KaKoo

With the NFL season over and Tim Tebow long since bounced from the playoffs, social media users appear to have found their newest object of sports fascination, at least for now. His name is Jeremy Lin, and he is a career underdog who plays point guard for the New York Knicks.

When Lin made his first career start for the Knicks on Monday, he unexpectedly lit up the scoreboard — and the Twittersphere. Lin totaled 28 points and eight assists in the game, and that night his name and the hashtag Linsanity trended on the network. Journalists and fans on Twitter used the hashtag to examine his stats, crack jokes, add tidbits to further burnish his legend, and extoll his virtues as both player and person.

The Taiwanese-American’s Chinese name, Lin Shuhao, was among Monday’s most-searched terms on Seina Weibo, a Chinese service similar to Twitter, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Videos of his recent exploits with the team have gained more than a million views on YouTube over the past several days. More than a thousand fans commented on Lin’s Facebook Page after he posted a status update on Saturday night following a breakout performance agains the New Jersey Nets. He has even inspired at least one tribute rap online.

Lin was an unheralded high school player in Palo Alto, Calif., and played for four years at Harvard University, about the farthest thing imaginable from a traditional basketball power. He went un-drafted out of Harvard but managed to make the Golden State Warriors’ roster as a rookie free agent last season and become the NBA’s first Asian-American player since 1947.

Like Tebow, Lin is a fervent Christian, a model citizen and a former college star expected by most to fail at the professional level. During the football season, Tebow spawned so many memes and Internet trends that he practically became a meme unto himself. Lin has a long way still to go to reach that level, but gets his next chance to add to his growing mythos on Wednesday night, when the Knicks visit the Washington Wizards.

Lin is expected to be in the starting lineup again, so we’ll see if the #Linsanity continues.

Photo courtesy of Jeremy Lin’s Facebook Page.

More About: Social Media, sports, Twitter

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Facebook layout changes are rarely welcomed with open arms by the majority of users and Timeline has been no exception.

A whopping of 70% of people who responded to a SodaHead poll would ditch Timeline if they could. Some 20% like it and 10% of survey respondents do not have Facebook accounts.

The survey asked 1,327 people what they thought about the soon-to-be mandatory Facebook Timeline.

The countdown to full-adoption of Timeline started two weeks ago, when Facebook announced that users would see notifications on their home page and then have seven days to clean up their Timelines. Facebook hasn’t set a specific date for the universal adoption of Timeline, but it should happen “within a few weeks.”

Facebook Timeline has made some users worried about privacy since viewers can look through each year of a person’s Facebook life in a few clicks. Facebook gives you seven days to make the switch, so you have enough time to hide the content you would like to keep private.

SEE ALSO: Facebook Timeline-ageddon: Why Now?

The Sodahead survey looked at the respondents’ genders, ages and geographical locations. Men and women equally dislike Timeline, each at a 77% rate.

While few like Facebook Timeline, Millennials are more likely to accept Facebook’s new look — 30% of 18 to 24-year-olds like Timeline. The next closest age group to embrace Timeline is 13 to 17-year-olds (27%) followed by 25 to 35-year-olds (23%).

A recent survey of Mashable readers, meanwhile, found that 79% of more than 1,500 respondents wished the new feature were optional.

Have you enabled your Facebook Timeline yet? Tells us what you think of it in the comments below.

Infographic courtesy of SodaHead

More About: dislike, Facebook, facebook timeline, infographic, poll

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1. Etsy

Etsy is a no-brainer for gifts, and even though its Valentine's Day board is rather sparsely populated, the content is super original.

Click here to view this gallery.

Brush off your pink tie and rustle up some sugar — Valentine’s Day is nearly here. To celebrate the season of love, we found some of the most romantic Pinterest Boards out there.

Whether you’re single, attached or celebrating with the kids, these Boards have something for everyone. Some users have Pinned craft or DIY ideas, while others have embraced the sweeter side of the holiday with sugary recipes galore.

SEE ALSO: 15 of the Most Popular Pictures on Pinterest

Take a spin through the gallery, and let us know in the comments which Pinterest Boards and users have inspired you this Valentine’s holiday.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Pink Sherbet Photography

More About: features, Holidays, pinterest, Social Media, Valentines

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On the first page of its IPO prospectus, Facebook claims 845 million monthly active users and 483 million daily active users.

But those numbers should come with a disclaimer. The New York Times points out that Facebook defines an “active” user (on page 44) as one who accesses the site through the web or mobile, as well as those who do any Facebook action, without ever directing to Facebook.com.

If you Like any website, you are considered an active user. If you automatically share you tweets, checkins, songs played on Spotify on pins to Facebook — without ever visiting Facebook — you are an active user.

According to a December 2011 Nielsen Company report, 153 million Americans visited Facebook. The company says 161 million Americans are active monthly users. Facebook may be off by as many as 40 million “active” monthly users — 805 million rather than 845 million — if the difference is consistent between countries.

The New York Times points out that Facebook’s metrics are more transparent than other major Internet companies, as its active users are engaging in activities related to the social network. Google has come under criticism for its what are criticized as inflated Google+ user totals.

Do you share engage in Facebook-related activities without visiting the site? Let us know in the comments.

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Additional Facebook IPO Coverage

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• 10 Giant Things Less Valuable Than Facebook
• Facebook: Here Are the 35 Things That Could Kill Our Company
• Facebook IPO: Reactions from the Social Web (and Zuckerberg)
• Will the IPO Change Facebook Forever?
• Facebook’s IPO: Reading Between the Lines

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LittleMonsters.com

Pop megastar Lady Gaga has pierced her powerful, digitally-willing paws deeper into the online world with the closed beta launch of her new social network.

LittleMonsters.com -- the first product created by startup Backplane -- gives Gaga's fans an outlet to create or share Gaga-related content, interact with fellow "Little Monsters" and publicly show whether they like what other users post.

Click here to view this gallery.

Pop megastar Lady Gaga has pierced her powerful, digitally-willing paws deeper into the online world with the closed beta launch of her new social network.

LittleMonsters.com — the first product created by startup Backplane — gives Gaga’s fans an outlet to create or share Gaga-related content, interact with fellow “Little Monsters” and publicly show whether they like what other users post. You can request an invite to join the network now.

With a look like Pinterest and an popularity-vote feel like Reddit, the Little Monsters website appears to be latching on to what’s hot on the web right now: sharing visuals and rating content.

SEE ALSO: How Pinterest Is Changing Website Design | 100,000 People Visited Reddit at Once

Backplane CEO and co-founder Matt Michelsen told Mashable that this site and future Blackplane projects have one core mission: “Unite people around interests, affinities and movements.”

To help complete that goal of creating communities (they don’t necessarily have to be social ones), Backplane will look to its expanding staff and four co-founders, several of which have tech backgrounds working at Google, Palantir Technologies and Yahoo. The other three co-founders are Lady Gaga’s manager Troy Carter, former Google designer Joey Primiani and former Palantir director of operations Alex Moore.

The social network, which has been around in beta for four weeks now, has doled out roughly 10,000 codes, including one to Mashable. Check out our test-run in the gallery above for specifics.

“Backplane is about bringing together communities and Gaga’s community just so happens to be the community we’re using to learn about proper functionality,” Michelsen says. “We think we can really change the world.”

Backplane, partially funded by Gaga, plans to launch Little Monsters out of beta and unleash more sites in 2012. Once more sites are unveiled, Backplane intends to release a dashboard on its site this summer that would combine the communities.

Gaga’s strong social media presence should work into Backplane’s advantage and help build a large user base — let alone attention to the startup — for Little Monsters. Gaga joined Google+ in January and has already accumulated more than 330,000 followers. That’s in addition to her almost 19 million Twitter followers, which is the most for any user on the microblogging service, and 47 million Facebook fans.

Her involvement with two Google initiatives in 2011 is also a testament to her digital presence: a Chrome commercial and Google Goes Gaga, a sit-down session with Google executive Marissa Mayer to promote Google Moderator. At that time, Mayer said, “At Google, we’ve seen Gaga build her career by embracing technology … as well as constantly innovating for her fans.”

Additionally, Gaga was the first artist to reach 1 billion views on YouTube; she beat President Barack Obama to 10 million Facebook fans; Vogue released a Lady Gaga-focused iPad-only magazine app; and she became creative director at Polaroid.

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BONUS: How Lady Gaga Used the Web to Propel Her Last Album

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In the months leading up to the May 23, 2011, Born This Way album release — and even now — Gaga has paved a path for stars and brands to get inventive with the ways they use digital and social media to promote themselves and connect with fans. Gaga is no stranger to success on the web. The promotional juggernaut in 2011 ramped up her all-encompassing web presence, fostering partnerships with Zynga for the FarmVille-inspired GagaVille, Starbucks for a massive scavenger hunt, VEVO for exclusive premieres, HBO for a concert special, Rdio for free lifetime subscriptions, iTunes for a promotional countdown, Best Buy and Livestream for an album signing and Gilt Groupe and Amazon Cloud Player for deals.

Below, we’ve compiled a huge swathe of the digital and social media initiatives behind Gaga’s Born This Way, which is now nominated for three Grammy awards, including her third-straight nod for Album of the Year.

Zynga's GagaVille

On May 17, Zynga launched the Farmville-style GagaVille, which garnered much ridicule from Gaga haters and laughs from even the most devoted Little Monsters.

Jokes aside, Lady Gaga like other big brands this year found a way to leverage the enormous social gaming population, which is expected to reach 68.7 million players by the end of 2012.

Gamers were able to unlock and stream unreleased tracks from Born This Way and bonus remixes. The game incorporated Gaga's style and personality with users having access to crystals, unicorns and sheep on motorcycles. The GagaVille campaign also incorporated Zynga game cards (buy a $25 card and receive the Born This Way album and bonus tracks for free); Words With Friends (use a Gaga word of the day and be entered for concert tickets); and RewardVille (win virtual goods to use in other Zynga games).

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: celebrities, Entertainment, Lady Gaga, Little Monsters, Music, Social Media, social networks

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Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg‘s future tax rate is likely to be in Mitt Romney territory while more recent Facebook employees will be taxed around the rate of Warren Buffett’s secretary.

While the gulf in rates raises 1% vs. 99% tax fairness issues, the picture is more complicated than that. Facebook’s decision to remain private for so long also contributed to the difference.

After Facebook released its S-1 document related to its IPO last week, back-of-the-envelope calculations revealed that Zuckerberg would pay $1.5 billion to $2 billion in taxes after cashing in stock options worth around $5 billion.

That figure was determined by taking 35% — the top federal income tax rate. Zuckerberg would also have to pay a tax of about 10% in California.

However, since Zuckerberg’s income will primarily be based on sale of Facebook stock going forward, his income will be treated as capital gains. The current rate is 15%. Mitt and Ann Romney estimate they will pay a rate of 15.4% for 2011 on income of $20.9 million because that income came from capital gains. The disparity between the rate that the rich pay — Romney and his wife are worth more than $400 million — became a hot-button issue recently as the Occupy Wall Street movement protested the gap between the top 1% and the rest of the country.

In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama underscored the fairness issue by inviting billionaire Warren Buffett and his secretary, Debbie Bosanek. Bosanek pays a tax rate of 35.8% while Buffett, who makes most of his money via capital gains, pays 17.4%.

Since they hold restricted stock units rather than standard stock, most of Facebook’s 3,200 employees will pay a rate closer to Bosanek’s than Buffett’s. That’s because RSUs — which Facebook began granting in 2007 instead of stock options — are treated as income and taxed at 35% or so. RSUs have become popular in recent years as startups began holding off longer on IPOs.

By limiting their pool of investors to less than 500 (the Security and Exchange Commission’s limit), companies like Facebook can stay private, but still reward its employees and give them incentive to stay. But RSUs, which in Facebook’s case will convert to common stock six months after the company’s IPO, are treated as income, while standard stock (though not stock options) is treated as capital gains.

While some have pointed to Facebook’s “Warren Buffett problem” as proof of the tax system’s unfairness, Gary Reing, a tax lawyer, notes that one of the reasons companies like Facebook use RSUs is because the employees usually couldn’t afford to buy the stock. Says Reing: “If they have the money, they can buy Facebook’s stock like anyone else and get the 15%.”

Image courtesy of Flickr, John-Morgan

More About: facebook ipo, mark zuckerberg, taxes

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Each day, Mashable highlights one noteworthy YouTube video. Check out all our viral video picks.

What do you get when you combine an iconic movie with a buzz-winning Super Bowl ad? An overdose of awesome.

The skilled editors at AkooTV juxtaposed scenes from John Hughes’s 1986 masterpiece Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with Honda’s Super Bowl ad homage.

The ad has been a huge hit online. Zeta concluded that the ad had the most online buzz and it won Hulu’s AdZone contest for best Super Bowl ad. The ad has also ranked highly in sentiment analysis.

SEE ALSO: Super Bowl Breaks Social TV and Broadcast Records

After looking at the two works side-by-side, we’re even more impressed with the dedication that RPA (the agency behind the CR-V spot) put into the project. The ad is absolutely loaded with cues and nods to the original film, from the background roller coaster passenger in a Detroit Red Wings jersey (a nod to the perpetually worried Cameron Frye) to the reappearance of ditzy secretary, Grace.

Our only quibble is that it would have been great if the instrumental song used in the museum sequence was a Smiths cover, a la the Dream Academy’s version of “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” used in the original film. Regardless, for this Ferris Bueller obsessive, this is an ad that continues to delight.

Ferris Bueller, you’re my hero. Let us know what you think of this mashup in the comments.

More About: akootv, Super Bowl ads, viral video, viral-video-of-day

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An anonymous user, claiming to be a former Zynga engineer, has been posting allegedly internal information about the company to Reddit.

Among other things, the ex-employee says some customers spent outlandish sums on virtual goods and services in many games — including one user who spent $100,000 on Mafia Wars.

The alleged ex-Zynga employee goes by the handle “mercenary-games” on Reddit and began posting about a day ago. He says he worked at Zynga for eight months but that he quit the company six months ago.

The person makes many claims about the game company, but one of the most eyebrow-raising is the alleged amounts of actual dollars some of its customers spend playing the games through Facebook. He says he’s seen someone spend $20,000 on FrontierVille and another player “commit” up to $100,000 on Mafia Wars. Further, Zynga has a special name for players who spend in excess of $10,000: Zynga Black.

The company supposedly focuses almost all of its attention on players who spend money, treating those who play for free as “spam.” The post author claims those players are the “hardcore” crowd, to whom Zynga caters, tweaking features to encourage gameplay habits that bring in the most money.

SEE ALSO: Understanding Zynga: A Post-IPO FAQ

The post, filled with unsubstantiated claims about Zynga corporate culture, sparked a lot of heated discussion. A few other posters claim to be current Zynga employees and, while some refute the author’s claims, others support them.

The alleged revelations about how Zynga makes money parallel somewhat with Facebook’s recent IPO filing. Just as Facebook revealed its interdependence on Zynga for a significant part of its income as a potential weakness, Zynga’s dependence on what the author calls “addicts” put a great deal of financial control in the hands of a small group.

Do you spend money on Zynga games? What’s the most you’ve ever spent and what did you buy? Let us know in the comments.

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BONUS: Inside Zynga’s New Offices

Zynga's New Headquarters

There is a Zynga RV at the entrance.

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Matthew Bryan Beck is an NYC-based singer-songwriter, producer, editor, graphic designer and photographer. He writes the tech/social media blog Sludgr. Follow him on Twitter and Subscribe on Facebook.

Once upon a time, the future of streaming music rested squarely on the shoulders of Pandora Radio.

Built on the Music Genome Project, a patented mathematical algorithm that scans over 400 musical attributes (like rhythm, tempo, syncopation, key tonality, vocal harmonies, etc.), Pandora creates customized “stations” based on similarly-matched artists, songs and styles.

Several years ago, users clamored over to Pandora, finding its selection startlingly accurate. Pandora played songs users actually wanted to listen to — as if by magic. Often, users would discover new artists and download songs separately on iTunes.

Soon, Pandora developed a solid mobile app, and its corner on the market seemed sewn tight. Pandora had the elusive “cool factor.”

Then came Spotify.

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But Even Spotify Has Its Drawbacks

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The Swedish site launched as an invite-only service in Europe in October 2008. Spotify’s exclusivity only strengthened its mystique in the U.S. Delayed by licensing issues (deals were finally cut with Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, EMI Music and Warner Music Group, among others, for digital streaming rights), Spotify finally debuted stateside to much anticipation and fanfare.

Many people giddily signed up for a six-month Spotify trial — only to find the service lackluster.

Spotify’s free account can’t use the iPhone or Android apps, and the desktop application is choked with ads. Plus, the service only allows you to stream a limited number of tracks, unless you upgrade to a paid account. The Spotify Unlimited $4.99 option removes the ads and has unlimited desktop streaming, while the $9.99 Premium option increases the bit-rate to 320k, removes ads and enables mobile access.

SEE ALSO: Why Pandora Isn’t Scared of Spotify

Pandora features a similar premium option: Pandora One, a $36 per year subscription, removes all visual and audio ads, increases bits-per-second to 192k, and removes the 12 skips per day limit (although you’re still limited to six skips per station per hour).

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Social Media Integration

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People spends tons of time on social networks, and building streaming music apps into that user experience proved key to skyrocketing Spotify’s exposure.

Spotify nixed its invite-only status and scored deep Facebook integration, announced at last September’s F8 conference. “We knew that the service would have to be inherently social,” said Spotify CEO Daniel Ek. “There couldn’t be a better place to do this than Facebook.”

However, now Spofity forces users to sign up through their Facebook accounts, something Pandora does not. People have raised privacy concerns over Spotify/Facebook information access; the app publishes to the Facebook Ticker what tracks you listen to, but some people would rather keep their music tastes private.

Social media integration doesn’t necessarily equal automatic success. Brands and marketers have learned this the hard way. Just because a Hollywood studio or production company makes a slick Facebook game to promote a movie doesn’t mean that film is going to smash the box office.

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Music Services That Almost Stole the Show

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Take iLike and Last.fm. The first streaming music service to have a Facebook app, iLike saw early success in 2006, attracting a half million registrants in the first four months after launch. At the time, it seemed the only game in town. But where is it now? Well, MySpace bought the service in 2009. At time of writing, iLike sees only 53,888 visitors per day and uses a total of one server.

UK-based Last.fm “scrobbles” tracks played on third-party media software, then builds a profile of the user’s musical preferences. The service had a day in the sun, but also failed to secure a foothold into Facebook or MySpace. Last.fm still lingers (mostly due to overseas traffic) with a healthy 876,599 visitors per day, but it has no social media buzz, no “cool factor.”

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Last.fm, iLike, Napster, Rdio and other under-the-radar streaming music services are to Pandora and Spotify what Microsoft is to Apple and Google: Even if some people still use the services, it’s dead in the water in terms of social media cred.

Pandora operates annually at a loss of millions due to complicated digital streaming rights and bandwidth costs. If the service cannot combat the Spotify horde swatting at its crown, Pandora will find itself permanently dethroned.

Image courtesy of Flickr, flattop341

More About: contributor, features, last fm, Music, music streaming services, pandora, spotify

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As the U.S. limps back from recession, the tech industry has been hailed as a boon for growth and job creation.

But upon closer inspection of multi-billion dollar valuations and scrappy startups on their way to profitability, you might notice that the revenues these companies command are wildly disproportionate to the number of people they employ.

Facebook, which some have valued at $100 billion after filing for an IPO last week, employs a mere 3,000 people. Compare that with General Motors, which raised the biggest IPO in history in 2010. Its estimated market cap at the time of this writing is only $41.4 billion, and they employ a whopping 202,000 workers to create that value.

This should come as no surprise. It takes a lot more people to build a car than to build an app.

We thought it might be interesting to parse all these billions in relation to the actual people who work for these companies. How much money and value is being pulled in per employee? And which tech companies are getting the biggest bang for their payroll buck?

Our friends at research and analysis firm Statista have put together these handy charts to show which companies are maximizing employee return.

Are you surprised to see the results? Do you think these kinds of numbers are sustainable? Have your say in the comments section.

Charts courtesy of Statista.com.

More About: apple, Business, charts, Facebook, features, infographics, Revenue, tech companies, valuation

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