CRM Update – Apr 27 : 7:04 pm

So um, yeah, I have a confession to make. Even though I’ve written dozens of stories about the dangers of cell phone use while driving or hell, even criticized Google’s Project Glass on international television because it is a distraction, writing this post makes me face the music and my hypocritical ways.
British insurance company Ingenie released the results of a survey of 1,000 young drivers age 17-25 on Friday. It shows that smartphone apps are becoming an increasing distraction, and one of the biggest culprits is OMGPOP’s Draw Something…

1. Fullscreen

Fullscreen is a one-column photography and multimedia theme with a side-scrolling homepage. You can use it to create photo blogs, video blogs or portfolios. Click here to view this gallery.When it comes to pictures, we just can’t snap enough of them. And we love adding filters, playing with tilt-shifts, and uploading our creations to social media for the world to enjoy.
There’s Flickr, with 28 photo uploads every second. Instagram (pre-Facebook) comes in at a slightly more impressive 60 photos uploaded per second…

Aside from being the title of a totally rad Olsen Twins movie, the phrase “New York minute” implies that things move rapidly in the Big Apple. One exception is the home foreclosure process, which can drag out to more than 1,100 days in the NYC metro area.

Bloomberg and RealtyTrac have put together a list of the 10 U.S. counties with the longest foreclosure times and Brooklyn (aka Kings County) tops that list with an average of 1,187 days.

Joining Brooklyn on the list are two more of NYC’s five boroughs — The Bronx (#3, with an average of 1,172 days) and Queens (#8, with 1,043 days on average)…

Customers want it to be easier to enter payment, billing, and shipping information.

It’s been almost a year since the FCC finally got around to considering rule changes to keep landline phone service providers from padding customers’ bills with charges for third-party services that range from long-distance service to yoga classes. Today, the commission announced some new regulations — but they only goes so far in protecting consumers.

The new FCC rules require telephone companies to notify subscribers — at the point of sale, on each bill, and on their websites — if they have the option to block third-party charges from their landline telephone bills…

According to the latest report, yes!
Amazon.com, LivingSocial’s most well-known, major investors, has filed a quarterly report stating that the daily deal company reported $110 million of revenue in the first quarter of 2012; twice as much revenue as this time last year.
The report also states that LivingSocial had a net income of $156 million last quarter; which is defined as “the recognition of non-operating, non-cash gains on previously held equity positions in companies that LivingSocial acquired during the quarter…

Lunch is a part of our daily routine. Whether you spend the time at your desk cramming in some extra work, or you’re at home relaxing in front of the TV, we want you to share a moment from your lunch break for this week’s Mashable photo challenge. So, when it’s time for lunch, snap a quick photo and send it to us.
For example, Mashable headquarters is located near Madison Square Park in New York City. Sometimes after a morning at work, Mashable staff members will grab some food and walk over to the park to enjoy their lunch breaks…

Plymio is brand new flash sale site due to launch June 1st. Based in London, the site is a combination of flash sale, daily deal and group buying and will focus on fashion and electronic accessories along with designer apparel from UK designers.
His site will feature shoes, brand name clothing, mobile phones, sunglasses and designer apparel and Founder Rahul Jerome says the goal is to be  similar toa popular U.S. flash sale site.
“The idea is to replicate what Fab.com have done in the US, by bringing talented UK designers and consumers to a single platform, but the model will be a tad different”
The site already has a catchy slogan in “Shopping isn’t just buying” and hopes that their June 1st launch will be a prime time for fashion-forward folks to save on summer clothing…

Maybe you’re not hurting anyone if you’re slumbering peacefully at your desk in the middle of the workday, but for those who work the night shift in say, hospitals, warehouses or public transportation, getting enough sleep is extra important. A new study says 30% of American workers are sleep deprived, and are getting six or fewer hours of sleep a day.

The report from the Centers for Disease Control (via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) shows that 40.6 million workers are getting less than the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep per day…

10 challenges that make sharing your tasks a smart business move.

Listening to?and acting on?consumer comments is the best strategy.

1. LightWedge Verso

The Verso features a few classic book-style covers. We like the embossing, spine and gilt detail on this classy maroon number.
Cost: From $39.99

Click here to view this gallery.The Amazon Kindle offers you an entire digital library in the palm of your hand. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that you can get book-themed cases for the device.
Some you may have already seen, such as the popular DODOcase, but now we’re taking a look at alternative options for Kindle-owning bibliophiles…

Dan Bull, an English rapper, is attempting to glom on to the hype around Facebook with a rap questioning, among other things, why our profile pics look so much better than we do in real life.
The catchy, Streets-like tune also takes on shopworn Facebook complaints about Mafia Wars and FarmVille requests as well, leading to the line, “If only there was an application that let me smash your face in.”
Oddly, the song’s refrain mentions “600 million people” on the service…

Daily deal aggregator, Sidebuy.com has announced the launch of their new mobile web site, now making the service available to anyone using their smartphone or tablet device. The Sidebuy-Touch site will include the same features as the original site, including a searh box, interactive map and Sidebuy picks.
The new site will work with iPhone, iPad, Android, Microsoft, BlackBerry and a number of other devices and there’s no app to download.
“We chose to create a mobile site rather than an app because we wanted to create a user-friendly buying experience that was accessible anywhere,” said Ramin Behzadi, CEO and co-founder of Sidebuy…

It grows from 188 percent in initial automation phase to 1,209 percent in the predictive phase, Nucleus Research Finds

Lots of LivingSocial news today!
LivingSocial has announced its acquisition of Onosys, a company that develops ordering software for merchants.
Onosys’ specialty is developing technology that helps restaurants receive and process orders submitted by mobile phone and online. Big-name clients include Applebees, Panera Bread and Papa John’s Pizza.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but it’s safe to say that this acquisition will be a positive development for LivingSocial’s merchant services department…

Making a copy of a new DVD to send to a loved one stationed overseas with the armed forces is something many people would consider just fine. Making thousands of copies of that same DVD for sale on street corners would likely earn some frowns from the public. But what about someone — especially an adorable nonagenarian World War II vet — who makes thousands of copies for the sole purpose of entertaining the troops?

“It’s not the right thing to do, but I did it,” says a 92-year-old man from New York who has become something of a folk hero to the soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq who have been on the receiving end of thousands of DVDs he pirated for their use…

Picture yourself in a little street a market in a far-away country, trying to negotiate a bargain for the cutest souvenir to bring home; that’s that new UK-based site Let’s Haggle is like.
Let’s Haggle puts your negotiating skills to the test by allowing users to shop for deals on a variety of items, from electronic gadgets and home wares to designer fashion accessories and beauty products.
The founders say there  are no fees or catches just name-your-own prices on a large array of products from popular brands, Tiffany & Co…

Quickoffice Inc. on Thursday evening pushed out a major feature update to its popular Android productivity application family which adds a host of new capabilities to its Word, Excel, and Powerpoint document editors, and adds the new ability to annotate and edit PDF files.
The new PDF editing feature tops the list of new additions in Quickoffice 5.5, as it allows users to write directly on PDF files, highlight text, insert shapes, and add and remove comments.
In Quickword, spell check in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish has finally been added, the font selection has been extended, and the ability to edit line spacing has been added…

If you missed Jeremiah and I presenting our webinar Content: Thee New Marketing Equation based on our recently published research report, you can watch it here or on SlideShare. Please watch and share the video, as it’s freely available as open research. How to Rebalance for Content as Part of the New Marketing Equation with [...]

A woman who suffers from cerebral palsy and uses a motorized wheel chair was arrested after protesting the foreclosure of her home outside the house of Wells Fargo Bank Chief Financial Officer Tim Sloan. She claims she’s being punished for a stay in the hospital.

The L.A. Times says the woman was part of a group of around 80 protesters in San Marino, Calif., who had gathered during a two-hour standoff with police on Thursday night. The group was also protesting a city ordinance that require demonstrators to stay 150 feet from a protest target’s home or 75 feet from the curb — which would have meant staging a protest outside another house…

Consumerist reader Andrea has had checking and credit card accounts at Wells Fargo for several years, but she recently noticed that somewhere along the line the bank had enrolled her in something called “Credit Defense,” which has been quietly siphoning off a small percentage-based fee every month. And even though Wells could offer no proof that Andrea had ever opted into the program, the bank would not refund her money.

Per the Wells Fargo website, Credit Defense is a service intended to pay a fixed amount to your credit card account in the case of involuntary unemployment, disability or hospitalization…

Jesse Draper is creator and host of “The Valley Girl Show” through which she’s become a spokesperson for startups and helped pioneer the way of new media content distribution. Formerly a Nickelodeon star, Draper is now CEO of Valley Girl™ where she oversees the show and runs technology blog Lalawag.com.
Mark Cuban, the “Shark” in Shark Tank, had a giggly time with us while he told us about one of his investments coming out in Walmart later this year: Lipstixx, a lip balm company that changes flavor when you kiss someone…

The NBA’s lockout-shortened regular season has come to a close and the 2012 playoffs tip-off Saturday. It was a pretty remarkable season on the court — LeBron James’s statistical genius, Jeremy Lin‘s magical run and Blake Griffin’s thunderous dunks being just a few of many highlights.
But pro basketball had the Internet atwitter, too. Men and women — okay, pretty much all men — took to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms to follow the action, offer opinions and debate which team looked most primed for a championship run, according to the infographic below…

It only takes a little damage to corrupt an AVI movie. Some tweaked bits here, maybe a few missing bytes there, and suddenly you may find the picture breaks up at one point, or maybe the video will no longer play at all.
DivXRepair could offer a simple solution, though. Just launch this compact portable tool, add your broken video, click the Repair button, and in theory at least that’s it. There’s no need to worry about keyframes or other technicalities — the program will scan your video, skip any bad frames, and try to save everything else in a “fixed” version of the movie (the original will remain untouched)…

4-Year-Old Gets TSA Pat-Down Following Hug From Grandma
Paying $60 For A Light Bulb That Lasts 20 Years Is Kind Of A No-Brainer
Report: Debt Collectors Work In Emergency Rooms, Demand Payment Before Patients Receive Care
Etsy Features Seller Who May Be Blatantly Violating Etsy Policy
There’s Actually A Settlement In Nutella ‘Health Food’ Class Action Lawsuit

Google is giving us another reason to goof off on a Friday with an Easter egg related to the popular game StarCraft.
If you type “Zerg Rush” into Google, the “O’s” in Google take over the page. If you double click, your cursor turns into a plus sign. Click on the O’s and you wipe them out. Google then tabulates your score and, in a social media twist, lets you post your score on Google+.
For the uninitiated, Zergs are an alien race of insectoids in Blizzard Entertainment’s StarCraft…

We first heard about CISPA, aka the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, a few weeks ago, and wondered then if we should worry about it being the next SOPA or PIPA. While the legislation is progressing further, and was passed in the House yesterday, the Obama administration is likely to veto it.

The Associated Press via (MSNBC) says the act passed on a bipartisan vote of 248-168 in the GOP-controlled house. CISPA would encourage companies and the federal government to share information collected on the Internet, in order to protect against attacks…

1) Justin Bieber on Klouchebag

While Klout measures influence on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Foursquare to assign its users scores from 0 to 100, Klouchebag calculates “how much of an asshat you are on Twitter.”

How? Klouchebag judges your tweets based on four criteria: Anger (“profanity and rage”), Retweets ““‘please RT’s, no or constant retweeting, and old-style”), Social Apps (“every useless checkin on foursquare or its horrible brethren”), and English Usage (“if you use EXCLAMATION MARKS OMG!!! or no capitals at all, this’ll be quite high”)…

One of Groupon’s latest deals has really ruffled some feathers. The daily dealing gorilla is promoting a tour or one of San Francisco’s National Guard Armories located in the Mission district. At first glance it sounds like a cool tour through one of San Fran’s historical armories, take the kids and make a day of it. Once past the title the description takes off in a very kinky direction.
The Groupon states that “Employees lead 90-minute tours for guests aged 18 & older through five floors of historic armory & elaborate adult-film sets…