links for 2009-02-28

Social spume

• Facebook Friends Worth $0.01 Toward Cost Of Film
  Do you think your Facebook friends are worthless? Think again: Each one is worth one cent toward the purchase of the online stream of visual art musical film Andy X. Andy X began streaming at the exact 25-year anniversary of the death of legendary artist Andy Warhol, 6:21 a.m. February 22. Directed by Jim Sharman (best known for Rocky Horror Picture Show), t […]
  David Cohen
• LinkedIn Buys Smart Email Startup Rapportive
  Rapportive, a startup that makes a Gmail add-on that displays social media info about contacts as you email them, confirmed on Wednesday that it had been purchased by LinkedIn. Rahul Vohra, CEO of Rapportive, confirmed the acquisition on the company’s blog. “In business, partnership is dating — and we went on a lot of dates with LinkedIn. Slowly, but surely, […]
  Todd Wasserman
• Zipcar Wants to Make Your Car Part of its Fleet
  Zipcar’s 673,000 subscribers currently share its fleet of 8,900 vehicles. But what if they could also rent yours? The company announced on Wednesday that it’s taking a first step toward finding out. Zipcar has led a $13.7 million round of funding in a peer-to-peer car rental startup called Wheelz. Like similar startups Getaround and RelayRides, Wheelz runs a […]
  Sarah Kessler
• The Pope Takes to Twitter to Save Lent
  Pope Benedict XVI is bringing a segment of his daily papal message to Twitter, beginning Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22, according to a Vatican Radio blog post. The reason? In its post, the Vatican says that while some Catholics view Lent as a time to volunteer, give something up or study the Bible, others have abandoned the season: “In our increasingly secular soci […]
  Zoe Fox
• H&M and Marni Building Awareness With Instagram
  Continuing the fashion industry’s increasing digital efforts, H&M and Marni have launched an Instagram contest on H&M’s Facebook page called “What Inspires You?” to promote their capsule collection available on March 8. (Click on the second link to also take a look at the clip for the collection, directed by Sofia Coppola.) Participants can win items […]
  Tonya Garcia
• Navy SEALs Using New Film To Encourage Recruitment
  In preparation for the debut of the new film Act of Valor, there have been screenings across NYC, including one that we attended a couple of weeks ago on the Intrepid. Among those in the audience: Montel Williams, Stephen Baldwin, and many of the stars of the film, who are actual Navy SEALs. “Inspired by true events,” the story focuses on the a group of SEAL […]
  Tonya Garcia
• Will Texting Become Extinct Thanks to Free Social Messaging Apps?
  Phone companies missed out on $13.9 billion last year as more people opted to send free texts through SMS (short message service) applications like Blackberry Messenger and Facebook Mobile Messenger, according to a report. This follows a $8.6 billion loss in phone company provided text revenues in 2010. SMS revenues are down as people communicate through cha […]
  Joann Pan