Adapta: Enterprise solutions press review (ERP, SCM, CRM, BI, Web2.0)

While Facebook sees mobile as critical to its future growth, the growing number of people accessing the social network via mobile devices could negatively impact its advertising revenue unless it is able to begin monetizing its mobile usage.

Mobile marketing and social media are continually being linked to each other with more consumers accessing social media sites on their mobile devices. So, how would a mobile component to social tracking tool Klout mix up mobile social marketing?

Nedroid

These sites have "blacked out" today in protest of Stop online privacy act (SOPA). It makes it just a little bit easier to imagine what the web could look like if some of the measures from the proposed SOPA bill were to become law.

Click here to view this gallery.

Today, many popular websites are going “dark” in protest of Stop online piracy act (SOPA).

The consensus among many experts, internet users, web companies and even the White House, is that SOPA is too restrictive, too dangerous, too complicated and too big a threat to our privacy. Simply put, it must be stopped before it’s too late.

In a way, today’s blackout shows what the internet might look if some of the principles in SOPA start being enforced as law. Do you like seeing big “CLOSED” signs on your favorite websites? Neither do we.

We’ve gathered the screenshots of sites which are protesting SOPA with a blackout in the gallery above, and will be adding additional pics as more sites join in. Feel free to add your favorite SOPA-protesting site in the comments below!

More About: SOPA, Stop Online Privacy Act

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As announced, Wikipedia’s main page is “blackened” today in protest of the controversial Stop online privacy act (SOPA).

“For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia,” says the message on the page.

The actual articles on Wikipedia are actually accessible for a short period of time, after which they redirect the visitor to the blackened main page.

For millions of Wikipedia visitors today, the message will be clear: one of the most influential sites and communities on the internet is clearly against SOPA. Many other sites, including Reddit, will join the protest by shutting down or “blacking out” their homepages today.

More About: SOPA, trending, wikipedia

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Missed out on that New Year’s resolution to learn a programming language — the goal that 300,000 people signed up for, including New York Mayor Bloomberg? Too busy with school to make it happen? You’ll get another, even easier shot at that goal this summer.

Codecademy, the brand-new entity behind that plan, has announced “Code Summer +” — a condensed version of its curriculum, starting this May. The announcement was part of an event with U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra.

The White House CTO was in San Francisco on Tuesday to push President Obama’s Summer Jobs + plan — and to rack up some new commitments from the tech industry.

“Codecademy is accessible to everyone,” Chopra said. “I’m very bullish on encouraging these tools.”

Standing alongside Chopra and Codecademy co-founder Zach Sim was Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus and head of a number of foundations that he pledged to help Summer Jobs +. The Level Playing Field Institute and the College Bound Brotherhood will place disadvantaged and minority students in top Silicon Valley firms and Universities.

Kapor recounted that his own career began with a summer job in 1966 that had provided him access to a computer for the first time. “Half the battle with young people is getting the idea that there’s a world they can aspire to,” he said. “We can do a much better job in Silicon Valley of being open to the people knocking on our doors, and overcoming our hidden biases.”

Chopra also announced that the government would create a Schema.org database of summer jobs within 60 days — similar to one that has already been created for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.

What do you think? How important are summer jobs in shaping the future of employment and education? Do Chopra’s commitments go far enough, and what else could the government be doing? Let us know in the comments.

More About: barack obama, Codecademy, Lotus, mitch kapor

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The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: 3Degrees

Quick Pitch: 3Degrees is web-based application that lets you meet your friends’ friends via Facebook.

Genius Idea: Leverages the power of your Facebook social network to help you find people, activities and events through friends you trust.

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Whether you’re looking for a new friend, a date or a connection to a job at your ideal company, chances are you already know someone who can help connect you to that person.

To help you find that connector, Brian Scordato created 3Degrees, a web-based application that allows you to search for your friends’ friends via Facebook to find interesting and compatible people in your area. The site enables its users to harness the power of their Facebook friends to meet new people and expand their social networks.

“So much in our lives is based on our networks – whether it’s an introduction to a potential boyfriend or girlfriend, an influential employee at a company we’d like to work at, or simply a new friend with similar interests,” says Brian Scordato, founder of 3Degrees. “Our networks open doors to new relationships and opportunities.”

Users can sign into 3Degrees and view their extended network for free by logging in with their Facebook account. They can then search for people by location, interests, relationship status or keywords, and 3Degrees will generate a list of people within their extended network who match the criteria.

The results are limited to friends of Facebook friends and includes only profile information that is set to be public.

If you find a connection that matches your criteria, click “Get an Intro” to send a message to your mutual friend to ask if he or she thinks the two of you would be a good match. If it is a match, add the user to one of your “Buckets,” which lets you group and organize your connections.

“The majority of relationships, whether friendly, romantic, or professional, are forged through introductions by mutual friends,” Scordato says. “Often all it takes is the social proof of knowing the same person to jump start a conversation or relationship – the “You work with John? I went to college with John!’ moment is powerful!”

Privacy is not an issue on 3Degrees – only friends of friends can view your profile and if you want additional privacy, click the “referrals only” link to ensure that 2nd degree connections can only reach out to you through mutual friends.

Recently launched in December 2011, 3Degrees also has an activity page which lets users search for events posted by members within their extended network. To make taking online connections offline easier, the page lets you see who is attending, how you are connected to even lets you join the event.

The site also offers sponsored events, in which people with similar interests and networks are invited to participate in activities they enjoy with people they will get to know. Users can also post activities and invite their networks to participate.

Scordato plans to base 3Degrees’s business model off targeted advertising and Groupon-like specials with interest tags. Users with similar interests will find the specials in their feeds and 3Degrees will earn a certain percentage of each transaction once a deal is used.

3Degrees, which currently has 300 registered users and has raised $80,000 in funding, is not the first startup to incorporate friend-of-friend interaction with networking and job searching – Identified uses Facebook to provide users with real-time, interactive feedback on how companies evaluate their professional information online.

Image courtesy of iStock, alexsl

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Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

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The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: 3Degrees, bizspark, connections, Facebook, friends, networking, social network

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Before Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia’s tragic disaster Friday, some citizens of the island Giglio looked towards the sea to get a glimpse of the boat, following a Facebook prompt from a ship worker’s sister.

While head waiter Antonello Tievolli reportedly did not ask the captain to steer towards his native island, he told his family he would be passing by that evening and his sister shared his whereabouts with her Facebook network.

Patrizia Tievoli, Antonello’s sister, posted to Facebook Friday, “In a short period of time the Concordia ship will pass very close. A big greeting to my brother who finally get to have a holiday on landing in Savona,” (translated from Italian), the Telegraph reports.

As the Concordia approached the coast of the island Giglio, ship Captain Francesco Schettino told the head waiter, a Giglio native, “Come and see, Antonello, we’re right in front of Giglio,” Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reports.

The captain went too far with the Facebook-cued stunt. The ship hit rocks, which tore through its hull, resulting in the boat’s demise. More than 4,000 passengers were evacuated Friday night. Schettino was accused of inexcusable recklessness Monday, for his decision to steer too close to the island.

When Tievolli finally reached the shore of his home island, he reportedly told his friends and family, “I would never have imagined that I’d end up disembarking on my own island like this.”

During the Concordia’s last voyage past Giglio Jan. 6, Patrizia also spotted the ship and posted to Facebook, “I’m signalling to them. I wonder if they can see me,” Corriere della Sera noted.

Patrizia’s Facebook updates are now an ominous reminder of an onlooker’s excitement before disaster struck.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, 26ISO

More About: cruises, Facebook, italy, travel

Much like Twitter, you can now follow your favorite bloggers and websites on Quora. And now, also much like Twitter, you can paste a follow button onto your own website.

The content-sharing and expert-questioning site allows users to comment on follow topics or pose questions to other users — and it now has an off-site follow button.

“We made the embedded follow button because the people who write the most on the site are always happy about ways to get more people to see the awesome writing they’ve put time and passion into,” says co-founder of Quora, Charlie Cheever. “The embedded follow button gives you a way to quickly establish an ongoing relationship with a reader in any context. We think anyone who uses Quora regularly and has a website or blog or other web presence will like it.”

To get the Quora follow button on your site, visit the Quora Resources Page and cut and paste the code into your site. Similar to Twitter, you can create buttons to follow topics like “streaming content,” and even companies that are on Quora. Click on the “change button” to search for Quora content by topic and create code.

SEE ALSO: 12 Ways to Use Quora For Your Job Search

When visitors to your site click on the follow button they’ll be directed to the Quora page and automatically follow you if they’re signed in. If visitors don’t have a Quora account, they’ll be prompted to sign up. You have the option of choosing a charcoal or white background, depending on what best matches your site’s design.

The button was created by Quora engineers Shu Uesugi and Edmond Lau.

“It’s also part of general theme of with the rest of the open web; you can also now post links onto Quora with boards, for example,” Cheever says.

The Q&A site received some applause last year when they added interests boards, similar to Pinterest. Before that, some had speculated that despite the initial buzz around the start-up, Quora was too much of a niche site to appeal to a mass audience.

Do you use Quora? Will you be posting the follow button on your site? Sound off in the comments.

More About: follow, quora, website

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

The tablet market continues to expand this year, and many new versions were introduced at 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week.

Some innovations to the tablet are major. Fujitsu’s tablet can be fully submerged in water for up to 30 minutes without any damage, while Lenovo’s tablet can easily be converted into a laptop with double the battery life. Other companies are creating simple upgrades to their older models, like Toshiba’s Excite — which is a sleek .67 inches thin and coated with an anti-smudge surface.

There are also some changes so small, they might have gone completely unnoticed, with some saying an iPad 3 prototype could be hidden among all the buzz at CES.

If there’s anything to take away from all of the tablet talk at this year’s event, it’s that the market is not going anywhere but up. Many popular PC manufacturers, such as Dell, are finally joining with its own touchscreen device. And nearly three-quarters of small business owners are looking to buy tablets this year.

Here are the year’s newest tablets on the market. Let us know which device you think will be the biggest game-changer in the comments.

1. One Laptop Per Child

The XO 3.0 tablet includes the Marvell ARMADA PXA618 SOC processor, Avastar Wi-Fi SOC, standard or Pixel Qi sunlight-readable display, and supports Android and Linux operating systems. Unlike any other tablet on the market, it can be powered by solar energy, other alternative energy sources and even hand-cranks.

Click here to view this gallery.

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More Small Business Resources From OPEN Forum:

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- Pinterest for Brands: 5 Hot Tips
- How Klout Found Success By Focusing On Users
- Email Newsletters: Best Practices For Small Businesses

More About: CES 2012, dell, features, fujitsu, lenovo, mashable, Tablet, Toshiba

Two contractors working for Google have vandalized one of the biggest group online projects on the Internet, Open Street Map. The project’s blog reported that someone from a range of IP addresses that belong to Google edited the map to give false information, like a one-way street going in the wrong direction.

The troublemakers screwed up street information in New York, London and elsewhere before they were discovered. Google issued a statement saying that the two people involved were contractors acting on their own behalf and that they no longer worked for the company, which employs more than 31,000 employees worldwide, not including part-time people or contractors.

More About: Google, OpenStreetMap, wikis