CRM Update – Mar 06 : 6:05 pm

Facebook touts its “social graph,” Twitter has established something of an “interest graph” and now education startup Edmodo wants to create a “classroom graph,” too.
On Tuesday, the K-12 social tool announced it would be expanding its Facebook-like platform to include third-party apps.
As with Facebook and Twitter, Edmodo’s apps use the platform’s existing relationship map to make their developers’ services easier to access. They integrate with Edmodo’s dashboard — posting, for instance, badges to a student’s profile or grades to his teacher’s gradebook…

We’re pleased to announce that Lawrence Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, will be speaking at Mashable Connect, our signature conference.
During his talk, Lessig will share his vision on the future of digital creativity and technology innovation in a post SOPA and PIPA world.
Mashable’s largest conference, Mashable Connect, is returning to Orlando, FL from May 3-5, and this year we will explore the future of digital with some of the brightest minds in the industry…

SutiCRM-H is a comprehensive on-demand CRM solution designed specifically for the hospitality industry.

This one has bargain hunters loving it. MadNoodle is an online shopping, deals, and gift card auction website that functions similarly to other group buying sites but offers even greater savings including the opportunity for users to select the online store of their choice.
The clever gang at MadNoodle has classified the members as Noodlers. In order to save 80% on that $25 gift card, ‘Noodlers’ need to buy-in on the Group Deal Gift Card and hit the minimum buyer number required. At that stage, the deal is on and those lucky Noodlers will only pay $5 for that $25 gift card…

You may not think of yourself as an employer just because you have someone drop by the house to watch your kids, but the Internal Revenue Service sees things differently. Many parents are taken by surprise by the “nanny tax,” which requires parents to pay FICA and FUTA taxes.

If you’re a parent who uses a nanny, you’ll probably want to take a look at this Bargaineering post before you file your taxes. Those who paid their nannies more than $1,700 last year are expected to pay nanny taxes to the IRS…

Have you read my report, “Make An App For That, Mobile Strategies For Retailers” yet? If so, and you didn’t have a chance to tune into today’s webinar, I want to share the content with you to use, share and discuss. My slides from the webinar are below, outlining the findings of the research, discussing [...]

Salesforce.com, Google partners get an additional $20 million in funding.

If you’ve never lost control of your budget or your weight, you can’t truly appreciate how great it feels to take command of either, enact a pragmatic strategy and see results. If you become skilled at managing one aspect, it can lead to success in another.

Well Heeled Blog explains the connection she found in these key aspects of well-being:

* Monitoring numbers and doing something about them. Whether your problem area is calorie intake from snacking or minimal, regular expenditures, controlling money or weight are both all about gathering the courage to take stock of where you stand regularly and making changes to set those numbers in line…

Marketing your online business can be a very time-consuming and drawn out process. Most of us get so consumed with our online social media sites, article marketing, etc., we forget there is a whole offline world to which we can market our products and services.
There are many ways you can effectively market your online business to the offline world. Some strategies will require more aggression and work but will produce results. Making the transition from online to offline marketing can sometimes be difficult and outside our comfort zone, but to succeed with your business you need to expand…

SingTel, Southeast Asia’s highest-revenue telecommunications company has announced the impending purchase of U.S.-based mobile advertising firm Amobee.
Amobee has potential to be worth $321 million and will be the first overseas purchase for SingTel, which has an abundance of readily available cash. Amobee will be added to SingTel’s long like of portfolio companies, as mobile advertising is seen as a massively growing arena.
“SingTel will partner Amobee to build a strong independent company that will serve operators, publishers, advertisers and agencies with leading edge mobile advertising technology and services”

SingTel is also looking into tapping the huge mobile coupons and daily deals space in conjunction with mobile advertising, in hopes to boost revenue while diversifying its portfolio…

The company releases SAP Business One OnDemand and expands cloud capabilities in BusinessByDesign.

In a new study, Telsyte, an Australian based market research and consulting firm, surveyed over 1000 Aussie consumers, covering more than 350 online retailers across18 categories. The findings show that Australians spent $15.9 billion for online purchases in 2011, showing a 64 percent growth over 2010. It probably comes as no surprise that the driving force behind this growth is the consumer’s penchant for discounts.
Sam Yip, Telsyte Senior Research Manager said that online discount shopping has been accelerated by technological changes and economic conditions…

Robust natural language model for airlines speeds virtual-assistant implementation.

A peculiar lunch-box sized device called Instaprint popped up at insider events from the Grammy Awards to South by Southwest last year — spitting out Instagram photos into the physical world. Now its creators are working on bringing the box to the masses.
“Holding a physical photo in your hand is something that’s been lost over the last years,” explains Michael Lipton, the co-founder of Breakfast, the four-person agency that created Instaprint. “Nobody probably wants a shoebox of 1,000 of these things, but if they’re at party and can walk away with one, then it’s a nice keepsake…

Barack Obama says he has more Twitter swagger than actor and comedian Aziz Ansari.
That’s right. Obama is using his more than 12.8 million Twitter followers as bragging rights.
While speaking at a fundraiser event, the president said his 13-year-old daughter, Malia Obama, is a huge Parks and Rec fan and that she was thrilled Ansari was at the event.
Then the president told Ansari, the Parks and Rec star: “I’ve got more Twitter followers than you, man.”
SEE ALSO: Welcome to Facebook Timeline, President Obama
It’s true — Ansari’s about 1…

Facebook‘s growth in the U.S. will drop for the first time to the single digits this year, but Twitter‘s presence will expand by 20% or so, according to a report.
EMarketer estimates that Facebook grew 13.6% in 2011, which comes after a 38.6% surge in 2010. By contrast, Twitter grew 31.9%, which comes after a 23.5% jump in 2010. The relative growth numbers are greatly influenced by the respective sizes of the networks. At the end of 2011, Facebook claimed nearly 133 million U.S. users out of a total population of around 308 million…

Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. Today, we’re looking at three particularly interesting stories.
The Next iPad Will be Called iPad HD and Support 4G?
Wednesday is iPad day, and rumors are flying through the Internet faster than ever. We’ve confirmed with a reliable source that the next-gen iPad will be called iPad HD. Another set of rumors claim the device will support 4G connectivity, which would be somewhat surprising, given the iPhone 4S isn’t quite there yet…

Compensation can be a real positive in influencing the performance of a company, or it can create real problems.I have never met anyone who said, “I think I make too much money.” I have also never met anyone who didn’t say, “I would like to make more money than I do.” The fact is most people would like to make more and almost everyone feels they are worth more than they are paid. I spent some time years ago in analyzing a large financial company and a mid-sized technology company. I conducted climate surveys and both companies were ripe for this type of analysis because overwhelmingly people did not think they were compensated fairly…

Unless you smuggle your nibbles and beverages into a movie theater, grabbing a bite to eat at the movie theater can easily double or triple the cost of your ticket. But one Michigan man is fed up with being gouged at the concession stand and has filed suit against his local AMC theater.

“He got tired of being taken advantage of,” the man’s lawyer tells the Detroit Free Press. “It’s hard to justify prices that are three- and four-times higher than anywhere else.”

The lawyer says his client had been bringing his own food and beverages into the theater but stopped when management posted a sign saying customers could no longer bring in outside eats…

Somewhere out there, a person who covets and collects quirky representations of U.S. presidents must exist. Otherwise, we can’t think of a reason why anyone would shell out $8,100 for a chicken McNugget shaped like America’s first commander-in-chief, George Washington.

The bit of McDonald’s meat was auctioned off on eBay on Monday, by a woman in Dakota City who said she noticed it while cleaning up her kids’ meals, reports the Sioux City Journal. The nugget stayed in her freezer for around three years…

The joke is on LulzSec this morning following the arrests of three top members of the group, and charges filed against two more. The action follows the cooperation of its leader, Hector Xavier Monsegur, aka “Sabu”, who has reportedly worked with authorities since his arrest last June.
Monsegur plead guilty to 12 hacking-related charges in August. Although details of his arraignment have yet to be made public, the charges against four of the five are now available online.
The following LulzSec members: Ryan Ackroyd aka “Kayla” and Jake Davis aka “Topiary” of London; Darren Martyn aka “pwnsauce” and Donncha O’Cearrbhail aka “palladium” of Ireland; and Jeremy Hammond aka “Anarchaos” of Chicago according to FoxNews…

With the issue of birth control and who should pay for it becoming quite the hot button issue of late, it’s a good a time as any to compare the costs of some of the more popular contraception methods.

Alpha Consumer has stepped up to do just that, going beyond the sticker prices to break down the semi long-term costs of birth control options. Using the rather optimistic figure of two rolls in the hay each week, here are some of the annual costs the writer came up with:

* The pill and the patch — Depending on insurance coverage and the brand you choose, daily pills and patches can each run as much as $600…

Network, carrier, and pricing enhancements enable VoxOx In Business to provide a competitive offering to an underserved market.

Major daily deals player Saveology has announced the launch of its March Madness Sweepstakes and is excited to give one lucky winner a Sony 60” LED TV and a Samsung Blue-ray player.
WHAT?!
The value of the prize is approximately $3,360 and includes a Sony 60” flat-panel LED/1080p/120Hz/3D HDTV and a Samsung BD-D5500 Blu-ray Disc/DVD Player; allowing the winner to be the source of envy of all their sports/movie/video game-loving friends.
Rachel Tabari is the Vice President of Saveology Deals. “Saveology is excited to promote March Madness and provide a lucky winner with a prize package which allows the winner to watch their favorite team in HD,” she says…

That money fleeing from your bank account every month is going more toward student loan debt more than any other kind of debt, says a new report. So now when you ask yourself, “Where does it all go?” you’ve got an answer.

The Washington Post cites a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which says we owe more for our education debts in the country than credit card or auto loan debt.

Nationally, student loan debt is at $870 billion, compared to $693 billion in credit card debt and $730 billion for auto loans, according to Grading Student Loans, a scholarly blog published by economists at New York Fed…

With a name that bears a visual resemblance to Google, the UK-based Gloople has fast emerged as one of the most robust e-commerce platforms in recent months. Gloople’s retail platform is now set to offer social media-fueled business-to-business deals to Small & Medium Enterprises in UK via GroupBuy.
Gloople has been lauded repeatedly for its breakthrough Content Management System. It makes shopping social, rather easy. For smaller retailers, this is an easy way of competing with the big brands…

It’s been almost a year since the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group filed trademarks for 10-calorie versions of several of its soft drink brands, and now the company has finally gotten around to testing five of them — 7-Up, RC, Sunkist, A&W, and Canada Dry — in three different areas around the country.

According to AdAge, the so-called mid-calorie drinks are now available in Columbus, OH, Des Moines, and central Pennsylvania.

The company has been having some success with 10-calorie (well, sorta) Dr…

I don’t dislike Metro, as indicated in my Windows 8 Consumer Preview review. That doesn’t mean everyone will, or even should embrace the new user interface. Early reception to Metro is mixed. I think Windows 8 has great potential and may be a market success, but Microsoft should listen to those people complaining about the “reimagined” UI.
Microsoft should pull back from its Metro frenzy and take a more commonsense look at how real users do things. There needs to be better intergration between Metro and the desktop motif…