahoo