Your skin is a pasty shade of winter white and you’re planning a sunny, sandy vacation for Spring Break. Hit the tanning salon for that all-important base coat? Mollies Fund, a nonprofit cancer awareness foundation, and ad agency FCBs health-minded division, Area 23, are launching what they’ve called a tanning intervention aimed at millennials and 30-somethings who bake themselves on tanning beds despite knowing the risks involved. Read more…
The latest #hairspiration for 2015 comes from an unlikely place: this sleek guinea pig. Dana Jansen, owner of Hopeful Farms guinea pig stable in the Netherlands, shared a behind-the-scenes look at how her guinea pigs get camera ready. Gaze upon its smooth red locks, its bright white highlights and its neat little bangs.
Gaze upon its smooth red locks, its bright white highlights and its neat little bangs. Next time you’re at the salon, show this video to your hairstylist and embrace your chic new chop.
See also Trimming a Long Haired Guinea Pig
Attribution: Mashable, Videos from Youtube
IMAGE: BRAD BARKET/WADE PAYNE/INVISION/AP/ASSOCIATED PRESS
The opera rendition from Fleming, a four-time Grammy winner, was uncommon for Super Bowl lead-ups because the role is traditionally reserved for a pop star (see video gallery, below). In 2013, Alicia Keys played piano while singing the national anthem (watch, below), which hadn’t been done since Billy Joel in 2007. Kelly Clarkson sang the song in 2012, a year after Christina Aguilera flubbed the song’s lyrics at the previous Super Bowl.
Menzel, the voice of the inescapable Frozen song “Let It Go,” will sing the National Anthem, while Golden Globe winner Legend will take on “America the Beautiful.”
Those performances will lead into the game and Katy Perry’s big halftime show. Lenny Kravitz is the first announced guest to join Perry’s medley.
Last year, soprano Renée Fleming delivered a riveting national anthem with help from a military chorus. The opera rendition from Fleming, a four-time Grammy winner, was uncommon for Super Bowl lead-ups because the role is traditionally reserved for a pop star (see video gallery, below).
In 2013, Alicia Keys played piano while singing the national anthem (watch, below), which hadn’t been done since Billy Joel in 2007. Kelly Clarkson sang the song in 2012, a year after Christina Aguilera flubbed the song’s lyrics at the previous Super Bowl.
Other past performers include Whitney Houston, Garth Brooks, Mariah Carey, Faith Hill, Neil Diamond, Diana Ross, Jewel, Harry Connick Jr., the Dixie Chicks and Cher.
Attribution: Mashable http://mashable.com/2015/01/16/super-bowl-performers-idina-menzel-john-legend/#_
IMAGE: MATT SAYLES/INVISION/AP/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Fox made the announcement during its presentation at the Television Critics Association press tour, and Michele also confirmed the news on Twitter.
The actress is officially joining Scream Queens, a comedy-horror anthology set to debut this fall.
Also added to the cast: True Blood alum Joe Manganiello, Abigail Breslin and Keke Palmer.
No details were given regarding the quartet’s roles on Scream Queens, whose first season will be set in a sorority house, as several murders begin to rock a college campus.
Last month, Emma Roberts and Jamie Lee Curtis were the first actors to join the series.
After its panel, Fox chairman and CEO Gary Newman brushed off concerns that Scream Queen‘s broadcast home would prevent Murphy from replicating the same shock-based success that shot FX’s American Horror Story to the top of must-watch lists.
“Creatively, I’m not sure it’s that big of a difference,” he said. “Obviously, there are different standards for what you can do on FX and what you can do on Fox, but Ryan proved on Glee that he can tell very edgy stories that have real cultural relevance on network television, and I expect him to do that with Scream Queens. I think it’s going to be an amazing, suspenseful, fun ride.”
Attribution: Mashable
IMAGE: MASHABLE COMPOSITE
2015 has: Posting your first Facebook photo(s).
The latest viral trend makes every day #TBT. It requires folks to post their first Facebook profile photos, and then nominate others to do the same. Unlike the Ice Bucket Challenge, however, the trend isn’t making the rounds in the name of charity.
Instead, the trend is seemingly just a way to publicly embarrass both yourself and the friends of your choosing. It’s a lose-lose situation for everyone, and it looks something like this:
IMAGE: MASHABLE
On Feb. 4 of this year, Facebook will turn 11 years old, meaning early adopters who get in on the trend will have to contend with potentially shameful photos dating back as far as 2004, a notably bad year for style.
Facebook has not yet responded to Mashable’s request for more information on the birth of this trend.
Though the trend is simply a fun procrastination tool for most, some have managed to put it to charitable use. Mental Health Ireland, a health advocacy organization, successfully turned the trend into an appeal for donations after encouraging followers to give after sharing old photos, and to nominate others to do the same.
SEE ALSO: How to Have a Social Life
See full story at Mashable.com
Relationships have always been at the core of business development. In today’s digital world, social media can accelerate the relationship-building process. An influx of social media over the past decade from Facebook to LinkedIn has enhanced the way we communicate with potential business partners, leading to quicker connections and serving as our primary method of research when looking to establish relationships.
Nine times out of 10, the person in charge of business development already has an idea of the kind of company they want to partner with for a particular initiative. Traditionally, their next step in forging an initial connection would be to cold call or email the company, and to build a rapport from there. Social media fast-tracks this process. We’re now able to find precisely the best person to contact, determine if we have any mutual connections, understand their background (as well as the company’s) and get a sense of the different players within a company — all before we have a single conversation.
Let’s take a look at a few ways we can utilize the information available on social media to enhance biz dev practices, and move the needle for initiatives and partnerships across all industries.
Social media provides the opportunity to see what potential partners, competitors and customers are doing firsthand. A major asset in business development research, social media is a concrete way to see how companies are performing within their respective ecosystems — which can shed light into possible ways of working together (or reasons to not). At the same time, potential partners are certainly leveraging social media as a lens in their own research. Make sure to position yourself and your company as industry experts by sharing thought-provoking content on your accounts, and highlighting recent successes or milestones.
Every social network has a different flavor — the way people behave and connect across channels varies. Since business initiatives undoubtedly span across many social media platforms, it’s important to adjust accordingly. For instance, at Bitly we leverage our core assets on Twitter and Facebook differently. On Twitter, we promote ongoing marketing campaigns, share curated content and direct customer service requests to support. We use Facebook for larger marketing initiatives and to showcase company culture and resources. There’s no universal, one-size-fits-all guide to social media — so be flexible!
IMAGE: FLICKR, PAT WILLIAMS
If you are looking to connect with someone at a certain company, always check to see if anyone at your organization has a pre-established relationship with that person. Social media channels like LinkedIn make it very easy to see mutual connections. Whether you ask your colleague to make an introduction or publicize the initiative via their own account, a mutual connection is an automatic leg-up in the game of business development.
SEE ALSO: Learn how you can start to meet up new people in social networking clubs in Facebook
Social media is not the only key to business development success, but it serves as an important touch point and addition to traditional practices. For example, we have all inevitably sent an email or voicemail to a business prospect that went unanswered. It’s natural for people to be so busy that they gloss over or forget about an inquiry. However, now it’s a standard practice to follow up separately via LinkedIn or other digital avenues, leading to additional opportunities to build a rapport with potential partners.
On or offline, the most fundamental element of business development will always be strong relationships. At the end of the day, what’s most important is that you are partnering with a company or person that has a good reputation, will do great things and can market an initiative collaboratively to significant traction. Social media is an incredible starting block — just think of it as a means for old-fashioned relationship building, but for today’s increasingly connected world.
See full story at Mashable.com
Image: Mashable, Christina Ascani Android developers had a busy year in 2014. The number of apps in the Google Play Store grew by more than 50% last year, outpacing Apple’s App Store for the first time, according to a new report. The report noted that all three app stores it looked at Android, iOS and Amazon’s App store saw a large amount of growth, but Google saw significantly more than the other two.
“What’s interesting is that although Apple continues to grow strongly, it’s really Google Play that’s growing,” the company wrote. “In 2014, the number of apps distributed through Google Play has doubled.”
IMAGE: APPFIGURES
Analytics company App Annie, which tracks app store data from Google Play and Apple’s App Store confirmed with Mashable that Google Play does indeed have more apps than the iOS App Store.
As of this writing, Google Play had nearly 300,000 more apps than the iOS App Store — a difference of about 17% — according to the company.
appFigures doesn’t speculate about the reason behind these changes in growth but there are likely a few factors at work. Android still has an overall larger marketshare than iOS globally, so it makes sense that more developers would be attracted to the platform. Google also makes it much easier for developers to create new apps and doesn’t put Android developers through the same lengthy approval process as Apple.
However, it’s worth pointing out that, as a whole, iOS developers still make far more money than their Android-based counterparts. Even though Android downloads were 60% higher on Android, iOS developers still made 60% more money, AppAnnie found in its Market Index report for the third quarter of 2014.
See full story at Mashable.com
Kraft, which owns Cadbury, is facing criticism from egg eaters for not using Dairy Milk chocolate this year. Dairy Milk chocolate is synonymous with Cadbury products and loved for its smooth texture and creamy taste. Cadbury responded to customers on Twitter, Monday morning.
IMAGE: JESSICA CATCHER/MASHABLE
Creme-egg-eating season is upon us, but some connoisseurs aren’t too happy with this year’s crop of fondant-filled chocolate treats.
Kraft, which owns Cadbury, is facing criticism from egg eaters for not using Dairy Milk chocolate this year.
Dairy Milk chocolate is synonymous with Cadbury products and loved for its smooth texture and creamy taste.
Creme eggs move down the production line at a Cadburys factory IMAGE: SIMON DAWSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“It’s no longer Dairy Milk. It’s similar, but not exactly Dairy Milk. We tested the new one with consumers. It was found to be the best one for the Creme Egg, which is why we’ve used it this year,” Kraft told The Sun newspaper.
“The Creme Egg has never been called the Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Creme Egg. We have never played on the fact that Dairy Milk chocolate was used.”
Customers took to the Cadbury UK Facebook page to complain about the changes with one describing the egg as “cheap tasting chocolate” and others commenting that they wouldn’t be buying them again.
The changes to the Creme Egg chocolate, which is only available for a few months every year, are hot on the heels of criticism about the multi-pack quantities changing.
Earlier this month, chocolate lovers tweeted their disappointment that a dozen Creme Eggs, seemed to be one shy.
Full story at mashable.com
Samsung’s Galaxy S6 will reportedly have a curved edge similar to that of the Galaxy Note Edge, pictured here. Image: Mashable, Elizabeth Pierson Samsung is planning to make some major design changes to its next flagship phone, according to a new report. A metal body would be a shift from Samsung’s usual plastic, though it’s not clear whether the new devices would be all-metal or a mixture of metal and plastic. Read more…
You’re old — get over it. As if.
Movies can act like cultural timepieces, bringing us back to the year of their debut. But when you think back to a classic hit like Clueless, it’s hard to imagine that Cher Horowitz like totally graced screens 20 long years ago.
Take a convertible ride down movie memory lane to the wonderful year of 1995, when Bill Clinton lived in the White House and people used cell phones to make telephone calls.
“All I want’s a friend.” – Casper (Malachi Pearson) IMAGE: UNIVERSAL PICTURES
“To infinity, and beyond!” – Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) IMAGE: DISNEY
“Keep both eyes open when you shoot. You see twice as well.” – John Smith (Mel Gibson) IMAGE: DISNEY
The Unbelievable True Story CHRISTMAS – UNBROKEN
