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Prior to leaving Forrester to join Altimeter Group, Jeremiah Owyang, along with Josh Bernoff, Cynthia N. Pflaum, and Emily Bowen, published a report that attempted to bring the future of the Social Web into focus. If we viewed the content of his research as a social object, the conversations that would transpire could in fact expedite the development and implementation of the most valuable predictions and observations contained within. - Alan Weinkrantz

Social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and even email, instant messaging, and SMS have become the defacto way we communicate with each other. Because of the mainstream embrace of social media, we now live in a world where information is shared at lightning speeds and as a result, we’re actually finding ways to use that free flow of data and information to make the world a safer place to live. From tracking trends in crime to finding the safest bike routes around a city, from getting emergency alerts during a disaster to understanding the spread of dangerous illnesses, social media is being used by both public officials and private citizens to make our cities safer. This post outlines just a few of the ways that social media tools are now being employed to keep the public safe and informed. - Alan Weinkrantz

t’s true to say, without a hint of hyperbole, that 25 year old Daniel Ek’s Spotify has taken the global music industry by storm, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Even in markets it hasn’t launched in yet (including the US), Spotify is generating a lot of attention and is now valued at €170 million. Music lovers have discovered ways to circumvent regional limitations on the software and are already using the service heralded by some as the future of the music industry. And that suits the music industry just fine, especially since they’ve invested in it. At a Glasshouse event at the Royal College of Physicians in London last night, an assembled throng of the tech business community listened to Ek’s thoughts. - Alan Weinkrantz

t’s true to say, without a hint of hyperbole, that 25 year old Daniel Ek’s Spotify has taken the global music industry by storm, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Even in markets it hasn’t launched in yet (including the US), Spotify is generating a lot of attention and is now valued at €170 million. Music lovers have discovered ways to circumvent regional limitations on the software... more... - Alan Weinkrantz

Aviary is already well-established as an online image editing suite, but today the company is expanding its creative reach and bringing multi-track audio editing to the cloud. - Alan Weinkrantz

17 MAYORS FROM ACROSS THE COUNTRY LAUNCH CITIES OF SERVICE TO MOBILIZE MILLIONS MORE AMERICANS IN A NEW ERA OF SERVICE With Lead Support from the Rockefeller Foundation, Cities of Service to Support Full-Time Chief Service Officers in Select Cities and Provide Other Support to Mayors - Alan Weinkrantz

MySpace may not be the leader in the social networking space anymore, but its free music streaming site, MySpace Music, has been growing fast. Which is why it’s not surprising that the social network is continuing to improve on this popular product. Today, it appears that MySpace Music has launched a new version of its homepage with UI redesign and several new features (we’ve confirmed with the company that that the redesign is new). - Alan Weinkrantz

That's a great find. Thanks for sharing. - Shaine Mata

Hi Shaine, Yes, this is a good one. Lots of great graphical metaphors and illustrations out there. AW - Alan Weinkrantz from email

We pick 10 tracks, albums or playlists from around the web and offer you either links to the downloads or streams, or embed the streams when possible. If you’ve got a track you’d like to offer our readers during a future edition of Music Monday just drop us a line at barb AT mashable DOT com. If you don’t see your submission air right away, keep tuning in and we’ll try to get you in! - Alan Weinkrantz

I found this searching for Hofner Bass; - Alan Weinkrantz

Fully branded user experience on your website, syndication partners website, Livestream.com and Facebook. Viral At The Core - Through chat, your viewers promote links to your live event and destinations using Twitter and Facebook status updates. Social At The Core - Watch within Facebook, build followers for your Twitter profile and Facebook pages/applications. Scalable - The Livestream Platform can handle hundreds of thousands of simultaneous viewers. - Alan Weinkrantz

Review from SugarBuzz magazine of MondoMagneto - Alan Weinkrantz

2009 represents the death blow to the traditional agency. Sure, most have already fallen, but some have attempted to dabble in new media as an attempt to adapt to the changing market place. They may even have been lucky enough to con their existing client base into believing that they are at the forefront of technology and communication vehicles. They may weather the battle and emerge lucky, nervous, and beat up agencies scratching their heads, questioning the very fundamentals of the business. - Alan Weinkrantz

While the majority of traffic still comes through search engines, that’s all poised to change with these three trends: - Alan Weinkrantz

Even with all the fantastic social networks and tools out there, nothing is more viral or sees more forwards than a great e-mail. And the best e-mail of them all? A great newsletter — because it means you get to e-mail them again next week. Recently I talked about what to put in your newsletter and now here are some steps to make it extra viral. - Alan Weinkrantz

Twitter users call a “hashtag,” and at any given time at least one of them can usually be found among the trending topics on Twitter. But what exactly is a hashtag? Hashtags are essentially a simple way to catalog and connect tweets about a specific topic. They make it easier for users to find additional tweets on a particular subject, while filtering out the incidental tweets that may just coincidentally contain the same keyword. Hashtags are also often used by conference and event organizers as a method of keeping all tweets about the event in a single stream, and they’ve even been used to coordinate updates during emergencies. In fact, hashtags were first popularized during the 2007 San Diego wildfire, when the tag #sandiegofires was used to identify tweets about the natural disaster. You can create a hashtag simply by appending the hash symbol to a word, like this: #hashtag. - Alan Weinkrantz

As the industry changes, so have the methods by which music is promoted. Traditional marketing is being replaced by artists and bands using social media sites like Twitter to engage fans, promote their work, and connect with others. The modern web and the future of the music industry seem almost inextricably intertwined in terms of marketing, listening, communicating, and purchasing. Twitter is one of the many ways for people to instantly and quickly communicate, and artists are taking advantage of its vast potential. - Alan Weinkrantz

There are plenty of Twitter tools out there designed to help you understand Twitter metrics. These tools come in handy for measuring change in tweet fluctuations, charting follower count numbers, finding out hashtag frequency, and quantifying Twitter activity. - Alan Weinkrantz

The “real world” primarily consists of three groups of people in the goods and services lifecycle: creators, reports and consumers. - Alan Weinkrantz

Dallas show review on Aug 19 - Alan Weinkrantz

Blogging needs to be social. There are many reasons for this, but the most important one — in my mind — is the changing nature of content. “We will all be streaming life moments as more and more bandwidth is available both at home and on the go,” I wrote two years ago. It’s already happening. Today most of us walk around with newfangled smartphones that are nothing short of multitasking computers, essentially content creation points. And they’re networked, which means creating and sharing content is becoming absurdly simple to do. With the increased number of content creation points –- phones, camera, Flip video cameras, Twitter -– we are publishing more and more content. - Alan Weinkrantz

Pushbutton is a name for what I believe will be an upgrade for the web, where any site or application can deliver realtime messages to a web-scale audience, using free and open technologies at low cost and without relying on any single company like Twitter or Facebook. The pieces of this platform have just come together to enable a whole set of new features and applications that would have been nearly impossible for an average web developer to build in the past. - Alan Weinkrantz

what is a pity party? - Shaine Mata from IM

It's an event that @nanpalmero and @erikdarm hold at http://www.salesby5.com - Alan Weinkrantz from email

Amidst all the bad economic news that has become the very fabric of our lives, there is a segment of our local economy that is defying even the notion of recession. Some of our city's brightest minds are using their social and intellectual capital on platforms such as Twitter to build personal brands, to increase the reach of nonprofit organizations and even to launch new businesses. - Alan Weinkrantz

This final section summarizes the next steps for the industry in a short, seven-point action plan. Once again, in keeping with the community nature of this report, the reader is encouraged to add comments and suggestions. - Alan Weinkrantz

More than half of Americans - 56% - have accessed the internet wirelessly on some device, such as a laptop, cell phone, MP3 player, or game console. - Alan Weinkrantz

Facebook’s not just for keeping tabs on friends and filling out quizzes — it can also be used as a highly effective business tool. It’s great for marketing your products, landing gigs and connecting with your customers. Here are 32 ways to use Facebook in your business. - Alan Weinkrantz

Building relationships and engaging with mavens is a focus of every marketing and PR program. Marketeers and PR practitioners everywhere want to believe that they are they influence the Influencers, but we know that others also play a large role in helping Influencers form their opinions. Reaching and influencing the original idea creators or trend-spotters is often an effective way to communicate with the more vocal Influencer. - Alan Weinkrantz

YouTube recently redesigned channel pages to make them more dynamic and easier to customize. The beta channels are now a hodgepodge of your uploads, favorites, playlists, and numerous in-channel editing options. Should you upgrade to the new design, you have a greater chance of creating an eye-catching channel that’s likely to keep your viewers engaged for longer. - Alan Weinkrantz

DenimGroup's John Dickson comments on this story.... - Alan Weinkrantz

This is the Social Media Starter Kit from Radian 6 - Alan Weinkrantz