Sometimes it really does seem like we live in the Wild West of the digital age, the rules of the Internet get made up as we go along.

Due to the newness, it seems like there’s a scandal per week in tech startup land, and, because of social media, the default way of dealing with it for startups has become the grand public apology — tweetable on Twitter!

I’ve always been a big fan of the “forgiveness not permission” philosophy (just ask Mike) but there’s something that doesn’t sit right about how automated the atonement process has become for young companies.

Do something bad > Get caught > Bad press > Apologize > All is right with the world. Maybe you even pick up some new users along the way ?…

When startups get into the mindset that any press is good press, how far are we from orchestrated PR strategery like, “Quick, lets start storing our users’ address books so we can get some attention!” And then handle the crisis well, of course.

After all, “the crisis” is almost entirely dictated by the machinations (and laziness) of the press. The Airbnb “trashed house” story was around for about a month before a rogue Arrington post turned it into a PR nightmare. And a ton of apps have been subtly uploading your contacts for awhile now, Path just happened to be the most prominent one “caught.”

As investor Chris Dixon brings up, ““If you download a lot of apps, your contact list is on 50 servers right now.” It’s true. While they were reluctant to name names, everyone I’ve spoken to in the industry agrees that this uploading thing is a widespread phenomenon, basically any app that asks a user to “Find their friends” or notifies users when their friends are on the service is suspect.

(Fyi. If anyone wants to send me a complete list of apps that upload iOS Address Books, unencrypted, to servers, please do here.)

In the meantime get ready for a lot more startups dramatically and publicly apologizing for their sundry infractions — It’s become such a phenomenon that we’ve created the form letter below (inspired by this and this) to make it easier on them.

Image/ Half Chinese 

Form via/ @Percival

Two weeks ago at the Crunchies, Dan’l Lewin, Microsoft’s top executive in Silicon Valley, came up to me and handed me a Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone. It was out of the box, fully charged, and ready to go—alive in my hand. It’s a beautiful phone. Thin, solid, bevelled, and bright. Later that evening, I pulled it from my pocket and I’ve been playing with it ever since. This is not the first Windows phone I’ve seen, but it is the first one that’s made a lasting impression.

The Lumia 800 is the flagship Windows phone. It’s not available yet in the U.S., although an unlocked version is rumored to be coming on Valentine’s Day (for the absurd sum of $899, which includes a bundle of other gear). This is a standalone $500 phone unlocked, which means it could go for $200 or less with a contract. Its cousins the Lumia 710 and 900 are priced at $50 and $99, respectively, in the U.S. John Biggs and I talked about the 710 last month on Fly or Die, and that one is okay too. But the 800 is potentially an iconic phone.

When you hold one in your hand, it’s clear that the smartphone wars are far from over. It is too easy to dismiss Windows Phone 7 as being too little, too late. (That was our first reaction too). No, it’s clear that Windows Phone has more than a fighting chance. Microsoft will make sure that the economics are much more attractive to the carriers than the iPhone’s so that they push Windows Phone. If consumers bite, Windows Phone could emerge as a very strong smartphone platform.

The biggest drawback right now is the apps. There are 50,000 of them, but they are mostly hit or miss. They will get better over time. It’s still early. The few games I’ve played are solid enough, but the social apps need some work. They are too bare bones and stripped down, but I’ll give them this: they don’t look or act like iPhone apps. Windows Phone apps have their own look and feel, with a common theme being swiping sideways to get to a different tab or screen.

I am not quite ready to give up my iPhone 4S, but, as I argue in this episode of Fly or Die, if I had to choose between a top of the line Android and the Lumia 800, it would be a toss up. The 800 does not feel cheap. It is a sleek device that shows off Windows Phone 7 in the best light possible. A lot of care was put into getting many of the details right in Windows Phone 7—little things like the animated transitions when you launch an app or open up a new window. It’s a device that makes you want to swipe just because it is a pleasurable experience. (Be sure to read Robin’s and MG’s takes on Windows Phone also).

Last month, Google began showing the new versions of Google TV at CES, giving the press a taste of what was in store. One particular panel discussing Google TV’s new capabilities led Rupert Murdoch to take to Twitter, bemoaning the pirating ways of the search behemoth. Forbes has the backstory here. Google TV posted on its Facebook page yesterday, saying that it has some big announcements in store for Monday.

Today, it announced that it is upgrading the YouTube experience on Google TV with a new, revamped app. The YouTube app for Google TV is available for download on the Android Marketplace. The initial drive behind Google TV was to create a user experience that seamlessly blends web video with the boob tube, to change the way consumers interact with TV, but the first Google TV fell flat. Matt Burns reviewed the version, saying that, while it’s getting closer, it still has a long, long way to go.

In its announcement today, Google is promising some “big improvements” to its new YouTube app, among them that navigation is smoother and faster, along with some much-needed additions to its UX, like the new “Discover” feature, which basically just brings YouTube channel categories to Google TV, enhancing their browse-ability within the app. They’ve also brought its new channel pages, enabling users to navigate playlists and videos and subscribe to favorites.

Google says that users can also now view related videos from the same user by pressing the up and down arrows on their remote controls, or to find the “Info screen” to leave a thumbs up, add to your playlists, or to leave a comment.

The new app looks good, and this certainly stands to improve the YouTube experience on Google TV, though it’s certainly not the “big announcement” that many were hoping for. We’ll be keeping our ears out in the event that there’s more Google TV news in store for Monday.

Uber, the fast-growing on-demand car service that lets you request a ride at any time using SMS or the company’s iPhone and Android apps, has seen its fair share of struggles in providing a disruptive alternative to cab services. Uber has continued rolling on in spite of it, raising $32 million in December from Menlo Ventures, Jeff Bezos, and Goldman Sachs — among others. The startup has also continued pushing forward with its national (and international) service, recently launching or soft-launching in Chicago, Washington D.C., and Paris.

Now, it seems that Uber is ready to begin adding more cities to its existing services in Boston, New York, Paris, San Francisco, and Seattle, soft-launching (or entering its super secret “testing phase”) in the City of Angels just in time for the Grammys. Yes, according to Uber’s blog, the time has come to begin testing its car service in Los Angeles waters. Oh, and just in case you missed it, Uber just this week also began its testing/research phase in its first Canadian city, Toronto.

As to its soft LA launch, Uber said that its very first riders were “Papa Don and Mama Bonnie Kalanick,” the mother and father of Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick, who beat out well-known actor of stage and screen (and apparent avid surfer), Edward Norton. Norton had to settle for LA’s “Rider 1″ title. Of course, Uber soft-launches often come with “celebrities” or notables in tow, as Ben Mulroney was Canada’s “rider zero.” Smart marketing, to be sure.

The company also added that users are now able to request cars in Los Angeles (it is officially “on the ground”), but the service will remain in “Secret Phase,” (sorry guys) with limited availability until the service’s official launch, which is upcoming.

When it comes to a city of LA’s size, diversity, and there are bound to be obstacles, so Uber is “analyzing what we find and making adjustments until we get LA right,” according to its blog. That also came with a warning to early LA adopters: “Adventurous Riders Only”.

We’ll be updating as we learn more. Below is Uber’s pic of “Rider 1″:

Back in August, Y Combinator held its summer session demo day, introducing the world to 60 new companies in one of its strongest batches to date. One of these companies, DoubleRecall launched as a platform that enables companies to roll out digital campaigns that actually succeed in prompting users “to read an ad,” rather than scoff and click elsewhere.

In that sense, the Y Combinator alum is looking to replace — or at least become a complement to — paywalls with simple, CAPTCHA-like messages that have the potential to be less annoying revenue generators. For example, DoubleRecall might offer its service on a news article, which would contain a CAPTCHA-like recall mechanism that would prompt readers to pick out a couple of words from the text and enter them into a textbox.

The idea is to create experiences that are quick enough for users to navigate that they lower the barrier and obnoxiousness level and are targeted and clickable enough for brands to actually make money and potentially avoid using a paywall altogether.

As to the effectiveness of this model, DoubleRecall says that the campaigns it ran over the course of Q4 2011 showed an 82 percent engagement rate, versus one to three percent for paywalls, an average CTR of 3.6 percent, and an elevenfold increase in brand awareness, versus using banner ads. The startup closed the year with $300K in revenues, which isn’t too shabby for having been up and running for four months at the end of the year.

These results have been intriguing enough that investors are buying into DoubleRecall’s strategy, as the startup has announced that it has raised $1.6 million in seed funding. Like the other startup’s in YC’s summer batch, DoubleRecall was offered $170K from Yuri Milner and SV Angel’s Start Fund, as well as Y Combinator. Since then, Digital Garage, Itochu Ventures, Mentor Equity and TEEC Angel have all joined in to bring the round to $1.6 million.

Sure, this model is great, in that it’s got the potential for publishers to monetize through an alternative approach, and readers don’t have to wrestle with paywalls, but with this slight description, readers may be inclined to see this as a me-too idea very reminiscent of the same strategy that has seen Solve Media attract buzz and venture capital.

DoubleRecall COO Julien Coustaury tells me that the main similarity between Solve and DoubleRecall is that, at some point, a reader has to retype words from text into a textbox. Solve’s “TYPE-IN” platform replaces those fuzzy CAPTCHA words and numbers with a brand message or logo, with an input box. Essentially, they’re using input boxes for advertising. DoubleRecall, on the other hand, doesn’t want to advertise on the input box, but instead wants to serve some non-branded text readers have to recall, and use that to unlock content.

In most cases, this would come in the form of pay walls. Sure, publishers, content producers need to make money, but readers generally shudder at pay walls, especially if they’re not loyal customers of the brand in question. Those who read the Wall Street Journal everyday don’t mind paying a bit more for some of their content, while casual readers may seethe at finding a pay wall, when they were looking for a specific article that couldn’t be reached other than by paying.

Thus, DoubleRecall works with publishers and sites to maintain this wall, but replace it with another gateway. They get the user clicks, show the content they want to show, and then get to give readers access to the content anyway. It can be a win-win, although there’s still a lot more testing to be done.

DoubleRecall is opening headquarters in NYC this month, as it works to expand its reach internationally (the team is originally Slovenian, and gained a bit of European traction in the earl-going), launching in Japan later this month. So far, the startup has signed on 40 publishers and 50 brands in total, and will look to use its new infusion of capital to fuel this international expansion and ramp up hiring.

The company also has a social component to let brands share the best from their social media streams, as well as real-time monitoring and report making to enable them to instantly adapt to feedback.

For more, check out DoubleRecall at home here.

Editor’s note: Guest contributor Joseph Puopolo is an entrepreneur and startup enthusiast, who blogs on a variety of topics including green initiatives, technology and marketing.

Over the last year, you may have noticed that a once-niche trend not only crept into the mainstream, but is starting to really make a big splash. Gamification has become one of the hottest buzz words in the industry and is probably in the process of taking over a website or user experience near you.

For the uninitiated, gamification, said simply, is the use of game design techniques and mechanics to solve problems and engage audiences. Over the last year, even large companies and enterprises are starting to get in on the game, with Gartner saying that all CIOs should have gamification on their radar, and M2 research predicting that the gamification market will reach 2.8 billion in direct spending by 2016.

Okay, so it’s on the rise, we get that, but let’s take a look at some of the players that are helping to take this trend to the next level. Three companies in particular are currently creating some buzz in the space: Badgeville, Bigdoor and Bunchball.

Badgeville started by making a big splash center stage at Disrupt in the fall of 2009. The company took home the Audience Choice Award at Disrupt, has since gone on a tear and is poised to have a great 2012. (Check out Rip’s original post on Badgeville’s prospects here.)

Badgeville Co-founder and CEO Kris Duggan pulls no punches when it comes to one of the most visible and early adopters of gamification, the check-in king: Foursquare. The CEO says that Foursquare was early in its attempts at gamification, but that its incentivization models remain fundamentally flawed.

Duggan points to the “Mayorship” system within Foursquare: “You have literally hundreds of people and only one mutually-exclusive point of recognition, the Mayor. What happens to the other hundreds of people? Not only are they not engaged, but you don’t take into consideration different types of users.” Duggan believes you need to engage not only the heavy user, but medium and light users as well. Rather than a one-size-fits-all methodology, you can appeal to each user type and incent them accordingly.

From a marketer’s perspective this is a huge hole in the way Foursquare approaches gamification for
brands. The ability for brands to own their engagement strategy is key for them to grow their model. A vanilla badge strategy will only allow them to go so far and without real control of the experience and rewards it won’t be a rich experience.

Keith Smith, CEO of Big Door, has seen large adoption of their gamification platform. And, in particular, the CEO recognizes a big opportunity selling to marketers: “Marketers today spend more money on acquiring users than working to retain those users and providing them with a reason to come back to a site”. By focusing on retention, marketers could get more value from their marketing dollars.

Big Door has been able to secure marquee customers including Dell. Dell took gamification beyond their website and used it for a live event to create multiple ways to engage attendees through Journeys, which were part of the conference tracks during the event. Each Journey was customized to a specific conference track. QR codes were located throughout the event and attendees were encouraged to scan codes and were rewarded with achievements for every scanned QR code and every journey they completed.

Big Door has even produced a very simple and easy to use widget that I implemented on my blog.
After the implementation I started seeing increased interaction on my site. For those looking to try out gamification out on their site, it is a great bet.

Molly Kittle, VP of Digital Strategy for Bunchball, notes that until recently, one of the biggest challenges for gamifiers has been in educating potential clients about the difference between gamification and social games. Molly sees a shift from education to adoption of gamification strategy in the future.

“I agree that some gamification does come off badly, and slapping some badges on a site isn’t professional or powerful, and we don’t want our customers to do that” she says. The quick-fix isn’t sustainable for most brands. Molly thinks there will be a huge change of perception across industries, catalyzed by a growing number of enterprises embracing gamification to solve real business challenges. Hey, there’s even gamify.com, with one of the best domain acquisitions for the market.

Travel companies, too, are getting in on gamification, with Trippy, Gogobot, and more offering gaming elements to their user experience. But, again, for startups and companies to be successful in this approach, gamification has to go beyond badges.

There are some common threads to the trends that Badgeville, Bigdoor and Bunchball see in the
gamification space:

1. The space has quickly evolved from place where they are educating the customer about gamification to earlier customer understanding in their offering
2. Frictionless installs are a necessity. They all recognize that if it is difficult to implement, then clients will not want to implement it.
3. A world beyond badges: Badges will increasingly become less and less important, and the rise of true virtual currencies will become more prominent to offer users more than vanity accomplishments in the form of badges.

So what does the future hold for Gamification?

It is clear that it is unveiling a far larger market opportunity — the concept of what Duggan calls “behavior lifecycle management.” Some of the elements of gamification will further permeate into other applications. In the interest of driving increased user interaction, expect to see some form of game dynamics coming to a business application near you. Over this past year, gamification has shed its acne and awkward voice to come of age.

Excerpt image from MrDaley.com

While startups across the world are doing their best to disrupt mobile networks with clever voice call apps, like Viber, there remains the basic issues of actual voice and data access which still requires some chipping away at. It’s a particular issue in places like Europe where you can drive for only a couple of hours and cross two or even three borders and see your mobile roaming bill spin up or down like a yo-yo. For the past few years we’ve seen players like Truphone and Maxroam attempt to gnaw away at the telcos, but now Maxroam is going one further, launching a virtual network operator of its own.

Editor’s Note: This post is written by guest author Andreas Bernstrom, a former Goldman Sachs alum who has worked at TradeDoubler, was COO of Taptu, and in 2009 joined Rebtel as CEO. You can follow him on Twitter @AndreasCB here.

It’s that time of the year again and if you haven’t started thinking about what to get that special someone in your life, better start thinking fast, or Cupid’s arrow might just speed right past you.

Luckily, we live in a world where our smartphones have become pragmatic problem solvers. Need the perfect gift? There’s an app for that. Can’t get a restaurant reservation? There’s an app for that. Girlfriend being a royal V-Day diva and it’s only 9 a.m.? There’s an app for that. (Well, not really, but it’s only a matter of time).

Here are five unique ways that mobile apps will not only ensure you get through “le jour d’amour” with flying colors, but will provide you with time and cash-saving tricks that you can use any day of the year.

Car service trumps a taxi. So just Uber it.

If you live in a big city or plan to leave the keys at home this Valentine’s Day (more champagne, please!), hopping in a cab is probably the way to go. Unfortunately, landing a vacant taxicab on a night that high-heels come out in the masses is no small feat. Fear not. The hottest transportation app to hit the market this year is an uber sweet (no pun intended) way to skip the cab lines and ride in style.

As Uber’s tagline reveals, the service exists as “everyone’s private driver,” and guarantees fast, on-demand service.

Users in one of Uber’s eight operating cities — Boston, Chicago, New York City, Paris, Seattle, Toronto and Washington, D.C.—can use their iPhone or Android device to order on-demand luxury transporation from anywhere at anytime.

The cost per minute varies depending on the city, but after an initial base fare ($7.00 in New York and $8.00 in San Francisco), Uber is only a tad pricier than the average taxi. But the convenience of having a sleek town car at your fingertips is well worth a little extra cash. Bonus: the tip is included! (Read more TechCrunch coverage of Uber here.)

Another suggestion for those without a lot extra money to spend? If you want to rent a really nice car, say a sexy looking Tesla, but don’t have the dolla bills, check out Getaround. The TechCrunch Disrupt winner will hook you up with a hot ride for cheap, on the Web or on your smartphone.

No reservations? OpenTable has a spot for you.

Those of you who are already users of this revolutionary make-my-life easy tool probably already have a reservation booked for 7:30 p.m. at your favorite corner table. Those of you who aren’t: Please proceed immediately to your nearest open table app.

OpenTable is now available on any smartphone device. No irritated hosts to wrestle with. No waiting on hold for 20 minutes, only to discover the next available reservation is three months from now. The OpenTable app provides a quick, easy and free solution to V-Day dinner woes. And as you’re probably just realizing now that you forgot to make a reservation, it’s a handy tool for a last-minute crisis.

You can run a search on the OpenTable web site or the mobile app for a specific type of restaurant and location, and the app will return a list of viable options and times the restaurant has a table available. Have a special request or message for the host? Punch it into the “notes” box, and the restaurant staff will immediately see any notes for your reservation.

If you register with OpenTable, you’ll also have access to Dining Reward points, which can be redeemed at any of the company’s 20,000 affiliated restaurants. Just make sure you show up for dinner, though. After four “no shows,” OpenTable deactivates your account.

Long-distance relationships at local prices.

If your special someone is across country lines this Valentine’s Day, you’ll probably wake up to a foray of digital hearts showering your screen. But e-cards are so 2001 and new technology has emerged that makes keeping in touch a truly simple, affordable and personal experience.

Video-calling applications, like Skype and Facetime, are the next best thing to seeing someone in the flesh, and apps like Viber and my own company, Rebtel, provide cheap or free solutions for keeping in touch on the go or when video chat isn’t convenient.

Rebtel and Viber can be downloaded on any iPhone or Android device, and allow you to make international phone calls using your friendly neighborhood WiFi network or 3G connection. That way, your phone carrier can’t rob you in international charges, and you still get to talk to whomever from wherever for free (or next to nothing).

The best part of these services is that they’re free or very affordable. And despite pressure from retailers to blow cash on expensive gifts for Valentine’s Day, the simple truth is that there’s still no replacement for a clear connection to the sound of your partner’s voice.

No time for presents? Social gifting apps could be your answer.

It’s easy to get caught up in the daily grind, only to wake up on Valentine’s Day with no plans, no gifts and a potential romance disaster waiting in the wings. If you find yourself in this situation don’t worry … things just got a lot easier.

Apps like Giftiki let users send money in the form of gift cards that your Valentine can use at a number of sweet brands. And you can tailor the gift with personal messages and even let some of their friends join in on the fun.

If you’re looking for a more personal touch, you may find what you’re looking for in Thoughtful, which takes a ‘personal assistant’ approach with recommendations for gifts that are based on information you enter or that already exists on Facebook.

Want a reminder for that dinner date? No problem. How about a push notification when that perfect gift is available? Yes, please! This app, which is now in limited Beta, can make those tough Valentine’s day decisions a thing of the past, and guarantee that you’ll never fall short on gift ideas again.

Social gifting may not be for everyone, but it can be great for gifting friends and family, too. Remember, your Valentine may not be the only one in need of some February lovin’.

At a loss for words? Lovestagram says a thousand…

We all know that roses are red and violets are blue, but does anyone really look forward to another Valentine’s Day Hallmark card?

If you think your girlfriend will find cliché gifts like flowers, cards and chocolates a bit on the boring side, why not break from the traditional with a Lovestagram?

The girlfriend of Instagram co-founder, Mike Krieger, has launched a romantic version of the hugely popular photo app just in time for Valentine’s Day. By simply logging on to your Instagram account and punching in the username of your partner, Lovestagram will locate every image you’ve captured together and compile the photos into a Valentine’s Day-themed slide show.

Add a personalized note and a couple “xo’s” and voilà— an instant, unique and a perfect way to share the love.

Sending your Valentine a “Cheers” couldn’t hurt either.

You might not always find that perfect gift, but with these apps in hand, you’re bound to come up roses this Valentine’s Day.

Image excerpt from iPhoneToolBox.com

Editor’s Note: Reggie Bradford is the Founder and CEO of Vitrue, a provider of social marketing SaaS solutions. Follow Reggie on Twitter at @ReggieBradford and Vitrue @Vitrue.

Pinterest is hot. White hot. The 2011 Crunchie award winner for Best New Startup has been on a roll lately, hitting almost 12 million monthly unique visitors and crossing the 10 million milestone faster than any previous independent site, according to comScore. And a new report from Shareaholic indicates Pinterest is already generating more referral traffic to websites than YouTube, Reddit, Google+, and LinkedIn combined.

The social content curation service has captured the attention of millions with a unique platform
that allows users to express interests and ideas through visually appealing images on virtual
bulletin boards. The Pinterest frenzy provides marketers with an opportunity to leverage its
compelling visual nature and weave it into a cohesive social experience within a brand’s Facebook
community.

Vitrue has been following Pinterest closely as part of our normal vigilant assessment of the
social space. Currently, Pinterest doesn’t have an API for third parties to build brand marketing
management for the platform, but with some creativity and existing social media management
tools, brands can leverage Pinterest right now and share in the increasing excitement.

Here are five ways brands can leverage Pinterest now:

1. Add Pinterest Content to Your Existing Facebook Presence.

Images are more effective than text at encouraging engagement, and an effective technology platform will allow you to surface visually appealing content on one or more Facebook Tabs. This content can be presented as a simple pinboard, as part of a game, or even in the News Feed. But as you pursue this, don’t forget that over 40% of Facebook’s traffic comes from mobile devices. Make sure your platform can effectively surface tabs on mobile devices. Vitrue’s platform does this today, and we expect other platforms will follow.

2. Optimize Your Web Properties to Draw People to Your Pinterest Content.

You can always put a “Follow Me on Pinterest” button on your website. But remember, a user’s choice to “Follow” may not be brand-specific, but rather board-specific. This gives you an opportunity to segment your followers in ways relevant to your business. Lowe’s does a nice job of this and has seasonal boards (the Big Game, Valentine’s Day), themed boards (Craft Ideas, Unique Pet Projects), and boards that tie to specific merchandise areas (Lighting, Bedrooms, Bathrooms). You’ve likely already had to start thinking about segmentation using Facebook Open Graph Objects. Pinterest Boards offer many of the same segmentation opportunities. A well-designed strategy will have you adding “Follow Me” buttons in places appropriate to the segment.

3. Tell Your Existing Social Audiences About What’s Happening on Pinterest.

Social networks mean different things to different people, and the chances are good you’ve already invested considerable effort in growing your fan/follower bases on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Make sure that you periodically post Pinterest content to those streams, and in a visually appealing way. Animated photo slideshows and other visuals can be used to surface Pinterest content right into fan News Feeds, for instance. The resulting acquisition of Pinterest followers and the deeper engagement with fans across multiple properties can pay great dividends.

4. Make Your Pins Work Harder For You.

This means using a URL shortening and redirection strategy, preferably one that aggregates your Pinterest analytics (views, Repins, etc.) in a central location. This will allow the metrics to be combined with, and compared to, those from your othersocial properties. You also need to combat the link rot that can occur when the source image feeding your Pin is removed from its website. With content as visually driven as Pinterest’s, broken links stand out like a sore thumb. Lastly, the pinned images themselves can be set to click through to a variety of sites. Imagine a Pin of a product that, once clicked, takes you to a flash sale where the product is sold at a discount after a minimum purchase threshold is met. All of this is possible now!

5. Arm Your Staff and Agency Partners With Tools to Help Them Pin Great Content.

Content is king, and anything that makes it easier for your teams to identify and curate great content represents a competitive advantage. The Pinterest “Pin It” button works quite well for consumers. Unfortunately it wasn’t designed for marketers and is therefore missing some features that would let you include analytics tracking as a simple part of the “Pin It” process. This won’t last long, as tools to fill this gap are already under development.

Pinterest is still in its infancy, and time will tell if it continues its rapid growth or plateaus. But it certainly exhibits the potential to provide visually engaging experiences for consumers that marketers can weave into their social communities. Brands can start simple, then evaluate for effectiveness along the way. Being able to experiment with new and innovative platforms is part of the fun and excitement of social. And brands should start experimenting today.

More than ever before, venture capitalists are digging in. To stay competitive and top-of-mind, VC’s are no longer loaning their advice and their capital, but actual “core” services that portfolio companies need. This shift isn’t necessarily new. For example, top VC firms like Kleiner Perkins and Greylock play a hands-on role in helping recruit talent. Recently, we’ve seen firms roll up their sleeves for another core competency: public relations.

More often, I’ll be pitched on a story on a startup by the in-house PR rep for an investment firm that has invested in the said startup. Traditionally, either the startup or an outside PR agency tends to do the outreach when it comes to launches, trend pieces, financings or other news items. And the rise in pitches from the VC firms themselves (as opposed to the startups) got me thinking about the evolution of the role of the VC, specifically in the context of PR. But in the past year or so, we’ve seen a rise in the addition of top PR and communications talent to these firms, specifically to help work with portfolio companies on PR strategy.

One of the first major hires in the industry was the addition of PR honcho Margit Wennmachers, co-founder of one of the largest technology and media PR firms OutCast Communications, to Andreessen Horowitz as a partner. At the time, Marc Andreessen told AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher that Wennmachers’ brand building and PR experience would be a valuable asset to the firm and its portfolio. Mind you, Andreessen Horowitz wisely realized only a year after launching the firm that building a VC powerhouse would be more than just writing checks, but also a consultancy of sorts.

David Krane, Google’s former Director of Global Communications and Public Affairs, and one the company’s first PR reps back when it was just a startup, wears two hats at Google Ventures, where he is now a partner. He invests in startups but also helps Google Ventures portfolio companies with PR strategy as well.

in April 2010, Sand Hill VC Kleiner Perkins nabbed former head of communications for Hulu (and previous PR/marketing employee at Amazon and Microsoft) Christina Lee to head marketing and PR for the firm. Last fall, PR guru Kiersten Hollars (formerly of Outcast, Yahoo, Digg, and AOL) joined Wennmachers’ team at Andreessen Horowitz, focusing on scaling the marketing and PR efforts for the then 80 companies in the firm’s portfolio. And most recently we saw Google senior manager in PR Andrew Kovacs jump to Sequoia to help the firm’s marketing partner, Mark Dempster with PR and communications duties for the firm’s companies in the U.S. and Israel.

Clearly some of the brightest and most well-regarded talent in the technology PR industry are no longer just at agencies or in-house. As Emily Mendell, VP of communications for the National Venture Capital Association, tells me, the VC market is extremely competitive for deal flow. “There are a lot of firms chasing for deals in the hottest, early stage startups, and PR representation and communications strategy is just another service these firms can offer while at the negotiating table,” she says.

And technology PR is not an easy task—to do the job well, it requires a technical understanding of the product and the ability to digest and relay this information in a communicable way. Startups realize that having this on-hand at their investment firm is an asset to them, Mendell explains.

And many of the pr execs mentioned above are solely focused on helping portfolio companies as opposed to doing in-house communications for the firms themselves. Lee tells me that part of the trend of more VC firms bringing on PR talent is a reflection of how the role of communications is changing in the tech industry in general.

“Now smart entrepreneurs understand the value in being transparent with consumers, and the role of communications has risen to a strategic level,” she says. “PR is expected to play a big part in building brands and more and more startups are thinking about PR and branding at an earlier stage.”

Kleiner, specifically, is taking a holistic approach to company building, and part of this is providing communications and PR help to startups and companies, she explains.

Of course, there are a range of different ways which VC PR reps can help entrepreneurs and companies from simple tasks such as introductions to technology journalists to actually spearheading PR efforts for a product launch, to coaching companies on branding and messaging strategy to drafting press releases.

Another industry source tells me that while some firms are bringing on PR talent for the use of portfolio companies, others are trying to use PR to boost their own images, and promote their VCs to the press.

One factor that I believe is pushing the trend of building reps and even mini-agencies in-house is the rise in seed stage investing by these VC firms and the competitive market at this level. There are no shortage of VCs and angels that are willing to write checks at the seed level nowadays. Many firms can’t just get deal flow based on reputation alone. But the VC firms ability to be a ‘full-service’ agency can be a factor entrepreneurs consider when sitting down at the table. This is especially important for early-stage companies, who may not have the kind of money to hire a top-tier PR firm to handle PR, says one industry insider.

As mentioned above, part of this full-service package also includes recruiting, which is a trend that has been happening for some time now. Kleiner Perkins partner Juliet de Baubigny has been helping portfolio companies with human capital and recruiting for the past ten years. Greylock recently created a dedicated talent team to help its portfolio companies recruit effectively. Firms like Andreessen Horowitz, and Sequoia are also aggressively working to help startups network and recruit talent.

Interestingly, this ‘full service’ model has been offered by incubators like Y Combinator, TechStars and 500 Startups though both in-house talent as well as through mentorship. While it’s a stretch to call the VC firms mentioned above incubators, it’s certainly interesting to see the overall functionality of these large firms evolve with the current state of investing.

As firms like Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, and others create these full-service VC funds that not only dole out cash but come with in-house PR agencies, marketing resource and talent recruiter, there’s no doubt that this trend will filter down to smaller firms and funds.

The News Corp. phone-hacking scandal continues to spiral out of control, sweeping up more and more of the companies employees and executives. In the UK, 8 people were arrested, including five News Corp journalists, in the broadening scandal, which may embroil deputy COO James Murdoch—Rupert’s son and heir-apparent. A paper copy of a deleted email found in a crate ties James Murdoch directly to the events under investigation, which involved the routine and illegal hacking of phone voicemails on behalf of a News Corp publication.

This email evidence would never have been found if it wasn’t printed out because News Corp, like many corporations, regularly deletes archived emails. It is standard practice, but the technical reasons given for deleting emails are usually not the real reason they are eliminated. The only real reason to destroy old emails is to avoid liability and future lawsuits.

Reading the account in the New York Times about this newly discovered email from former News of the World editor Colin Myler to James Murdoch, which dates back to 2008, you get a sense it wasn’t meant to be found.

Mr. Myler’s electronic copy had been lost “in a hardware failure” on March 18, 2010,” while Mr. Murdoch’s electronic copy had been deleted on Jan. 15, 2011 during an “e-mail stabilization and modernization program.”

Big corporations routinely delete old e-mails. Between April 2010 and July 2011, News International discussed e-mail deletion with HCL Technologies, which manages its e-mail system, on nine occasions, according to a letter HCL wrote to Parliament last summer.

Most of the reasons were mundane. But in January 2011, HCL said, News International asked whether HCL was capable of helping “truncate” — meaning delete — “a particular database” in the e-mail system. The question came shortly after disclosures in a civil suit brought by the actress Sienna Miller raised fears that material about widespread phone hacking at The News of the World might become public.

Companies know that incriminating evidence always exists in emails because emails document the conversations and decision-making that goes on in all organizations. But they need a justification other than “We don’t want to get caught.” So that’s how you get corporate doublespeak like “e-mail stabilization and modernization” programs, with its vague suggestion that there is a technical reason to delete old emails, as if a company’s entire email system might crash under the weight of old emails stored on a server.

Let’s just be clear here. By putting in place policies to routinely delete old email archives, companies are protecting themselves from future incrimination. And News Corp isn’t the only company that does this, by any means. It’s a preventative measure. But it only works if they destroy any incriminating emails before they are caught. Once an investigation starts and the prospect of subpoenas arise, destroying emails is no longer a legal option. In this case, that may come back to bite News Corp.

Y Combinator and Start Fund-backed startup SendHub, which offers a simple SMS solution for businesses, is killing it…and it never “officially” launched. Instead, the company soft-launched a couple of months ago with zero fanfare, and already has several hundred customers, 40% of which are active monthly users, sending some 30,000 SMS text messages per month.

Although generating revenue through its premium services for businesses, SendHub is also making teachers’ lives easier, by providing them with free tools to communicate with students and parents via SMS.

The big draw for SendHub has nothing to do with buzzwords (aren’t you sick of local, social, photo-sharing apps, anyway?), and everything to do with building something people actually need: an affordable, easy-to-use alternative to today’s business-focused messaging platforms. In January, the startup grew its user base by 3x, and so far this month, it’s grown another 45%.

Built on top of Twilio’s scalable voice platform, SendHub lets businesses communicate with their customers via text messages sent via the web interface or from any mobile phone. To begin receiving these messages, customers text to join using a keyword the business chooses.

When signing up for an account, SendHub users are given a ten-digit number, so the messages they send look as if they’re local, even if they’re not. This could be helpful for larger corporations who want to manage the messaging campaigns for their local outlets, for example, or even for politicians, who want to appear as if they’re doing grassroots campaigning from right down the street.

The texts themselves include a link to a mobile-optimized website, where the recipients can rate the message by voting it up or down or blocking the sender entirely. These analytics help the business (or politician, or teacher, or non-profit, etc.) determine which of their SMS efforts are better received than others. In a couple of weeks, the analytics program will be upgraded to also include stats on delivery, click-throughs, blocks, and more. Around the same time, the mobile-optimized website will include social sharing buttons, so a business can spread its message even further through the recipients’ circle of friends.

Oh, and the the best part? SendHub is a freemium service.

The original idea for the company was to build a communication system for co-founder Garrett Johnson’s nephew’s school in Tampa, Florida. The school is using it now, as are hundreds of other businesses and organizations, including Florida State University’s athletics program, which is the school Johnson attended for his undergrad degree prior to Oxford. There he met co-founder John Fallone, also now an FSU grad. The third co-founder, Ash Rust, met Johnson while at Oxford, and worked as the Director of Ranking at Klout before joining SendHub.

For teachers, the free level of the service should always meet their needs, as it provides access to 150 contacts (3 groups of 50) and is capped at 1,000 messages per month. Paid levels providing unlimited messaging are available for $10, $50, and $150 per month, with access to 1,000 contacts, 100,000 contacts, or 250,000 contacts, respectively.

Solving a real-world business need, while helping teachers, too – what’s better than that?

Explains Johnson, “It’s really tough to build a platform specifically for education, because the question becomes ‘how do you make it sustainable?’”

“But the same pain point teachers have, small businesses have, churches have, non-profits have…If we can solve a general pain point, it will benefit teachers, and disproportionally benefit low-income, minority communities for whom access to computers is limited. But they all have cellphones and everyone can get a text message.”

SendHub has raised roughly $300,000 from Y Combinator, StartFund, Howard Lindzon and Tom McInerney. The company plans to launch an iPhone app in early March, with other platforms to follow.

NewME Accelerator, the incubator launched last year to support minority entrepreneurs, just announced its latest group of startups.

In her blog post about the new class (NewME’s second), founder and CEO Angela Benton also talks about the success rate of the first group of NewME alums — 60 percent of them have raised money, adding up to a little more than $500,000 in total funding.

For the current class, Benton says NewME received more than 300 applications. This year’s program will be based in the Hub San Francisco co-working space. Participants in the 12-week program don’t receive funding from NewME, but they get to live and work with a community of entrepreneurs, and they also receive mentorship and access to services from NewME partners. (Last month, the program added Andreessen Horowitz as a partner and sponsor.) In exchange, NewME takes a 4 percent stake in the company.

Even though the second session is just about to start, NewME is already accepting applications for the next class, which starts in August. While most of the promotion around NewME has focused on African-American entrepreneurs, the program is also interested in companies with founders and CEOs from other underrepresented minorities, namely those who are women or Latinos.

Here are the new companies (the descriptions come from NewME):

The Modul.us
Founder: Rachel Brooks
Desription: TheModul.us allows small businesses to affordably configure products through their software.

Butlr
Founder: Andre Gabriel
Description: Butlr gives you the easiest, funnest way to find any kind of deal on the Web.

Ubi Video
Founder: James Norman
Description: We are a discovery entertainment platform that offers the only digital video experience you can call your own.

AgLocal
Founder: Naithan Jones
Description: AgLocal connects independent farmers and producers with the demand of local business and consumers.

Helpr
Founder: Tendekai Muchenje
Description: Helpr is a one stop customer care portal that literally makes customer care as simple as @#*!.

Kairos (still in private testing)
Founder: Amanda McClure
Description: Kairos overlays data on top of real life interactions in the enterprise market using facial recognition and augmented reality.

pictureMENU (still in private testing)
Founder: Christopher Lyons
Description: pictureMenu allows restaurants to bring their menu’s into the 21st century by allowing them to create “smart menus” accessible via tablets and mobile phones. pictureMenu’s tie into a restaurants POS system.

Editor’s note: Charley Moore is a lawyer and the founder of online legal service Rocket Lawyer.

Congratulations Facebook! You have made history and changed the world. So, here are some thoughts from one of your biggest fans. Like the rest of the planet, I love Facebook and use it every day. So, there may never be a better time than now, when things are going really well, to add a dose of humility and perspective to the Facebook conversation.

Remember the movie Gladiator? Commodus, the bad son, murdered his aging father, Emperor Marcus Aurelius, preventing him from passing the empire down to his adopted good son, Maximus. Thus, instead of carrying on a centuries old tradition of merit-based succession, power passed to an unworthy blood relative and corruption followed.

What does this have to do with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg? Well, according to the $5 billion IPO filing, legal documents give him absolute control over the post-IPO company, even beyond the grave, just like a Roman emperor. That kind of power can have unintended consequences.

The story of Facebook’s spectacularly successful founder serves as a blueprint for others who hope to create corporate dynasties. Still, both he and those who seek to emulate him would be wise to take the counsel of history and establish at least a minimally representative corporate governance structure that includes one or more independent board members.

How did governance get to this point?

Facebook came of age after Google’s founders obtained super majority control at IPO, followed by LinkedIn, Groupon and Zynga (and more). In its early days, Sean Parker, a serial entrepreneur (Napster, Plaxo) who played an important early role as a confidante to Mr. Zuckerberg, helped convince him of the importance of founders maintaining control. As such, the Facebook founder has long dominated his board of directors, by appointing a majority of seats.

Now, Facebook takes the founder-control trend to the extreme. By converting his shares into a class of super-voting stock at IPO, and designating Facebook as a “controlled company,” Zuckerberg will not only control 57.1% of the vote, but will also have the legal right to name 100% of the board of directors. He can also designate whomever he chooses as the successor to his corporate authority.

The unintended consequence of such absolute control may be the opposite of what Zuckerberg hopes. It isn’t a stretch to believe that he genuinely wants control in order to keep the business focused on the long-term social mission he described in his letter to shareholders, rather than the short-term gains often demanded by financial managers. What may happen instead is that the post-IPO business finds itself subject to whimsical decision-making and vulnerable to the inevitable securities lawsuits.

When founder-controlled companies sell shares to the public, they should plan for the possibility of the emperor at some point “having no clothes.” Eventually, even the best founders can lose their mojo, or appoint a successor who proves unequal to the task. This is when having independent views and fiduciaries can help shield the business from liability and guide it to a better place, even without legal control.

Of course, founder-controlled companies are often extraordinarily successful. In the United States, the founding family is an influential investor in more than one-third of the Standard & Poor’s 500 companies. Founding family owned companies tend to do well because of the long-term influence, interest, and investment of owners who are motivated by mission, not just by financial gain.

For example, Ford Motor Company has managed to sustain a profitable founding family business since Henry Ford incorporated it in 1903. Since 1956, the Ford family has wielded at least 40% of the company’s voting rights by setting up a system to ensure that only family members can own Class B stock. The family’s voting power includes the exclusive right to approve a merger, sale, or liquidation of the company.

In their desire to control but not stifle the business, the Fords enlisted qualified advisers, including original counsel Clifford Longley, investor Goldman Sachs, and independent directors. And it worked; Ford has survived multiple recessions, including the most recent economic downturn. Ford was the only American carmaker that didn’t need a government bailout. (That being said, while the longevity of Ford and its corresponding profitability are impressive, let’s keep in mind that, from 1997 to 2007, Ford’s U.S. market share plummeted from 25 percent to 15 percent, and in 2008, it sustained a loss of $14.9 billion. It’s nice to paint it with a broad brush, but Ford should have been leading “The Way Forward” long before 2006 — even if it didn’t end up taking any TARP funds.)

Mr. Zuckerberg has so far made a different choice about the governance of Facebook. While appointing Sheryl Sandberg as a strong #2 has been brilliant, what will he do when she moves on? He and his heirs can exercise more corporate power post-IPO than when it was private. Opting to function as a “controlled company,” Facebook will be exempt from the customary stock exchange corporate governance rules that apply to the vast majority of public companies.

From the Facebook prospectus (S-1):

Because we qualify as a “controlled company” under the corporate governance rules for publicly-listed companies, we are not required to have a majority of our board of directors be independent, nor are we required to have a compensation committee or an independent nominating function.

Instead of a nominating committee for directors, all directors will be selected, removed and replaced by Mr. Zuckerberg, who is also imbued with the power to unilaterally choose a successor.

Mr. Zuckerberg has the ability to control the outcome of matters submitted to our stockholders for approval, including the election of directors and any merger, consolidation, or sale of all or substantially all of our assets … Additionally, in the event that Mr. Zuckerberg controls our company at the time of his death, control may be transferred to a person or entity that he designates as his successor.

While Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt at Google also maintain control, with
majority ownership and voting rights, the triumvirate approach has balanced governance, and none of their rights extends to the power to appoint and remove independent directors at will. The same goes for Reid Hoffman at LinkedIn, Andrew Mason at Groupon and Mark Pincus at Zynga.

So, if you are a company founder, and you single-mindedly want to make your business a founder-controlled dynasty, Facebook is your blueprint. If, on the other hand, your goals include protecting the durability of the company you founded, even when you and your heirs may no longer project the visionary qualities that you do today, you should: 1) empower your company’s non-founder shareholders to elect at least 1 independent director; and 2) commit to a succession plan that is not hereditary by default.

Eva Arevuo also contributed to this article.

Editor’s note: David Hewitt is VP, global mobile practice lead at digital agency SapientNitro.

Mobile strategy is about more than just phones. Mobile platforms and engagement strategies in our digitally enabled world need to support all marketing initiatives, both offline and online, and be truly multi-channel. Mobile maturity is one area, however, where brands and agencies are playing catch-up with consumer demand.

A siloed approach to mobile has been commonplace over the past couple of years. Many agencies have supplemented traditional creative with mobile ads that lack a larger strategy, subbing out app development that offers no real value and failing to thoughtfully consider the best platforms and devices for mobile campaigns.

For example, Shazam recently made a splash by enabling second screen synchronization with the Super Bowl broadcast, and the company says it saw record engagement during the game. Unfortunately, problems arose because not all hub pages were optimized and users had to complete Bud Light’s age verification screen on a screen that was not touch-friendly. Considering the large number of iPhones participating, it should have also linked straight to the promoted song on iTunes, instead of emailing it a day later. It’s likely that there was a lot of user drop-off, especially given the three-step process.

Missed opportunities like this will become less common over the next year as brands and agencies fight to stay ahead of the curve, proving 2012 will be a game-changer for mobile.

This shift to a more optimized mobile experience is not merely because the industry is a year older, but because enough agency and brand leadership are seeing a critical mass of mobile and multi-channel initiatives bear fruit. Marketers are realizing the growing risk of doing nothing.

This year, the market demands a more entrepreneurial mindset. Mobile is not just the hot topic of the moment — it’s the future. Embracing this reality requires a shift in thinking and many brands still do not have a mobile or encompassing digital strategy in place. Moreover, many agencies are still growing a set of basic mobile capabilities. Creating both smartphone and tablet-optimized experiences, along with the increasing need to pick platforms and develop apps, is becoming the norm.

Last but not least, 2012 is begging for brands to truly integrate mobile with commerce and CRM programs, and create new integrated experiences for in-store, at home and on-the-go.

While 2012 brings a new confidence to place bigger investment bets in mobile, here are some tips and trends to consider:

• Look at all of the touch points and device considerations that surround a mobile campaign. Consider environmental conditions like in-store Wi-Fi, device detection and fallback tactics such as developing SMS or mobile web alternatives to more specialized mobile tactics.
• As mobile becomes more integrated with other touch points, the need to get store Ops and IT involved becomes a critical success factor. Pick an agency that knows how to work intimately with all facets of your organization.
• On the flip side, some agencies and platform providers are so bent on serving every device that the entire experience gets ‘dumbed down’ so far that it doesn’t engage anyone effectively, especially the smartphone crowd that is more likely to participate. Know what devices to optimize for and how far to take it. Remember not to just look at today’s device penetration for a market, but also the consumer behavior that goes with it and where the trend lines point.
• As the promise of enterprise mobile solutions and point of sales integration continues to heat up, plan for concepts and pilots that set a bigger stage for follow-on investment.
• 2012 will be the year of getting websites and relevant marketing assets optimized for tablets, not just smartphones — especially as tablets continue to heat up for mobile commerce and chip away at market share for everyday PC tasks.
• ‘Big Data’ is back as a buzzword and unsurprisingly so; the more multiple channels are connected, the more we need data to serve up the right experience to the right prospect and customer. There is a lot of opportunity here with location-based service integration and better behavioral and preference-based targeting. However, most of the real benefits won’t be realized until 2013-2014.
• As most direct consumer brands have a mobile app of some sort, expect to see enhancements that bring context aware features, embedded loyalty, and in some cases pre-paid and mobile wallet capabilities.
• Much of 2011′s mobile marketing budgets were still made up of slush fund ad budgets. Expect to see more purposeful campaigns and sizable budgets set aside for mobile.
• Look to work with agencies and partners that don’t just put a person in the room that ‘gets mobile’ but has shown they can deliver it across channels and touch points.

Various agencies and brands sit in very different places across the mobile and multi-channel maturity curve. In 2012, those that don’t figure out mobile will really start to show their declining relevancy to today’s consumer.

Airy Labs, an educational gaming startup backed by Google Ventures and others, has eliminated the vast majority of its 20-person staff, leaving only a skeleton crew to keep the company going.

That’s what I’ve been told by former employees, and when you bring up the “team” page of the Airy Labs website, you now get a 404 error message. (There’s still a link from the jobs page.) When I contacted founder and CEO Andrew Hsu, he acknowledged that there have been cuts, saying, “We’re a young company and we tried some early experiments… some worked and some didn’t, so now we’re focusing a smaller team on the areas that worked.”

Airy Labs develops learning games for smartphones. Like many startups, the company began with lots of promise, particularly in Hsu himself. He’s someone for whom the word “prodigy” seems inadequate — according to the company biography, at the age of 16 he graduated from the University of Washington with three bachelor of science degrees, and at 19 he was a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience at Stanford. That’s when he left to start Airy.

Hsu received a Thiel Fellowship, which is the “20 Under 20″ program started by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel to encourage students to drop out (or at least take a break) from college and create companies instead. For a while, Hsu looked like the program’s biggest success story, since he was the first to raise venture funding, specifically from Google, Foundation Capital, and Playdom founder Rick Thompson.

(I notified the Thiel Fellowship about this post and asked if they wanted to comment, but I did not receive a response.)

The former employees I spoke to offered their version of what went wrong — an account that may, of course, be colored by their current negativity towards the company. Despite his credentials, they place the blame for Airy Labs’ problems squarely on Hsu and his family. For one thing, they say Andrew Hsu wasn’t the only one running the company. Instead, they claim that his father David Hsu was the real boss (he was described to the team as the chief strategist and later as the COO). His mother was also involved in management, and his younger brother was often around too. The family usually holed up in one office that was inaccessible to employees. There was even an email address for reaching all three adults: x@airylabs.com.

The former employees say it was surprising to find a traditional family-run business beneath the veneer of a venture-backed startup, especially since the family relationship was never explicitly disclosed — they had to piece it together from inference, based on hints like Andrew Hsu’s YouTube videos.

They have other complaints. 9am to 6pm were declared “library” hours in the office, when employees were supposed to communicate via instant messaging and emails rather than talking out loud. A promised break period wasn’t consistently honored. At the end of every day, some team members were required to have individual debriefings with either David or Andrew Hsu, which would keep people in the office until 9 or 10pm or later. They were regularly expected to work six- or seven-day weeks.

Individually, these practices might not seem entirely unreasonable at a hard-driving startup, but the former employees say that collectively, this made for a micromanaged, overworked staff. Late last year, the team rebelled, demanding more reasonable hours, and the Hsus gave in. However, some team members were told that the new, laxer rules did not apply to them.

They also describe Airy as a paranoid, secretive environment. They say the Hsus refused to commit anything to writing, and would become angry if anyone complained via email (rather than verbally). Employees were warned against socializing or discussing their compensation with other members of the team. At the same time, office life was obsessively documented in photos, a practice that extended to people interviewing for jobs. And things got worse after a negative review of the company was posted on Glassdoor — at that point, lectures about loyalty became common, and employees were told not to speak to anyone who had left the company.

Speaking of Glassdoor, the anonymous employee reviews on the site support the broad strokes of the account I heard. One review is positive, the other five all focus on a single theme — bad management. One reviewer said the management team “reminded me of my parents.” In some ways, that was positive, as there were “random bouts of affection.” But in many ways, it was not:

The management were unlike parents in that they definitely didn’t love us. They asked for work hours that are probably normal in the country they’re from, but are not okay here. I don’t think they adjusted for culture difference. That’s how I’m choosing to look at it, anyway. The time and efforts they asked their employers [sic] to put in did not align with the pay they handed out (somewhat understandable as they are a young start-up) or with the appreciation they showed.

I wish they would understand that everyone who joined did so because Airy Labs holds a wonderful vision. We employees were/are there to help them work toward this vision because we believe in it too. The employees are definitely not in it for the money. Many of us sacrificed family time we can never get back to build their vision, which we made our own. The ones who couldn’t take the work load left right away. It’d be nice if the ones who stayed were shown more appreciation and human kindness.

Worst of all from a business perspective, the former employees say there was no clear vision, no sense of how the company was going to achieve its goal (described on the site as “creating the next generation of social learning games for kids”). For one thing, Airy didn’t have a full-time game designer for several months last fall. Although the company released seven games in relatively quick succession during that period (some of them, like Mini Catch, achieved high rankings in the Apple App Store), productivity since then has slowed as everyone devoted their energy to a big product, one that has yet to launch and whose goals were constantly shifting. The former employees say these shifts weren’t brought on by brilliant new ideas, but instead by Andrew Hsu’s desire to chase the latest trends.

While this was going on, they say Hsu promised more funding was coming, in the form of a Series A. (At this point, Airy Labs had raised $1.5 million.) He was hiring aggressively, growing the company to 20 people and saying that it would soon be 40. However, that Series A still hasn’t materialized, and the company wasn’t earning much revenue, having released the games for free and only introducing in-app purchases several months later. Eventually, employees were told that investors had become concerned about the business, so the team would have to take a pay cut. Some employees quit then, and soon after, others were laid off or told to take an unpaid vacation.

Now, the former employees say the only people left are an engineer, two artists, an administrator/executive assistant, and Andrew Hsu. Desks in the big Palo Alto office are being rented out to other companies. (Hsu also sent out messages to Stanford email lists looking for tenants.)

I provided Hsu with a summary of this article, and he responded with the following statement:

We’re a young company and we tried some early experiments… some worked and some didn’t, so now we’re focusing a smaller team on the areas that worked. I’m a first-time CEO and certainly made some mistakes, including growing the company too fast. I feel good about where we’re headed and while we’re having strategy changes, I am fortunate to have my awesome advisors, investors, and experienced mentors to lean on to guide me through this difficult process. Their input was instrumental in making these decisions. I am also making a number of management team changes that will ultimately help me lead the company through the new strategy. I was and continue to be the sole decision maker in the company.

I sincerely appreciate the hard work and diligence from all of our past team members, but I had to make the right but difficult decision for the company at that time, to keep us moving forward. I wish them all the best in their future endeavors. We are currently working on some innovative, exciting projects that are coming out soon. Our space is new and interesting and requires innovation, and we’re currently formulating our next plan of attack.

Looking back on the experience, the former employees say they are most disappointed to have given so much time and energy to the Airy Labs vision, when they’re now convinced the executives had no idea how to make that vision a reality, and no desire to recruit more experienced advisors.

“Andrew said he was fully committed to that vision,” one says. “I hope that’s true. I hope they succeed. I hope they build back up.”

Editor’s note: Mitch Lazar is the CEO of news reader startup Taptu. He was the co-founder CNN.com and the founder of CNN Mobile and Cartoon Network Mobile.

Many revolutions have been televised, but the publishing revolution has already become digitized, and now, mobilized.

There’s no doubt that the second half of 2011 was a difficult period for newspaper and magazine publishers. An Audit Bureau of Circulations report revealed that single-copy sales of consumer magazines dropped by nearly 10 percent in a year, while the five magazines with the highest newsstand sales all reported sharp declines as well. Most importantly, the fall in sales has hit revenues, making it more important than ever for publishing businesses to rapidly modernize their trade.

As readers move toward tablets and mobile phones, there’s no question that these new reading devices will dictate the success and failure of the media industry. Successful publishers will be able to reincarnate their digital content onto these gadgets. So why are so many publishers stumbling in their mobile strategy? From over committing to a multitude of mobile platforms, to underwhelming app experiences, we’re seeing a lot of mistakes that should not be repeated:

1. Trying and failing to reinvent the wheel.

Many big and small publishers have top-notch tech teams and significant resources, but often fall into the trap of believing that only the teams inside their own building can create the best platforms and experiences. Not true.

Partnerships are the prime way big and small media companies can succeed in building their audiences in the new media world. Small startups are creating amazing technology that can help publishers grow their distribution plans. By tapping into these talented, focused teams, the publishing world can quickly distribute content in a compelling and engaging way using tomorrow’s trends, not yesterday’s opportunities.

Don’t reinvent the wheel, because by the time you do, a new wheel will already be in motion.

2. Getting left out of the mix.

If you think about it, listening to music on the radio or going clubbing exposes you to great new tunes you may not have discovered. Thanks to DJs, and discovery services, we all find new music we love and want to share. This curation and sharing experience has now come to the world of digital publishing. Modern social news aggregators are essentially content DJs that deliver awesome content to consumers through a fun and easy experience, whether that be via flicking, tapping or flipping a device screen. Publishers that are getting this right are experiencing booms in their digital readership solely due to the fact that new discovery tools and networks like Facebook and Twitter turn on new readers to great recommended content.

News needs distribution. In the old days, publishers put their newspapers under the door of every hotel room, at the front door of many homes or at the street corner. Today success is determined by how well publishers join and participate in social media and the news revolution. Discovery services like news readers can help.

Sadly, some publishers have avoided these discovery tools. They’ve wanted their content to only live in their controlled spaces, or have channels that include only their sourced and created content. But consumers are demanding more. Through news readers, they are browsing and uncovering new content and sources they never knew existed by taking advantage of search technologies that create serendipity for discovery, sharing and recommendations.

News reader users are building streams of curated topics across genres and receiving a plethora of content from editors across publications. Take the Super Bowl, for example. In days gone by, you had to hunt and peck your way through each editorial version of ESPN, CNNSI or Yahoo Sports. Now, you can DJ your own news mix to see what sports editors and the social crowd are saying about every aspect of the Super Bowl, making the user experience engaging, time saving, and far and away supreme to traditional news searches. When users like what they see, they share stories with their friends, families and followers—proving themselves a key ingredient for successful distribution. In the end, news readers and other discovery services drive more people back to media destinations where the cash register rings.

3. Ignoring brand potential.

Big branded publishers have an amazing treasure trove of content at their fingertips from many different brands or labels. They create enormous amounts of content every day. In fact, some of the largest media companies have several amazing newspapers or magazines in their stable, but many have not ventured into mixing and mashing content from their various publications into a new and exciting branded experience.

In this fast changing digital landscape, the time is ripe to test the waters for launching new aggregated services. The cost is not great and the upside can be very rewarding. It puts a spin on traditional distribution, and focusing on one deep vertical with existing brands lets publishers try new distribution strategies without cannibalizing their existing audiences and revenue.

Take Glo from MSN, for example. In collaboration with Hachette Filipacci Media and BermanBraun, they built a top lifestyle destination for women with a brilliant mix of aggregated media from across their stables of content. Using existing content from their print worlds, they created a new avenue for digital audiences to consume their great content, while taking advantage of an opportunity to build a new business at a relatively low cost.

4. Searching in the wrong places.

Distribution and discovery of publisher content used to take place primarily in traditional search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing with traditional investments in search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that led users seeking one particular query to discover content from another related outlet. Content tagged a certain way shows higher up in the algorithmic search results, prompting users to click on it and publishers to receive the benefit of picking up greater share of audiences when SEO is done right. It’s a type of free advertising publishers and media owners have used in their distribution plans. However, news readers like Taptu, Flipboard, Pulse and Zite are demonstrating the modern form of SEO, where users discover and share stories that have the perfect context and relevance to each user.

While reading a stream of content, people are exposed to related stories or served up other similar stories from a variety of publishers, leading users to share, tweet or follow links back to large media and publishers. So, for example, if a user searches ‘NFL mock draft 2012,’ they will instantly find a variety of new sources that have become experts on the topic like Walter Football. Walter who? Yes, Walter Football. Welcome to the new world of mobile search.

In speaking with more than 100 digital publishers across the world, the consistent thing we hear is, “We know mobile is critical, but going mobile is easier said than done.” Hopefully the publishing industry can learn from what I see every day and take simple, cost-effective steps towards winning in mobile without letting history repeat itself.

OMG. Pinterest now has over 10.4 million registered users, 9 million monthly Facebook-connected users, and 2 million daily Facebook users, according to Inside Network’s AppData tracking service. With gorgeous photography, and links to shopping sites, Pinterest is becoming an obsession for flocks of women. And they’re not afraid to show it, I mean, Like it. AppData and Facebook’s advertising tool show that over 97% of Pinterest’s Facebook fans are women.

The stunningly feminine fan base could be a telling proxy for Pinterest’s actual user base, which totals over 10.4 million considering that’s how many users follow the official “Pinterest” account.

Even though it was co-founded by three men, the site’s not shy about courting women. It’s About page describes that “People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.”

Sure, dudes can do all those things too, but they’re probably not addicted to pinning tuxedos and power tools like women pin brides dresses and bundt cakes. Pinterest’s easy-to-use Pin It bookmarklet and the joy of curation is keeping ladies and gentlemen engaged.

Over 1/5 of its fast-growing Facebook-connected monthly user count use Pinterest each day. At the start of 2012 the daily user count was just 810,000, but now its at 2 million according to AppData. This week comScore said Pinterest hit 10 million U.S. monthly unique visitors faster than any independent site in history.

There are so many beautiful things to share, and they don’t deserve to slip into obscurity at the bottom of our Twitter feeds and Facebook profiles. Pinterest gives people the chance to say “I love this, and not just today. This helps define me.”

[Image Credit: Married To The Sea]

It’s February, which means Toy Fair in New York City. Every year, Mind Candy CEO Michael Acton Smith comes to town to peddle his little monsters. Those would be Moshi Monsters, one of the largest social game sites for kids 6 to 11, with 10 million monthly visitors. It’s huge in the UK, and this year Smith is going to make a major push into the U.S.

And it’s not just online. Moshi Monsters are finding their way into all sorts of kids merchandise, including collectible toy figurines (more than 20 million sold in the UK alone last year), plush dolls, games, the No. 1 kids magazine in the UK, mobile apps, and even temporary tattoos. While we were talking about his plans in the video above, Smith put one of the tattoos of the Snookums “moshling” character on my arm. My kids were pretty impressed when I showed it to them.

Last year, Smith’s goal was to sell $100 million worth of Moshi Monster merchandise, and he exceeded that goal, selling $105 million worth directly and through licensees. Mind Candy’s revenues was a portion of that, but it is profitable with 100 employees and Smith says revenues “tripled” last year.

He is constantly pushing the brand into new areas, including Moshi TV, which is like a YouTube for Kids with a mix of original and curated programming. If you haven’t heard of Moshi Monsters yet, you will. The toys will be in Walmart, JC Penny and pretty much everywhere else this year.

I can think of few subjects less interesting than Facebook’s forthcoming IPO. There, I said it.

I honestly don’t get what the big deal is. So a few thousand people will finally liquidize their locked-up wealth, and the hoi polloi will at last be able to buy Facebook shares. Stop the presses! (It won’t meaningfully affect their ability to buy other companies; they already have $4 billion in cash on hand, and I seriously doubt they have any multibillion dollar acquisitions in mind.)

I guess if you measure innovation by keeping financial score, this seems exciting, but if you measure by, you know, actual innovation, this is a total nonevent.

However. All the IPO furore has introduced one interesting data point: Mark Zuckerberg’s S-1 letter, which includes the unexpectedly striking–daring, even–paragraphs

We hope to change how people relate to their governments and social institutions.

We believe building tools to help people share can bring a more honest and transparent dialogue around government that could lead to more direct empowerment of people, more accountability for officials and better solutions to some of the biggest problems of our time.

By giving people the power to share, we are starting to see people make their voices heard on a different scale from what has historically been possible. These voices will increase in number and volume. They cannot be ignored. Over time, we expect governments will become more responsive to issues and concerns raised directly by all their people rather than through intermediaries controlled by a select few.

Whoa.

Now, I’m on record as a pretty harsh critic of Facebook. Not because I think they’re evil, but because everything they do has always seemed mediocre, homogenizing, and painfully, painfully dull. (With the sole exception of Timeline, which is interesting in that it introduces long-term context to a previously transient medium, but not exactly world-changing.) To quote, er, myself:

Facebook has become to the social web what Microsoft is to the desktop: mindbogglingly gargantuan, relentlessly mediocre, and almost inescapable.

There’s nothing mediocre about what Zuckerberg wrote above. It’s downright inspirational. He’s talking about his intent to actually change the way the whole world works, using Facebook as a lever.

But how, exactly? I mean, full marks for bold words, but there’s still a vast uncrossed chasm between idea and execution, and the road to hell remains paved with good intentions.

His letter also includes a bunch of boilerplate crap about creating a “more open culture” through the magic of “people sharing more”, but come on. First, there’s a massive wall of diminishing returns there: as people share more, the value and importance of what we share decreases. First we get used to sharing online at all; then we start sharing what’s important to us; then we wind up dumping our entire Spotify playlist on our friends.

Second, that sits more than a little uncomfortably with the fact that the only people to date who actually have changed the world in an important way using Facebook as a lever, the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring, were people who had to keep their identities and locations secret; had they followed Facebook’s “share more!” ethos, they would have failed and been tortured to death. So that’s awkward.

No, if Zuckerberg really wants to change the way the world works, he’s going to have to introduce something entirely new. Like what? you inquire. Funny you should ask: I happen to have a couple of ideas. They’re wild speculation, of course — but I think they at least give an idea of the order of magnitude of innovation that’s required here.

1. Online Parliaments

This is the most obvious, and the best fit. Right now Facebook is mostly about social groups, ie people you know. But what if they expanded their remit to organizations? And I mean any scale of organization, ranging from your local arts centre to, say, the Republican Party. Sure, they can and do already have Facebook Pages, but what if their members could use Facebook to hold binding votes for their representatives? Conversely, what if those organizations could raise money from their members directly via Facebook (in exchange for a 5% fee, of course) — and then the Facebook-voted representatives could decide what to do with those funds?

That would introduce a Facebook aspect like a mega-Kickstarter, which would be significant in and of itself…

Seems to me that Kickstarter is the most important tech company since Facebook. Maybe more important in the long run.—
Tim O'Reilly (@timoreilly) February 09, 2012

…but more importantly, it would introduce Facebook into the political sphere. Aside from the money machine it would become for every political party, an elected representative of, say, twenty million verified Facebook users — “Ladies and gentlemen, the junior senator from Reddit!” — would be a major political figure, regardless of their pedigree or location, if only for the size of their pulpit.

It could even be a step towards direct online democracy, a la John Brunner’s prophetic The Shockwave Rider. There would obviously be technical challenges: verifying the electoral registers, a reliable and secure voting system, some protections against fraud, etc. But they seem surmountable.

2. Eyes On The Sky

This one’s a little crazier: what if Facebook built a mechanism for protest?

I don’t mean the Occupy movement. I mean a means for people to indicate that authority is being abused or corrupted. That petty thugs prevent people from taking pictures from a public walkway, even though they have every right to do so. When innocent people are victimized by police brutality. When bureaucrats in developing nations have to be bribed to do their jobs.

Right now there’s usually no recourse for abuse of authority, except for

• taking your complaint to the authority in question, which promises it will investigate itself and then stacks the deck against you
• going to the media, which is a lottery at the best of times.

What if Facebook provided such a recourse? A universal complaints department, if you will, one that uses their extraordinary reach as both searchlight and spotlight. That’s not as awkward a fit as it first sounds. After all, the fight against fraud and corruption is one of transparency — indeed, the world’s primary anti-corruption organization is called Transparency International — and I think we can all agree Facebook is all about transparency. If you go back and read Zuckerberg’s words, you’ll find they actually fit this notion pretty well.

What else might Facebook do to truly change the way the world works? Heck, I don’t have even half of the answers. Chime in with your own suggestions in the comments. But what’s clear to me, at least, is that if Mark Zuckerberg actually wants to put his money where his mouth his, he needs to do something new. “More of the same” won’t even come close to cutting it.