Google Offers beta comes to four new cities

Google launched its coupon service Google Offers in four new cities Tuesday. Great deals can now be found in Baltimore, Minneapolis, San Diego and San Jose. 

While Google Offers still remains in beta it clearly isn't taking the slow approach since launching just six months ago. The service is now available in sixteen cities across the U.S. and more are coming soon. Users can subscribe to their city with their Google account to receive daily deals. Those who are still holding out for their own city can also sign-up to be notified when they are ready to go.

How To: Tweet from Siri

Siri may be the most exciting feature of Apple's new iPhone 4S but there's one thing it won't do, tweet. Well officially it won't tweet for you but you can trick it if you have a Twitter account synchronized with your phone number for SMS updates. 

Siri can send text messages to people just by listening to you so it is possible to tweet, you just have it send a text message to Twitter's short code. 

1.  Qualifications: A Twitter account associated with your mobile phone number, an iPhone 4S and internet connection.

2.  Activate Siri on the iPhone 4S by holding down the Home button. Say "text [your message]."
For example, here I said: "Text this tweet was sent from Siri period."

3.  Siri will now ask you who to send the message to. Say the Twitter short code for your country/carrier. In the U.S. it is 40404. Say "40404."

4.  After address Siri to send the message to Twitter she'll ask your to confirm. You can tap the buttons on the screen or say "send" or "cancel." You may even say "edit" if you want to edit the message. 

This may not be the fastest method for sending regular text messages through Siri, but I believe it is the only way to send SMS updates to Twitter. You may find yourself attempting to say "text Twitter this tweet was send from Siri period" but you'll receive a message that Siri cannot help with Twitter. In addition, when Siri asks to whom to send the message if you say Twitter, even if it is in your contacts, it'll just keep asking. 

After all, Twitter is integrated into iOS 5, here's to hoping Apple adds the functionality to officially tweet from Siri. 

Funny (NSFW): Banned iPhone 4S promo video hits the web

Just as they usually do, the guys over at ooJLEoo have posted a parody video of the iPhone 4S promotion video to their YouTube channel. And yes, it does appear they are very "excited" about the camera in the new device.  

The video is dedicated to Steve Jobs, who passed away last week at the age of 56 following a battle with pancreatic cancer. 

"Stay hungry, stay foolish." - Steve Jobs (only a fool will accomplish what everyone else thinks is impossible, because only a fool will try) R.I.P. Steve, 1955-2011

Twitter lets you tweet a photo via text message

Now that Twitter uses its own photo sharing methods it only makes sense for the company to enable photo sharing via text message. Twitter announced Wednesday that the feature is now available in select countries on select carriers. 

Twitter users can post new tweets with pictures attached the same way they'd normally send some a picture with a text message. 

Supported Carriers

• United States: AT&T, Verizon and Cellular South
• UK: Vodafone, O2 and Orange
• Italy: Vodafone
• Canada: Rogers Communications
• Bahrain: VIVA Bahrain
• Brazil: Telecom Italia Mobile

Although the service is available with only select carriers, Twitter says it is working with more carriers to enable the new feature. 

Winklevoss twins appear in nut ad mocking Facebook

The infamous Winklevoss twins that accuse Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea for Facebook, appear in a Wonderful Pistachios advertisement mocking Facebook. 

The two twins supposedly come up with another big idea, this time the way a pistachio nut is cracked, and they proceed to ask, "do you think anyone will steel it?" 

The ad clearly is a play on the drama caused by Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss' when they accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea and creating Facebook. 

YouTube launches “Reflections on 9/11″ channel

YouTube launched Tuesday a channel asking for users to upload videos about how the September 11, 2011 terrorist attacks on America has affected them. The channel, called "Reflections on 9/11," is also in partnership with The New York Times. 

YouTube asks users to upload their own 9/11 videos answering questions on how the attacks effected themselves and America.

We want to hear from you.

What is your strongest memory of 9/11?

How did 9/11 change you? How did it change America?

What did you lose - or gain - because of 9/11?

The channel already features dozens of videos from people across the country that tell their story of the September 11 terrorist attacks. YouTube says that videos will be both featured on YouTube and The New York Times websites. 

“Twitter, faster than earthquakes”

On August 23, a 5.8-magnitude earthquake rattled many parts of the east coast in the United States. As you'd expect, many affected by the quake immediately switched to social networks like Facebook and Twitter to get the word out to friends, family, and followers. 

That's exactly what Twitter shows in this video it posted to its YouTube channel. The video starts by telling the viewer that it took the earthquake 30 seconds to travel from Washington DC to New York. It then shows a man in New York City enjoying his drink and then checks his phones for new tweets. The man then picks up his coffee cup from the table and the earthquake hits, rattling and shaking everything around him.

While some will take this seriously and not like Twitter's attempt to humor people, some will see the real purpose of the video and that is, showing how people will tweet anything, and fast. 

Thank Steve Jobs for anything you want

A new website has been born with the title "Thank you Steve Jobs for...," which allows users to fill in the blank with anything they'd like to thank Jobs for. 

The website, www.thankyoustevejobsfor.com, is aimed to allow Apple and Steve Jobs fans to express their thanks through social media, mainly Twitter. Jobs stepped down from CEO of Apple Inc., on Wednesday. 

Users visiting the site can fill in the blank to express their thanks for the former CEO at the same time posting a tweet to their Twitter account with the hashtag #ThankYouSteveJobs. 

The life of Steve Jobs in a two-minute animation

The tech industry was hit with a surprise earlier this week when now former Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that he was stepping down from the position after 14 years. 

The video above takes the entire career of Jobs at Apple and compresses it into about two minutes. It's definitely an entertaining watch and ends with a pretty awesome battle scene between Jobs and Tim Cook, Apple's new CEO, against an army of Android robots. 

Let us know what you think!

Merriam-Webster adds “Tweet” and “Social Media” to dictionary

Following The Oxford English Dictionary adding the word "Retweet" to its accepted list of words, Merriam-Webster has added the words "tweet" and "social media" to its dictionary, as announced here. M-W added "Twitter" to its dictionary back in 2009 as both a verb and noun. 

In total, 150 words were added, including "crowdsourcing," "m-commerce," and words as far as "fist pump," which is described as being the move made famous by United States President Barak Obama. Other words added are "bromance," defined as being a friendship between men and "boomerang child," a young adult who returns to live at home for financial purposes. 

These words were added in the Collegiate Dictionary by Merriam-Webster. 

First Quirky episode airs on August 30, available to watch on Hulu now

For those of you who don't know, Quirky is a social product development company that allows you to submit inventions and have the Quirky team and community help you develop them. If your idea is good enough, you may see it go off into production and sold at many retailers across the world. Quirky was founded in 2009 by Ben Kaufman, the company's current CEO.

The company has been such a success that the Sundance Channel has decided to make an entire show around Quirky. The first episode airs on August 30, 2011, but it is available to watch on Hulu (or below) right now.

Be sure to let us know what you think!

Twitpic founder launches near exact copy of Twitter

Yesterday, Twitter announced that it rolled out its official photo uploading service to all of its users. The service basically removes the need for other websites like yfrog and Twitpic. 

Less than 24 hours after that announcement was made, Twitpic founder Noah Everett launched Heello, a near exact, feature-for-feature copy of Twitter. It includes the ability to mention someone, follow someone (called "Listeners" and "Listening"), and "Ping" (basically the same as tweet). You can even "echo" a "ping," which is the same as retweeting. The same 140 character limit per "ping" exists on Heello as well.   

The only different between Twitter and Heello is that you can share your "pings" to Twitter and Facebook. 

Do you see this service taking off like Twitter did? 

Google+ iOS application updated with iPad, iPod touch support

Google has updated it's Google+ iOS application Monday bringing support for both the iPad and iPod touch. Previously the app was only able to run on iPhones. 

Google+ has been updated with:

-  Huddle settings

- Aggregated circle add notifications

- iPod touch & iPad support

- Performance and stability improvements

While the most significant update made Monday may be iPad and iPod touch support it should be noted that the application is not a universal application in the App Store. Therefore iPad users still will be able to use the application but at either it's native iPhone resolution or full-screen by pixel-doubling. 

It is currently unclear when, even if, Google plans to release a universal application for its new social network. Currently both the update and the application are available free in the iTunes App Store. 

LinkedIn: Share Buttons now on more than 100,000 websites; two new members every second

LinkedIn, the second largest social network in the U.S., reported its financial results for the second quarter of 2011 today, announcing a $121 million revenue. In the press release, LinkedIn also revealed that its Share Button is currently installed on over 100,000 websites. We've got the LinkedIn button installed on It's All Tech and it certainly does get some attention.

In addition, LinkedIn revealed that it sees two new members register for the social network every second. In November 2010, the company revealed that it saw one member every second. In this past quarter, LinkedIn saw a total of 14 million new users register. Finally, LinkedIn said that it recorded 7.1 billion pageviews in Q2 2011. 

Are you on LinkedIn? 

Microsoft pokes fun at Gmail’s keyword-based ads with “Gmail man!”

"Well, sometimes when a person really loves their gmail very, very much the two get together and an ad is born." This latest video (via ZDNet) from Microsoft uses "Gmail man!" and tries to show how Gmail scans for keywords in your emails to display ads on the page. The video is clearly a parody. 

The overall goal of the ad is to convince users to switch to Microsoft's recently launched Office 365 service because it doesn't scan for keywords in your emails. It may be interesting to note that this video was actually leaked and not officially released by Microsoft. Because of this, it's possible that this isn't genuine from Microsoft, but there are specific things in the video that lead many to believe it is in fact genuine. 

We don't have too much more to say about this. Microsoft, you've really outdone yourself. 

Amy Winehouse: “Back to Black” album number 1 on iTunes; Microsoft apologizes for controversial tweet

By now, you've probably heard about singer Amy Winehouse's tragic death this past Saturday. Following the 27-year old's death, arguably her best known album, Back to Black, shot up to the number one spot as the top selling album on iTunes. Coming in as the third bestselling album on iTunes is Winehouse's Frank collection, while Back to Black: B-Sides is number seven.

In addition to this, Apple is running a "Remembering Amy Winehouse" promotion with a collection of the artist's songs on iTunes. 

In somewhat related news, Microsoft has issued an apology for its controversial tweet that told people to remember Winehouse by downloading her last album from Zune. The tweet was issued via a small Microsoft UK PR account for the Xbox 360. As you would expect, many followers of the account believed that this was simply a commercial tweet from Microsoft. 

In a followup tweet one hour later, the company stated: "Apologies to everyone if our earlier Amy Winehouse ‘download’ tweet seemed purely commercially motivated. Far from the case, we assure you."

Have you downloaded any of Winehouse's songs/albums?  

Google+ to open business profiles in a few months

Google+ Product Manager Christian Oestlien updated the world on how Google+ will handle business profiles Thursday. Oestlien said that the original plan of selecting a certain businesses for test profiles has been scrapped and that Google will open up business profiles for everyone in the "next few months."

Google strongly recommends that businesses wanting a Google+ profile to select someone to represent the company using the regular consumer profile and act has him-or-herself. Google also asks businesses not to create profiles using the regular consumer profiles on the website.

Oestlien said that currently the Google+ platform isn't ready for business use and the it will come soon. "Doing it right is worth the wait," said Oestlien. 

Google will continue to disable profiles that currently use regular profiles as a business profile. 

Google acquires startup Fridge for Google+

Social group network startup Fridge has been acquired by Google, the company announced Thursday.  Fridge said Thursday that they will be "closing up shop" and the team will be merged with Google and Google+. 

We are pleased to announce that the Fridge team will be joining Google!

It has been an amazing ride developing Fridge, but most importantly we are very thankful to our enthusiastic community of users. We strongly believe in the group social experience and couldn’t think of a better place to realize our vision of bringing the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to the web as part of the Google+ Project.

Fridge announced Tuesday that They would be shutting down but gave no answers to why and when. Members are no longer able to post anything new on the site they can still downloaded and save their data. The site members will have the option to download their data until Saturday, August 20, at 6:00 ET. After that time all data will be deleted from the Fridge site. 

With Fridge's main social focus being about groups and sharing with groups the team will most likely join Google to work with them on Circles, a critical part of Google+. 

Google+ gets its own “The Social Network” trailer parody

The last one we saw was of Apple's Final Cut Pro X. Now, Google+ has gotten its very own "The Social Network" trailer parody, something that we can almost always expect nowadays. 

This trailer pokes fun at the fact that everyone is looking for an invite to Google+ and takes a nice spin on Facebook's 500 million users (now actually 750 million) campaign. 

Take a look at the trailer parody after the break. (Warning: contains a bit of NSFW language).

FIFA Women’s World Cup sets new tweets per second record

Twitter revealed via its official account shortly after the end of the final game of the FIFA Women's World Cup (WWC) yesterday that a new tweets per second record has been set. According to Twitter, the final game in the WWC resulted in 7,196 new tweets per second, while the Paraguay vs. Brazil game came in second at 7,166 tweets per second. 

The previous record had been set with the death of Osama Bin Laden being announced earlier this year.