Foursquare Labs, Inc.

230px
Type	Private
Founded	New York City, New York, USA
Founder(s)	Dennis Crowley Naveen Selvadurai
Headquarters	New York City, New York, United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Dennis Crowley, Co-Founder, CEO Naveen Selvadurai, Co-Founder
Employees	approx. 100
Website	foursquare.com
Alexa rank	803 (June 2012[update])[1]
Type of site	Social Networking
Registration	Required
Users	20 million[2]
Available in	English, German, French, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Japanese
Launched	March 11, 2009
Current status	Active

Foursquare, stylized as foursquare, is a location-based social networking website for mobile devices, such as smartphones. Users "check in" at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific application by selecting from a list of venues the application locates nearby.^[3] Location is based on GPS hardware in the mobile device or network location provided by the application. Each check-in awards the user points and sometimes "badges".

The service was created in 2009 by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai. Crowley had previously founded the similar project Dodgeball as his graduate thesis project in the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University. Google bought Dodgeball in 2005 and shut it down in 2009, replacing it with Google Latitude. Dodgeball user interactions were based on SMS technology, rather than an application.^[4]

Foursquare is the second iteration of the same idea, that people can use mobile devices to interact with their environment. As of April 2012, the company reported it had 20 million registered users.^[5] The company was expected to pass 750 million check-ins before the end of June 2011, with an average of about 3 million check-ins per day. Male/female users are equally represented and also 50 percent of users are outside the US.^[6] Support for French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Japanese was added in February 2011. Support for Indonesian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Thai was added in September 2011.^[7]

Features[link]

Foursquare is a web and mobile application that allows registered users to post their location at a venue ("check-in") and connect with friends. Check-in requires active user selection and points are awarded at check-in. As of April 2012, there have been more than 2 billion check-ins with Foursquare. Users are encouraged to be hyper-local and hyper-specific with their check-ins-- one can check into a certain floor/area of a building, or indicate a specific activity while at a venue. Users can choose to have their check-ins posted on their accounts on Twitter, Facebook, or both. In version 1.3 of their iPhone application, foursquare enabled push-notification of friend updates, which they call "Pings". Users can also earn badges by checking in at locations with certain tags, for check-in frequency, or for other patterns such as time of check-in.^[8] The company has stated that users will be able to add their own custom badges to the site in the future.^{[citation needed]}

Users can create a "To Do" list for their private use and add "Tips" to venues that other users can read, which serve as suggestions for great things to do, see or eat at the location.^[9]

In addition, users can see where they have checked in with a history page. This function allows you to search past check-ins, which is broken down by month and year. A sidebar also allows you to search your check-ins by category or who you were with at the time. ^[10]

Mayorship[link]

If a user has checked-in to a venue on more days than anyone else in the past 60 days, and the check-ins are valid under foursquare's time and distance protocols, they will be crowned mayor. You must have a profile picture in order to be crowned "Mayor" of that venue. Someone else may earn the title by checking in more times than the previous mayor. It is harder to be crowned mayor in spaces that are swarming. Even after you've been crowned "Mayor," you must continuously check in to maintain your position as mayor.^[11] On August 26, 2010, foursquare rolled out a new feature which notifies users of the number of days left before he or she is crowned "Mayor". When a user "checks in" to a venue on foursquare via a mobile app, if he or she is within 10 check-ins of becoming the mayor, foursquare alerts the user of the days left before becoming mayor on the check-in confirmation screen.^[12]

Badges[link]

Badges are earned by checking into various venues. Some badges can only be earned in a specific city. Foursquare has, however, changed the way they handle badges, and now when a user gains a badge, he or she has the same badges across all cities. Once a badge is earned by a player, it will remain on that user's profile indefinitely.

There are a handful of introductory badges that are earned as milestones in usage. Some badges are tied to venue "tags" and the badge earned depends on the tags applied to the venue.^[13] Other badges may be specific to a city, venue, event, or date. Some badges use identical icons, but are earned differently. There is no official foursquare badge list available from the company.

On September 23, 2010, foursquare announced that users can now earn badges for completing tasks as well as checking in.^[14] On October 22, 2010, astronaut Douglas H. Wheelock unlocked the NASA Explorer badge by checking into foursquare from the International Space Station.^[15][16]

Scoring[link]

Each time the user checks into a place, he or she receives points. Scores break down as follows:^{[citation needed]}

• Checking in to a new place – 5 points
• Adding a new venue – 5 points
• Being the first of the user's friends to check into a new location - 3 points
• Checking in to a place the user has been before – 1 point
• Location multiplier for each place a user goes in a day – 1 point per location
• Points for checking in with the same friend at multiple locations - BFF bonus

Superuser status[link]

The service provides three levels of "Superuser status" (which is not to be confused with the "Super User" badge). Superuser status is conferred on users who have been selected by foursquare staff for their helpful contributions to the community.^[17]

All superusers can review a queue of requested changes for a single city, and can select a new city at will.

• Superuser level 1 can edit venue info (name, address, cross street, phone, Twitter names, map pin location), mark venues as open or closed, request venue merges and deletions, and edit venue tags.
• Superuser level 2 can additionally merge duplicate venue listings, adjust the latitude and longitude of a venue, add a web address, and add categories.
• Superuser level 3 adds the ability to create and remove venue aliases, as well as access a "global queue" of pending requests needing superuser attention.

Brands[link]

Foursquare Brands allows companies to create pages of tips and allows users to “follow” the company and receive special, expert tips from them when they check-in at certain locations. Some of the companies even allow users to unlock special badges with enough check-ins. On most company’s pages, their Facebook, Twitter and company website links were displayed as well as tips and lists generated by the company. According to the website, the most popular company page is MTV. MTV offers a special “GTL badge” for users who check-into the gym, a beach or tanning salon, and a Laundromat within a 7 day period. MTV has 128 tips and four different lists including: Jersey Shore Cast Hottest Club List, When I Was 17: Stars’ High Schools, Jay-Z’s New York and MTV’s Hottest Music Video Locations. Each list includes 6-10 locations and allows users to view a list and a map of the locations on the list.

Specials[link]

"Specials" are an extra incentive for Foursquare users to go "check-in" at a new spot or revisit their favorite hangout. There are over 750,000 different businesses that offer "Specials" that include discounts and freebies when you check-in. Foursquare specials can be a great marketing strategy for businesses to use to persuade new customers and regular customers to visit their venue. Many businesses now display a Foursquare sign on their door or window letting users know that there is a "Special" at that particular venue. "Specials" can include anything from a free beer for your first check-in to 10% off your entire bill at a restaurant. Many Foursquare users only use Foursquare for the "Specials" because many of them are really good deals.^{[citation needed]}

Growth[link]

Naveen Selvadurai, co-founder of foursquare.

Foursquare started out in 2009 with limited availability in only 100 worldwide metro areas.^[18] In January 2010, foursquare changed their location model to allow check-ins from any location worldwide.^[19] On February 21, 2011 foursquare reached 7 million users IDs.^[20] On August 8, 2011 President Barack Obama joined foursquare, with the intention that the staff at the White House would use the service to post tips from places the president has visited.^[21]

Devices[link]

Foursquare currently has iPhone, Symbian, Android, webOS, Windows Phone 7, Bada and BlackBerry and recently Playstation Vita applications.^[22] A Maemo application is in early development stage and is not featured on the foursquare website.^[23] Users with Symbian phones and Pocket PCs (Windows Mobile touchscreen) can also use foursquare via Waze, which is also available for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry.^[24] Also, there's another application for Symbian users named "Sym4Square" is similar to the application for Android, BlackBerry and iPhone.^[25] Users may also use their mobile browsers to access foursquare mobile, but feature phone users must search for venues manually instead of using GPS that PDA applications can use.

[edit] Foursquare Day #4sqDay

Foursquare acknowledged a grass-roots effort that started in Tampa, Florida ^[26] in 2010 by declaring April 16 "Foursquare Day",^[27][28]April being the 4th month and the 16th being equal to four squared.^[29][30] Some cities have made official proclamations of April 16th being Foursquare Day (Istanbul, Turkey; Atlanta, Georgia; Austin, Texas; Cincinnati, Ohio; Corpus Christi, Texas; Gaithersburg, Maryland; Indianapolis, Indiana; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Kennesaw, Georgia; Manchester, New Hampshire; Miami, Florida; New York City; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; Seattle, Washington; Miami, Florida; Victoria, Canada; Toronto, Canada; Ramat Hasharon, Israel).^[31][32][33]

Foursquare 2.0[link]

In September 2010 foursquare announced version 2.0 of its check-in app which would help to direct users to new locations and activities, rather than just sharing their location with friends. The list of personal list of places and activities, called to-dos, was separated from the general advice from other users section called "tips". Foursquare has also created a button that would add any location in the app to a user's to-do list, and the app would now remind the user when there were to-do items nearby. Around this time, third party sites such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Zagat added an "Add to My foursquare" button, which would add a location to the user's to-do list.^[34]

Foursquare 3.0[link]

Foursquare 3.0 was released for Android and iPhone users on March 8, 2011. As of July 4, 2011, the official Foursquare application for Windows Phone 7 also has these features.

Foursquare 4.0[link]

Foursquare 4.0 was released for the iPhone on the morning of October 12, 2011 with other platforms following after. The update added a new feature called "Radar", powered by Foursquare's "Explore" algorithm. Radar is able to notify the user, for example, when they are close to a place that’s either on their to-do list or another list they follow or when three or more friends have checked in to a nearby venue.

Funding[link]

Foursquare is principally funded by Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. The company raised $1.35 million in its Series A and $20 million in its Series B round.^[35][36] On June 24, 2011 foursquare raised $50 million on a $600 million valuation.^[5]

Partnerships[link]

In February 2010, the company entered into new commercial partnerships with Zagat, Bravo, Conde Nast, The New York Times and several other firms to offer tips, specials and new badges to followers.^[37][38][39]

In June of 2011, Foursquare announced a promotional partnership with American Express.^[40], as part of AmEx's "sync" social media strategy, which allows for discounts to be applied directly to qualified American Express account holders by checking in to participating vendors.^[41]

In March of 2012, Foursquare announced they would no longer be using Google Maps for their platform, instead moving to OpenStreetMap. Foursquare described the move stating they are happier to promote crowd-sourced, open data. ^[42]

Foursquare will be partnering with the London 2012 Olympics, allowing users to check-in at numerous locations in and around the Olympic venue. A "Get Fit for Olympic Day" badge is being created for the event as well. ^[43]

Awards[link]

• In 2010, foursquare was named a runner-up in the T3 Gadget Awards 2010 as the App of the Year.^[44]
• In August 2010, the company was a finalist in Lead411's New York City Hot 125.^[45]
• In April 2010, foursquare received a Webby Award as one of the best mobile social networks.^[46]
• In March 2010, foursquare was nominated for the 13th annual SXSW Web Awards in the Mobile Category.^[47]
• Foursquare was named a 2011 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum in the Information Technologies and New Media category.^[48]
• In January 2011, foursquare was named Best Location Based Service in the TechCrunch Crunchies 2010.^[49]

Privacy[link]

In February 2010, a site known as Please Rob Me was launched,^[50] a site which scraped data from public Twitter messages that had been pushed through Foursquare, to list people who were not at home.^[50] The purpose of the site was to raise awareness about the potential thoughtlessness of location sharing, the site's founder saying "On one end we're leaving lights on when we're going on a holiday, and on the other we're telling everybody on the internet we're not home."^[50]

A privacy issue was also observed for those who connected their Twitter account to Foursquare. If such a user was joined at a location by one of their Foursquare contacts who was also using Twitter, that user would have the option to have Foursquare post a message such as "I am at Starbucks - Santa Clara (link to map) w/@mediaphyter" to their own Twitter feed. Similarly, if a user had agreed for their location to be shared with other Foursquare users, that user's Foursquare contacts would be able to easily share their location publicly on Twitter.^[51]

Later in 2010, white hat hacker Jesper Andersen discovered a vulnerability on foursquare that raised privacy concerns.^[52][53] foursquare's location pages display a grid of 50 pictures that is generated randomly, regardless of their privacy settings.^[52] Whenever a user "checks-in" at that location, their picture is generated on that location page, even if they only want their friends to know where they are.^[52] Andersen then crafted a script that collected check-in information.^[52] It is estimated that Andersen collected around 875,000 check-ins.^[52] Andersen contacted foursquare about the vulnerability, and foursquare responded by fixing their privacy settings.^[53]

In 2011, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) urged the White House to increase Internet privacy measures, especially for mobile devices and social networks, stating that federal laws have not kept up with the applications to ensure that personal information isn’t being improperly used.^[54]

Further discussion is currently^[when?] going on with the FTC and the type of information that could be tracked online. According to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, said several companies such as Microsoft and Mozilla have done a good job of putting tools on their browsers to allow users to voluntarily opt out of being tracked on the Web. But he said that without “baseline privacy protections” across the Web industry, consumers will face a patchwork of privacy policies that could differ across websites. Also, “Do Not Track is no longer just a concept. It is becoming a reality,” Leibowitz said at the hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee. “An effective Do Not Track system would go beyond simply opting consumers out of receiving targeted advertisements. It would opt them out of having their behavior tracked online.” This can be an issue with the future of foursquare, as well as other social networking website devices that track users information.^[54]

In response to the privacy issues regarding social networking sites, foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai states that "Users decide if they want to push to Twitter or Facebook, over what information they want to share and send" and "There is a lot of misunderstanding about location based services. On foursquare, if you don’t want to people to know you are on a date or with a friend at a certain place, then you don’t have to let people know. You don’t check in." Selvadurai also states that foursquare does not passively track users, which means a user has to actively check in to let people know where they are. In the future, foursquare also does not plan on being a passive tracking, using GPS and other technology to constantly find location of users.^[55]

On May 8, 2012 Foursquare developers announced a change to the API ^[56] in response to a number of so-called "stalker" applications which had been making the locations of all users within a specific area available to the public.^[57]

Lawsuit[link]

Mobile Commerce Framework Inc filed a lawsuit against foursquare on March 10, 2011, for infringing on their US Patent No:- U.S. Patent 7,693,752 (subscription-based system for providing commerce information).^[58]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website (Mobile)

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2010)

Dorothy Love Coates (January 30, 1928 – April 9, 2002) was an American gospel singer.

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Born Dorothy McGriff in Birmingham, Alabama, her early years were hard, (she later described them as "the same old thing"). Her minister father left the family when she was six, divorcing her mother thereafter. Dorothy began playing piano in the Baptist Church at age ten, then joined her sisters and brother in the McGriff Singers several years later.

Dorothy quit school to work "all the standard Negro jobs" available in Birmingham in the 1940s: scrubbing floors and working behind the counter in laundries and dry cleaners. She began singing with the Gospel Harmonettes— then known as the Gospel Harmoneers— in the early 1940s. She married Willie Love of the Fairfield Four, one of the most popular quartets of the early years of gospel, but divorced him shortly thereafter. She subsequently married Carl Coates of the Sensational Nightingales over a decade later.

Musical success[link]

Coates rose to stardom in the 1950s as a member of The Original Gospel Harmonettes. With her "raggedy" voice and preacher's fire she could outsing the most powerful hard gospel male singers of the era. She was also a notable composer, writing songs such as "You Can't Hurry God (He's Right On Time)", "99 and a Half Won't Do" and "That's Enough".

The Gospel Harmonettes— later renamed the Original Gospel Harmonettes— had achieved some fame in an early appearance when the National Baptist Convention came to Birmingham in 1940. Led by Evelyn Starks, an amazing pianist whose style of playing was much imitated,and featuring Mildred Madison Miller, a mezzo soprano who had a down-home sound that came to be a symbol of the group, singing as its lead singer. The group also included, Odessa Edwards, the clear voiced alto whose sermonettes could create a great deal of fervor at performances, Vera Conner Kolb, the piercing soprano of the group whose high notes came with such ease that Marion Williams and other sopranos of the time period imitated her style, and Willie Mae Thomss Newberry Garth, the group's deep-throated alto, the group had a regular half-hour radio show sponsored by A.G. Gaston, a local businessman and community leader.

The group first recorded for RCA in 1949, but without Dorothy Love, after appearing on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts television program. Those recordings while not particularly memorable are considered a rare jewel nowadays and include the two songs "In the Upper Room" and "Move on Up a little Higher".

Their first sides for Specialty Records—"I'm Sealed" and "Get Away Jordan"—recorded with Love in 1951 were far more successful, the group recorded a series of hits in the years that followed before disbanding in 1958.

Dorothy was the driving force behind the group's success, both on record and in person, singing with such spirit that the other members of the group would occasionally have to lead her back to the stage—a device that James Brown copied and made part of his act in the 1960s, but which was wholly genuine in Love's case. She also took over the role, particularly after Odessa Edwards' retirement, of preacher/narrator, directing very pointed criticisms from the stage of the evils she saw in the church and in the world at large.

During the years of her retirement, from 1959 to 1961, Dorothy Love—now Dorothy Love Coates—became active in the civil rights movement, working with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As she was fond of telling church audiences, "The Lord has blessed our going out and our coming in. He's blessed our sitting in, too." While many other gospel artists were slow to address political issues head-on, Coates spoke out against the war in Vietnam, racism and other evils.

Coates was just as plainspoken when criticizing the exploitative treatment that she and other gospel singers received from gospel promoters, both white and black. She reformed the Harmonettes in 1961 and later, when that group disbanded later in the decade, continued touring with a group known as the Dorothy Love Coates Singers. She recorded, both individually and with her group, on Savoy Records, Vee-Jay Records and Columbia Records in the 1960s and made occasional appearances but no recordings after 1980. She appeared in the films "The Long Walk Home" and "Beloved" at the end of her career.

Coates died in Birmingham on April 9, 2002, of heart failure, at the age of 74.

Musical influences[link]

While Coates vigorously rejected all offers to cross over to pop or soul music, a number of artists, including Little Richard, imitated her sanctified singing style. Other secular songwriters drew on her songs for inspiration, sometimes simply taking the title, as in the case of Wilson Pickett's wholly different soul tune "99 and a Half Won't Do", and sometimes adapting both lyrics and title, as in the case of the Supremes's hit "You Can't Hurry Love".

Further reading[link]

• Tony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times Limelight Editions, 1997, ISBN 0-87910-034-6.
• Horace Clarence Boyer, How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel Elliott and Clark, 1995, ISBN 0-252-06877-7.

Dennis Crowley
Born	(1976-06-19) June 19, 1976 (age 36)
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Syracuse University (B.A. 1998) New York University (M.P.S. 2004)
Occupation	internet entrepreneur
Known for	Co-founder of Dodgeball and Foursquare
Website
denniscrowley.com

Dennis Crowley (born June 19, 1976) is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for co-founding the popular social networking sites Dodgeball and Foursquare.

Education[link]

Crowley was born in Medway, Massachusetts and graduated from nearby Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood, Massachusetts in 1994 and was featured in the front-cover story of Xaverian's seasonal magazine. He received a B.A. in 1998 from Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and a M.P.S. master's degree in 2004 from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP).^[1]

Career[link]

Crowley co-founded Dodgeball with fellow student Alex Rainert in 2003 while attending New York University.^[2] Dodgeball was subsequently acquired by Google in 2005,^[3] after which Crowley along with Naveen Selvadurai developed a second version of the original Dodgeball service called Foursquare in 2009. Foursquare, offering location-based social networking services via mobile devices, had over 6 million users worldwide as of January 2011,^[4] and 10 million users as of June 2011.^[5]

Awards[link]

Crowley was named one of Fortune Magazine's "40 under 40" Business's hottest rising stars in 2010.^[6] The online magazine AskMen.com ranked Dennis Crowley number 19 of the "Top 49 Most Influential Men 2010."^[7] In 2005, he was named to the MIT Technology Review TR35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35.^[8]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website

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Robert Scoble
Born	(1965-01-18) January 18, 1965 (age 47) New Jersey
Occupation	Video blogger, Rackspace
Known for	Blogging, advocating technology
Spouse	Maryam Ghaemmaghami Scoble

Robert Scoble (born January 18, 1965) is an American blogger, technical evangelist, and author. Scoble is best known for his blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technology evangelist at Microsoft. He is married to Maryam Ghaemmaghami Scoble. He has three children; one from a previous marriage and two with Maryam. He currently works for Rackspace and the Rackspace sponsored community site Building 43. He previously worked for Fast Company as a video blogger. He is also the co-author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers with Shel Israel.

Early life and education[link]

Scoble was born in New Jersey in 1965, and grew up about a kilometer from Apple Computer's head office in Silicon Valley.^[1]

In 1989 while studying in West Valley Community College he met Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, and persuaded him to donate $40,000 worth of Macintoshes to the college journalism department.^{[2][non-primary source needed]}

In 1993 he dropped out without finishing his degree in Journalism from San Jose State University's School of Journalism and Mass Communications (he still has one class to complete).^{[3][4][non-primary source needed]}

Career[link]

Scoble began his career in the 1980s helping run a discount camera store in San Jose (LZ Premiums). He sold cheap cameras with small or no profits, but made money from accessories.

After college he was working for Fawcette Technical Publications (as anything man - design, editing, helping plan the conferences like VBITS and VSLive!). His current wife Maryam was also working for Fawcette.

During the mid-1990s Scoble helped co-chair the Visual Basic SIG for SVForum, and was a frequent attendee and organizer for numerous local tech user groups.

In the late 1990s Scoble worked for Winnov (a manufacturer of webcams) supporting webcam users. During this time he was named a Microsoft MVP for his activity in Microsoft's NetMeeting support newsgroups, and for maintaining a NetMeeting information website.

He later left Fawcette and joined Dave Winer's UserLand Software, which was a content management and blogging software startup. He worked as a Director of Marketing. After the startup ran out of money, Robert worked for free for a month and eventually had to switch jobs.

He found a job at NEC Mobile Solutions as Sales Support Manager for TabletPC. His job responsibility was to answer all the phones and all the emails with support/sales requests. He had started using blogs to provide tech support and listen to feedback from NEC customers.

His blog was noticed by Vic Gundotra (then General Manager of Platform Evangelism at Microsoft), and Scoble accepted his offer to work at Microsoft.

Microsoft[link]

Scoble, Longhorn Evangelist

Scoble joined Microsoft in May 2003. He was part of the Channel 9 MSDN Video team, where he produced videos that showcased Microsoft employees and products.

Although Scoble often promoted Microsoft products like Tablet PCs and Windows Vista, he also frequently criticized his own employer and praised its competitors (such as Apple Computer and Google). He was unusual in the level of access he offered to his users, which included publishing his cell phone number on his blog and urging people to contact him directly with issues, as well as accepting comments on his blog. His support for Microsoft in his blog, however, drew controversy and in February 2005, he became the first person to earn the newly coined moniker of "spokesblogger."

The Economist described Scoble's influence in its February 15, 2005 edition:^[5]

On June 10, 2006 Scoble announced^[6] he was leaving Microsoft to join Podtech.net as vice president of media development with a higher salary accompanied by "a quite aggressive stock option"^[7] offer that could make him wealthy if his new company succeeded.^[8][9] According to Alexa Internet that day had the biggest traffic to his blog and PodTech over their lifetime.^[10] June 28, 2006 was his last day at Microsoft.

PodTech[link]

In 2006 Scoble joined PodTech with the title Vice President Media Development. On Monday, September 25 he released his first episode of the "Scoble Show" at http://www.podtech.net/scobleshow/.

Fast Company[link]

On December 11, 2007, while taking part in a panel discussion at the LeWeb3 Conference, Scoble inadvertently leaked news (by loading up a post on TechCrunch) that he would be leaving PodTech on January 14, 2008, and was likely to join Fast Company. He acknowledged the news on his blog on December 12 but stated that he had not yet signed on with Fast Company. He did a video interview about his plans here and leased studio space from Revision3.

On January 31, 2008, Scoble dedicated all his photos to the public domain.^[11]

On March 3, 2008, Scoble launched FastCompany.tv with two shows: FastCompany Live and ScobleizerTV. He characterizes the first as "a show done totally on cell phones." The second is similar to his previous show on PodTech, only with better equipment and a camera operator. The show is recorded with two cameras in 720p HD.^[12]

Though he no longer produces videos for FastCompany, he continues to write articles for their magazine.

Rackspace and Building 43[link]

On March 14, 2009, Scoble announced via his blog and on the Gillmor Gang that he was joining Rackspace. As part of his work there, he teamed up with the company to develop Building 43, a new content and social networking website.

Appearances[link]

On April 1, 2008, The Register ran an April fool's spoof claiming Robert Scoble was actually an IBM bot.^[13]

On November 14, 2007, he was a contestant on a game show at NewTeeVee Live^[14] featuring other internet celebrities such as Veronica Belmont, Casey McKinnon, Cali Lewis, Kevin Rose, Justin Kan, and others.^[15]

On November 6, 2006, Scoble appeared as a panelist on a CSPA^[16] event called "The New Age of Influence: The Impact of Social Computing on Media and Marketing".^[17]

Milliscoble[link]

In September 2008 followcost.com, a website which calculates how annoying it will be to follow anyone on Twitter, invented the milliscoble unit of measurement defined as: "1/1000 of the average daily Twitter status updates by Robert Scoble as of 10:09 CST September 25, 2008." At that time, Scoble was averaging 21.21 tweets per day, so a milliscoble is 0.02121 tweets per day. A person with a milliscoble rating of 1000 will be as annoying to follow as Scoble.^[18]

Bibliography[link]

• Scoble, Robert; Shel Israel (January 2006). Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-471-74719-2. "We live in a time when most people don't trust big companies." 
• Foreword in The New Rules of Marketing and PR, 2ed (2010)^[19]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Robert Scoble

• Official website
• Scobleizer - Robert Scoble's Show on Spreaker.com
• ScobleShow - PodTech.net's ScobleShow
• Robert Scoble interview at Le Web3 in Paris France December 2007 video
• interview with Robert Scoble at Le Web 2008-Paris (with YouTube video)
• The Scoble Effect by Mark Fidelman