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We observed the emerging trend of online dating among today’s tech savvy generation and in order to simplify it, we decided to launch Dates Near Me, a free mobile dating service which caters towards the requirements of today’s generation. The iPhone dating application works by broadcasting the location of users based on GPS signals that permit them to find nearby singles and meet up right away if they desire. “Begin your search to find a like-minded companion, friend, lover or date using DatesNearMe mobile phone dating application on your iPhone and Google Android. With the singles showing an ever increasing desire for on the spot gratification, we realized the importance of mobile dating technology”, remarked the CEO of DatesNearMe.com Few reasons that make DatesNearMe better than any other mobile dating application are: 1. Highest level of privacy and security settings so that you can flirt with comfort. 2. Find singles around you with the help of our map view or list view. 3. 100% Free. Definitely no charges or catches. 4. Filled of features with high user friendliness. 5. Create your profile in less than no time. Just a few clicks if you update from Facebook. 6. Add users to your hot List, and see who has added you to theirs. 7. Easily flirt with hotties with winks, smiles and live messages.

Since location-based check-in app Foursquare was launched at South by Southwest in 2009, the app has seen exponential growth, reaching over 7.5 million users this year.

Apart from gamification through leaderboards and badges (or stickers, or pins), the motivation for users to participate in location-based networks is severely lacking.

1)make it easy and 2) create value. Users want to put in less effort and receive more value.

"Remember the Sandvine report from earlier this week that said Netflix gobbles up 30% of Internet traffic during peak hours? It needs clarification on a couple of important points, says blogger Kevin Fogarty. First, yes, Netflix traffic spikes during prime time, but only across the last mile. Second, ISPs underestimate what a 'normal' level of Internet use really is. 'When AT&T announced its data caps – 150GB per month for DSL users and 250GB for broadband – it called the data levels generous and said limits would only affect 2 percent of its customers. It turns out Netflix users take up an average of 40GB per month just from streaming media, according to a different Sandvine report (PDF).'"

A significant security hole has been discovered in Google’s Android operating system for smartphones, which can allow attackers to gain access to users’ personal information without their permission. The flaw, which was discovered by three research assistants at Ulm University in the southern part of Germany, affects approximately 97% of Android users. In a recent blog post, the researchers found that users of Android devices running versions 2.3.3 and below could be susceptible to attack when they are connected to unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. Anyone else on that network could gain access to, modify or delete Android users’ calendars, photos and contacts.

For Apple fans, the brand triggers a reaction in the brain that's not unlike that of religious devotees, according to a BBC documentary series that cites neurological research. The neuroscientists ran a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test on an Apple fanatic and discovered that images of the technology company's gadgets lit up the same parts of the brain as images of a deity do for religious people, the report says. The first episode of the documentary shows Apple employees "whipped up into some sort of crazy, evangelical frenzy" at the recent opening of an Apple store in London. Observers and Apple critics have long accused fans of the tech company of taking their infatuation to an extreme. People have gone to great lengths to prove their love of Apple with tattoos, bumper stickers and home shrines to outmoded Mac computers. Apple's cult-like following was highlighted in a 2009 documentary called "Macheads." A blog, aptly titled Cult of Mac, wrote on Thursday about Oakland, California, resident Gary Allen's cross-country pilgrimage to Apple's first store in Virginia to celebrate the retail chain's 10th anniversary this week.

pple fans, the brand triggers a reaction in the brain that's not unlike

Global Internet traffic is expected to quadruple between 2010 and 2015, according to data provided to Mashable by Cisco.By that time, nearly 3 billion people will be using the Internet — more than 40% of the world’s projected population. On average, there will be more than two Internet connections for each person on Earth, driven by the proliferation of web-enabled mobile devices.Internet traffic is projected to approach 1 zettabyte per year in 2015 — that’s equivalent of all the digital data in existence in 2010. Regionally speaking, traffic is expected to more than double in the Middle East and Africa, where there will be an average of 0.9 devices per person for a projected population of 1.39 billion. Latin America is close behind, with a 48% increase in traffic and an estimated 2.1 devices per person among a population of 620 million.The rest of the world will experience more moderate growth in terms of traffic, but the number of devices per person is forecast to increase significantly. By 2015, there will be an average of 5.8 devices per person in North America, 5.4 in Japan and 4.4 in western Europe.

Somewhat surprisingly, it is neither mobile phones nor tablets that are expected to grow the most in the next four years. Rather, flat panel televisions will experience the greatest production increase globally, up 1063% from 2010, followed by tablets (750%), digital photo frames (600%) and ereaders (550%). The number of non-smartphones and smartphones is expected to increase by 17% and 194% worldwide, respectively

Paul Bradshaw, visiting professor, City University and founder of helpmeinvestigate.com used the principal of toys to give ideas on developing the data story and explained the importance of  “future proofing the information we are gathering”, saying “that’s one of the big commercial imperatives”.

Conrad Quilty-Harper, data mapping reporter at the Telegraph, explained how creating maps adds to a story by using the example of a map on bike sharing schemes he created (though did not publish) using “Google Fusion Tables and a bit of javascript”. He recommends Google Maps and says the trailblazer of a news site using Google Fusion tables is the Texas Tribune.

My proudest example” was a live interactive Royal Wedding map which “worked brilliantly for three hours”. It showed some of the best tweets and were geolocated on the map. “We’ve got the data and we’re going to analyse it and do something with it in the future,” he said. “It tells you what people in specific locations were thinking”. The Telegraph would like to use the technology in a crisis news story, such as an earthquake or conflict.

Faster, denser and cheaper hardware is enabling users to create and store incredibly more data than has ever been possible.  Currently, the amount of business data is doubling every 1.2 years.  As of 2010, global enterprises in total stored more than 7 exabytes of business data.  A McKinsey report (McKinsey Global Institute) identifies all this data as being at the source of another upcoming wave of change.

Big Data Analytics (BDA) could positively transform our lives.  When applied to applying collected shopper information, big data would give retailers the potential to increase their operating margins by more than 60 percent says the McKinsey report.  When BDA is applied to health care information, the quality of health care could dramatically improve, efficiencies in the health care delivery system would increase, and health care costs could drop as much as 8 percent, creating as much as $300 billion in value annually.

The increasing volume and detail of information captured by enterprises, together with the rise of multimedia, social media, and the Internet of Things will fuel exponential growth in data for the foreseeable future.  Data have now reached every sector in the economy.”

#1: Assign campaign codes & track offsite converting goals (micro-conversions).

#2: Uniquely track online micro-conversions in offline systems.

#3: Get the current "faith based" number from Finance.

The internet is a tool which contributes to the "progress of humankind as a whole" and should be available to all.That is the view of Frank La Rue, the UN's Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

Mr La Rue was tasked with writing a report looking into global access to the internet as a medium for freedom of opinion and expression.

In the final document [PDF] presented to the Human Rights Council this week, he concluded that the removal of an individual's internet access should only take place in "few, exceptional and limited circumstances prescribed by human rights law".

Recent developments suggest that mobile payments at scale is getting close

There has been a flurry of activity in the mobile payments space lately

While these developments are helping to enable mobile payments and build awareness, it still is not clear which solutions are likely to drive the most usage

Nielsen reports a 39-percent Android platform market share across the major smartphone manufacturers, while Apple’s iPhone operating system claims a 28 percent stake.

A new app storefront forecast by Strategy Analytics says the app economy is strong and getting stronger. Paid downloads are expected to drive nearly $2 billion per quarter by the end of 2012. They predict the Android Market will overtake the Apple App Store in quarterly volume by the end of 2012. Android will be helped with additional assistance from third party distribution outlets such as the Amazon App Store, GetJar, Nook App Store and others.

Of the 65.2 million tablets predicted to be shipped in 2011, Apple will continue to dominate the tablet market with 40 million iPad shipments and hold a 61% share of the market, a new research report from Digitimes reveals. In the first six months of 2011, tablet shipments increased more than 420% from the previous year, with sales expected to increase into the second half to boost the number of shipments by 150% from a year earlier. Apple is expected to contribute more than 25.5 million iPad shipments in the second half of the year alone, up 76% compared to the first half of the year.

a Silicon Valley tech firm named Jumio has rolled out a program called Netswipe that lets anyone with a webcam — including bloggers, thanks to a new WordPress plug-in that was just introduced — accept credit cards.

With Netswipe, the merchant uses a computer’s webcam (or the built-in camera in the smartphone version) to “read” a customer’s credit card, using sophisticated technology that can perceive details like the raised lettering on the card to authenticate the purchase.

For small businesses, Mattes says he’ll charge 2.75 percent of the cost for processing the transaction. While this is steeper than the average processing cost for credit or debit transactions, the merchant doesn’t also have to pay monthly fees, as they do to ordinary network processors.

Cities are experimenting with releasing more public data, engaging with citizens on social networks, adopting open source software, and finding ways to use new technologies to work with their citizens. They've been doing it through the depth of the Great Recession, amidst aging infrastructure, spiraling costs and flat or falling budgets. In that context, using technology and the Internet to make government work better and cities smarter is no longer a "nice to have" ... it's become a must-have.

That's the kind of "citizensourcing" smarter government that Tolva is looking to tap into in Chicago.

"This is as much about citizens talking to the infrastructure of the city as infrastructure talking to itself," he said. "It's where urban informatics and smarter cities cross over to Gov 2.0. There are efficiencies to be gained by having both approaches. You get the best of both worlds by getting an Internet of things to grow."

So what’s making gamification so popular today? Consider these four factors.

1. Consumers Want It

consumers are looking for new ways to entertain themselves — 40% of U.S. online adults have expressed this interest in a recent survey. What’s more, consumers want game elements everywhere. 60% of consumers play a video game online in a typical week. Consumers (especially Gen Yers) are increasingly accessing games online and on mobile devices.

But points and badgest are a very basic “carrot” approach. Pink says that in the main carrots and sticks don’t work except for basic repetitive tasks where there is little intrinsic motivation.

For anything involving knowledge or creativity, what matters is: Autonomy – deciding how and when to do things Mastery – the reward in gaining a skill and learning Purpose – the sense that the task is part of a greater goal.

What concerns me is that points and badges are none of the above, they are just  extrinsic motivation.

In South Africa, the continent’s strongest economy, mobile phone use has gone from 17 percent of adults in 2000 to 76 percent in 2010. Today, more South Africans – 29 million – use mobile phones than radio (28 million), TV (27 million) or personal computers (6 million). Only 5 million South Africans use landline phones. Nielsen’s recently released Mobile Insights study in South Africa, which examined consumers’ usage of and attitudes toward mobile phones, networks and services, reveals a number of interesting insights such as: -- Nokia rules: More than half (52%) own that company’s handsets, followed by Samsung and BlackBerry, and 56 percent of those currently using other brands indicated their next handset would likely be a Nokia. -- SMS text messaging is practically ubiquitous among South African mobile customers, and is used by almost 4.2 times more people than e-mail. More than two-thirds (69%) of consumers prefer sending texts to calling, in large part because it is less expensive, and 10 percent believe texting to be a faster way of communicating.

I would like to talk about an inflection point in social media that requires pause. I am not suggesting that there will be a social media 2.0 or 3.0 for that matter. Nor do I see the term social media departing our vocabulary any time soon. After all, it was recently added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.  Instead, what I would like to discuss is the end of an era of social media that will force the industry to mature. It won’t happen on its own however. Evolution will occur because consumers demand it and also because you’re willing to stake your job on it.

The future of social media comes down to one word, “value.” Without it, businesses will find it much more difficult to earn and retain friends, fans and followers (3F’s). As adoption of social networks soared in previous years, growth is now plateauing.  eMarketer estimates that Facebook growth will hit only 13.4% this year after experiencing 38.6% acceleration in 2010 and a staggering 90.3% ascension the year before. Facebook isn’t alone in its sobriety either. The  rate of Twitter user adoption fell from 293.1% growth in 2009 to 26.3% this year.

Between June 2009 and June 2011, the following changes were noted in Facebook activity: - Uploading videos is experiencing a modest increase around the world up 5% in the U.S. and 7.6% worldwide. - Installing apps is on the decline, down 10.4% in the U.S. and 3.1% worldwide. - Sending virtual gifts may not be gifts worth giving after all, with numbers declining 12.9% in the U.S. and 7.5% around the world. Twitter on the other hand is a rich exchange for  information commerce, where links become a form of digital currency. For example, 45% share an opinion about a product or brand more than once per day. Another 34% of Twitter users also share a link about a product or brand more than once per day.