Klout Adds Blogger, Flickr, Instagram, Last.fm & Tumblr

 by Brian Anthony Hernandez

Klout just doubled the number of services it measures to determine your online influence, adding Blogger, Flickr, Instagram, Last.fm and Tumblr to its scoring system.

The San Francisco-based startup, which is celebrating its three-year anniversary today, originally only took Twitteractivity into consideration. Two years later, Klout addedFacebook.

But in June, it began factoring in LinkedIn. And within the past month, it integrated Foursquare and YouTube to its algorithm.

“The networks we launched today were chosen to give the Klout score a more holistic view of influence,” Klout CEO Joe Fernandez told Mashable. “By adding blogging, photos and music to the interactions that we are already measuring we are moving closer to our goal of providing a complete picture of your influence.”

Klout will calculate your influence on these new networks based on the ways you drive actions among your online friends, followers or subscribers.

“On Last.fm the amount of activity a user or listener generates on their profile will almost certainly be a factor,” Fernandez said. “Tumblr is a great example where reblogs and love are clear signals of influence, andInstagram provides likes and comments.”

Klout also plans to add more services such as Google+: “We are eagerly anticipating them launching their API. As soon as they make the data available we will be ready to add it to the Klout score,” he said.

If you log onto Klout, you’ll notice your dashboard now features grayed-out icons for the five newly-integrated services. Click on the icons to have Klout figure in your activity on those services into your overall Klout score.

“Today is actually the three-year anniversary of Klout and we wanted to show off the power of the platform we have built here,” Fernandez said. “The fact that we have launched eight other services — with five today — in the last three months is a testament to the hard work our team has done building a platform that can easily ingest any signal of influence.”

Aside from adding more services in just a few months, Klout also recently unveiled a +K button that allows you to give other users a +K on topics you think they influence. And brands have started offering perks to people with high Klout scores.

Are you excited or bummed that Klout added Blogger, Flickr, Instagram, Last.fm and Tumblr?

Google+ Gets Its Own Anthem [VIDEO]

by Brenna Ehrlich

Really into Google+? Well, now you have a new tune to jam to whilst jamming people into circles.

This little video comes from Break Media and extols the joy of the newly minted network — in a tongue-in-cheek way, to the tune of Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust.”

What do you think? Are you in love with Google+?

Google+ Hangouts Adding YouTube Live Video Viewing

 by Charlie White

The Hangouts group video chat platform on Google+ now lets video-chatting groups of up to ten people watch live streaming videos together on YouTube.

The ability to watch recorded YouTube videos together has been possible in Hangouts from the start, but now, YouTube Live product manager Brandon Badger told GigaOM that Google‘s been quietly rolling out live video stream viewing while chatting in Hangouts.

While it’s not exactly simple to enable a live video feed alongside a Hangout chat now, Google plans to add tools that will make it a lot easier to find those live video feeds on YouTube while using Hangouts. According toGigaOM, it’s already possible to incorporate live feeds into hangouts using the following five-step manual method:

• Start a Hangouts session in Google+ and invite your contacts to join you.
• In a separate browser tab, head over toYouTube.com/Live and select a live stream of your choice
• Copy the YouTube video I.D. of the selected live stream. Not sure how to find it? Just click on the share link below the video. You’ll get to see a link like http://youtu.be/XXXXXXXX – the cryptic code after the slash is the video I.D.
• Switch back to hangouts, open the video tab and search for the I.D.
• Click play, and you’re all set.

It doesn’t stop there. As you can see above, this is not a convenient way to incorporate live video into a Hangout, so YouTube plans to create tools that will tightly integrate the feature into its Google+ interface, as well as integrate Hangouts into YouTube Live.

For example, Google+ users will be able to watch a live stream on YouTube and see which of their friends are watching that stream in a Hangout. Then, they’ll be able to join their pals to watch that live video, letting them, say, virtually gather together to watch a live football game, with the ability to interact with each other face-to-face at the same time.

We’re going to select our friends carefully to watch live streaming video with this feature — imagine nine of your most talkative friends distracting you so much that you can’t pay attention to the broadcast. Beyond that, we have a feeling this capability will go way beyond watching football games together. What are some other uses for this new group watching of live streaming videos?

F-16 Fighter Jet Crashes On Runway [VIDEO]

 by Charlie White

An F-16 fighter jet ran off the end of a runway and crashed at the EAA AirVenture convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on Friday.

The lucky Alabama Air Guard pilot wasn’t injured, but it looks like that $20 million F-16 Fighting Falcon might need a serious overhaul.

The cause of the crash is unknown, but it appears that for some reason the pilot simply ran out of runway. As you can see, after a few tense seconds the pilot exited the aircraft and jogged away to safety. He was taken away in an ambulance and found to be unhurt.

An Air Force team has begun an investigation into the cause of the accident.

EAA AirVenture, originally known as the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Fly-In Convention, is an annual event in Wisconsin, billed as “the world’s greatest aviation celebration.”

X-Men: First Class Trailer Hits YouTube [VIDEO]

by Jolie O'Dell

If you like Cold War-flavored, comic book-inspired action flicks (and who doesn’t?), here’s something to kick off your weekend.
We’ve got a long wait until the theatrical premiere of the next X-Men installment from the Marvel comic universe, X-Men: First Class, but here’s a sneak peak at what the film will entail, courtesy of a 2-minute YouTube trailer.
According to accompanying text, we learn that the new movie in the successful comic-to-silver-screen franchise “charts the epic beginning of the X-Men saga and reveals a secret history of famous global events.

“Before mutants had revealed themselves to the world, and before Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Not archenemies, they were instead at first the closest of friends, working together with other mutants (some familiar, some new), to prevent nuclear Armageddon. In the process, a grave rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-Men.”

The film, which won’t be in theaters until June 3, 2011, is seen by Fox as both a prequel to the three primary X-Men films and as the beginning on a new trilogy.
X-Men: First Class is produced by Bryan Singer, directed by Matthew Vaughn and stars James McAvoy as the young Professor X; Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr, who becomes Magneto; Kevin Bacon as villain Sebastian Shaw; and January Jones as Emma Frost. Principal photography took place in London.
X-Men: First Class is the fifth in the X-Men film series, which includes X-Men, X2, X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Will you be going to see the new X-Men film when it’s in theaters?

YouTube & Twitter React to Mubarak’s Resignation

by Sarah Kessler
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has finally conceded, after 18 days of protests calling for his resignation. As a military council takes charge of Egypt, people around the world are sharing their reactions over Twitter and other social sites.
YouTube partnered with curation startup Storyful to chronicle the most important uploads from the protest on its CitizenTube channel, which will continue to give on-the-ground snapshots of reactions to both Mubarak’s address yesterday, when it was anticipated that he would step down but he did not, and today’s announcement. Here is one video that was included on the channel today.

Twitter is erupting with comments from all over the world. The Guardian has mapped those tweets coming from the region itself. We’ve gathered some tweets here to give a snapshot of the reaction, including an observation that someone has already updated Mubarak’s Wikipedia article and the New York Times tweeted in Arabic. (The Times was trying to locate sources for a reporter.)

Egyptian President Steps Down Amidst Groundbreaking Digital Revolution

by Emily Banks

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has stepped down, more than two weeks after the protests that began January 25 in the country — and launched a flood of #Jan25 and #Egypt tweets as well as media coverage that broke the mold — to remove the president from power.
From the beginning, the revolution in Egypt was propelled by the use of social media. It at least partly began on Facebook with the creation of Facebook groups that gained hundreds of thousands of members and promoted the early protests in Cairo.
Subsequently, the government blocked Facebook and Twitter and eventually shut down Internet access completely. And with the outside world following the unfolding revolution online, political leaders and others, including Twitter, spoke out against the violence and freedom of expression issues at risk.
But even a government shut down couldn’t keep the news from flowing. Twitter and Facebook users found ways to work around the blackout. Though, eventually access was completely restored.
The events in Egypt served as a flash point for journalists on the ground, too. For perhaps one of the first times in history, history itself has been recorded instantaneously, as reporters took to Twitter to share 140-character updates and personal stories from the protests. The messages provided a stark reality to readers in the outside world, especially as the protests turned violent and police turned on journalists — the very people many of us outside the country were following.
But Al Jazeera had its “CNN Moment,” and although it couldn’t reach viewers in the U.S. by cable television, it found a way to viewers — on YouTube. The network live streamed Mubarak’s public address — in which many believed he would resign — Thursday via YouTube. But Al Jazeera’s comprehensive coverage put it on the radar for U.S. viewers and it created a campaign to bring its English-language network to U.S. televisions.
Images of the turmoil spread around the world via Flickr and Youtube, too. Al Jazeera made its images available by a Creative Commons license and its work reached an even broader audience around the world.
Without a doubt, social media, mobile devices and the web have brought the stories from Egypt closer to home. And conversely, the events in Egypt have shown the strength of these tools for both organizing and informing people. The Egyptian people and reporters alike found ways to share their messages even when the government tried to stop them. Using VPN, proxy sites, third party apps and other tools, they were able to continue sharing news with those of us on the outside. And at the same time, the rest of the world found ways to use tech to curate and disseminate information.

Watch All 61 Super Bowl Ads in 2.5 Minutes [VIDEO]

by Charlie White

 

Was it a good year for Super Bowl commercials or not? Take a couple of minutes (2:24 to be exact) and watch parts of all 61 spots shoehorned into this tightly edited masterpiece, and then let us know.
While you’re trying to recall each one of the ads racing by, sit back and enjoy the editing work of Adweek‘s Matt McBrayer, who cut thousands of shots down to this exquisitely manageable size.
In case you missed our Super Bowl Advertising Play-by-Play, one of our many conclusions was that there was plenty to love in this year’s Super Bowl, with certain themes coming to the fore. That must have been thinking of Adweek‘s video editor when he created this spectacular montage, grouping the shots into categories.
So now that you have the perspective of a few days, after this quick recap, which Super Bowl spot was your favorite? Are any more memorable than the others?

VW Tops List of Most-Viewed Super Bowl Ads on YouTube

 by Todd Wasserman

Volkswagen’s “The Force” ad was a force to be reckoned with on YouTube. The ad, which was uploaded a few days before the Super Bowl, is now up to 16.4 million views, topping the list of the most-viewed Super Bowl ads on YouTube by far.

YouTube’s metrics are not necessarily the final word, though. For one thing, some ads, like the Doritos and the HomeAway spots included on the list, had been on YouTube for a few weeks before the game. Secondly, discussion about the spots via social media may be a better overall indicator of an ad’s impact.

VW’s other Super Bowl ad, “Black Beetle,” came in second place with 1.9 million views. The rest of the list includes:

• Chrysler, “Imported from Detroit” 1.2 million views
• Doritos, “Pug Attack” 1.1 million views
• Doritos, “The Best Part” 568,000 views
• Best Buy, “How Many Gs?” 540,000 views
• Kia, “One Epic Ride” 534,000 views
• Lipton Brisk, “Eminem” 523,000 views
• Motorola, “Empower the People” 514,000 views
• HomeAway, “Test Baby” 469,000 views