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

UK retailers are losing more than £8 billion ($12.6 million USD) per year due to website inefficiencies, according to research by data and analytics firm QuBit.

Using its Exit Feedback technology, QuBit collected more than 18,000 comments about a range of UK retail websites and analyzed the data to discover the major issues that these sites face.

Mashable spoke with QuBit CEO Graham Cooke about the company’s research, and what it means for businesses. We looked at the top 10 reasons website visitors don’t convert to paying customers on retail websites and offer a few tips for businesses that face these problems.

Top 10 Problem Areas for Conversion

Here are the top 10 website issues that hinder retail website visitors from converting to customers, according to QuBit’s research:

• Pricing: Pricing was the leading issue for consumers in their online purchase decisions. Transparency and accessibility are key for the online retail world, since comparative shopping is drastically easier on the Internet as compared with shopping in the real world. QuBit recommends crossing out previous prices or focusing on a “deal of the week” to satisfy price-conscious consumers.
• Product descriptions: More than 12% of feedback was related to the lack of clear and complete product descriptions. Descriptions must be thorough enough to replace the knowledge of a sales associate. This is especially important for fashion retailers, as “the vast proportion of feedback found on fashion retail sites blames lack of sizing information as a primary reason for exiting the site,” the report reads. Materials used, origin of goods and sizing information are just a few details that retailers should consider listing.
• Stock information: It is important that availability of products be communicated to website visitors early on in the purchasing process. If a product is out of stock, timely information about when it will be available is also important. Otherwise, users should be given the option to be notified once the product becomes available, or the site should recommend related goods that are in stock.
• Site functionality: Users are frustrated when they enter a site with expectations of how it should function and are utterly disappointed. Key missing functionalities cited in this research included wish lists, in-store pick-up, personalized recommendations, guest checkout and product filters.
• Shipping information: Shipping prices and times should be readily available. Lack of this information is likely to cause checkout drop-offs and complete abandonment of the site, the report explained. Offering international shipping and displaying shipping prices in destination currencies are two features likely to improve this problem area.
• Images: People like to see what they’re buying before they make a purchase. High quality photography from multiple angles and with zoom capabilities is important for converting shoppers into buyers.
• Discounts: Commenters point to not being able to find where to enter discount codes as a big problem when shopping online. Likewise, consumers seemed confused as to whether offline discounts could be applied online, and if so, whether the discounts applied to their demographic or purchase. We’ve all been there — exclusion lists are lengthy and can include details on countries, states, brands and even particular items.
• Navigation: Consumers are accustomed to visiting large commerce websites, such as Amazon, that feature clear navigation — and they expect that same level of quality across all retail websites. Broken links within the shopping cart, lack of category pages in the main navigation and broken browser functionalities (such as the back button) were key issues cited by consumers.
• Video: Product videos can add flare to a product page, and apparently consumers expect them, as the lack of videos was expressed as a major problem area on retail websites. QuBit pointed to Burberry as being a trendsetter in this area, as the retailer’s website presents a seamless experience of videos and photos.
• Website speed: Slow loading times are of huge concern to retailers, as consumers simply hate waiting around for a website to finally show up. Retailers should benchmark their load times against those of their competitors and act accordingly.

Tips for Improvement

QuBit CEO and ex-Googler Graham Cooke told us that there are three main things that a retail website owner needs to look at in order to improve conversions:

• Product information: “Are the descriptions on your site clear, concise and engaging? Do they tell the user what they need to know about a product? Have you got great images on the site and do you let people zoom in so they can really get the detail? The product information on a website plays the role of the store assistant in an offline store, so you want to make sure its performing at its best.”
• Payment processes: “The checkout is one of the most likely areas where you’re going to lose customers, and there are some really simple things you can do to make this work better. Lots of retailers ignore really simple things, like enabling the display of payment information in multiple currencies or making sure that people have clear information about shipping costs.”
• User experience: “We’ve all known for years that user experience is key to successful online retail, but it still pops up all the time as a major issue. Again, this can be [narrowed] down to relatively simple issues such as slow page loading speeds or site search, but they’re all costing you valuable sales.”

How does your business optimize its website for conversions? Let us know your strategies in the comments below.

Image courtesy of Flickr, turtlemom4bacon & Images of Money

More About: Business, ecommerce, features, Web Development, website

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The weekly roundup is back and, as usual, Mashable has been working hard compiling the latest features and news analysis to fuel your social and techie adventures.

Whet your appetite with a list of Google’s top 10 most expensive acquisitions. Move onto an appetizer of MySpace memories. Have a second helping of back to school iOS apps. Finally, satiate your sweet tooth with a history of online activism. And be sure to come back for seconds next week!

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Still-in-beta interactive music startup Turntable.fm has taken another step toward going mainstream Tuesday. It has just become licensed by ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), a performing rights organization which licenses and collects royalties for performances.

Turntable.fm has been taking the web by storm of late, amassing around 300,000 users and more than its share of buzz. However, many have wondered if the site is wholly legal. Basically, it’s a series of musical chatrooms in which five DJs can spin tracks on demand via Medianet or by uploading their own music. The site even shut down international usage recently in an effort to stay Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)-compliant (the DMCA is U.S.-only).

Still, myriad musicians (and music industry types) have flocked to the site, and we have yet to see any significant backlash against it. However, Turntable.fm is still in beta and is invite-only (if you have a Facebook friend on there, though, you can get access), so it’s still a bit under the radar in the mainstream sphere.

The fact that the site is still in its infancy makes the ASCAP license an interesting milestone (Spotify secured its license when it launched in the U.S. last week). “It’s great to see a tech start-up securing an ASCAP license from the outset, ensuring that songwriters, composers and publishers will be paid fairly if the site succeeds,” said Jon Bahr, director of marketing for ASCAP, in a statement.

Perhaps we could be seeing Turntable.fm coming out of beta soon.

We’ve contacted the team for comment.

More About: ASCAP, music, startup, turntable.fm

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Whew! This week was awash with news. So, we transformed that news into advice, tips and how-to’s that you can reference for years to come.

Take Facebook’s video chat launch — we’ll guide you in setting it up. Or the space shuttle launch — we provide the Twitter accounts for dozens of astronauts and space experts. And Google+ has been on the minds of millions — we present its pros and cons. Mashable not only releases breaking news, we help you learn how to apply it to your business, your interests and your personal life.

If spare time for reading didn’t exactly factor into your busy week, here’s a roundup of resources that appeared on Mashable.

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We all love Tumblr for its ease of use and unique social blogging features. But we really love Tumblr because the right theme can turn your humble cat musings into sophisticated works of web literature. Just click that “install” button and, “Look Ma, I’m a web designer!” (Our judges would have also accepted, “Mmm, I loves me some gradients.”)

Tumblr’s theme garden grows bigger by the day thanks to the contributions of some premier developers. Whether you’re looking to pimp your existing blog or arrive on the Tumblr scene in style, we thought it helpful to highlight a few of the themes we find beautiful, compelling and feature-rich.

See below for staff-picked Mashable favorites, and let us know which theme(s) you’re using in the comments.

1. Savory

Josh Catone: One of the things that makes Savory so nice is that it clearly defines different Tumblr post types while still cohesively tying them together. It also has a massive amount of customization options and built in support for Disqus and Typekit.

Preview it: here.

Install it: here.

Price: $49

2. Field Notes

Lauren Rubin: Field Notes FTW. Not only do I love the products, I love how they've kept the branding consistent in the digital space.

Preview it: here.

Install it: here.

Price: Free

3. Plaid

Brenna Ehrlich: The theme that started my hipster media empire.

Preview it: here.

Install it: here.

Price: Free

4. Brutal Simplicity

Christina Warren: Brutal Simplicity, as the name implies is simple. It's also elegant and easy to customize.

Preview it: here.

Install it: here.

Price: Free

5. Chunky

Lauren Drell: I love Chunky, which I use for my typo blog (#nerdalert). For a lot of Tumblrs, you have to keep scroooooolling down to see older posts. For my purposes (flaunting people's careless spelling on signage), Chunky provides a collage aesthetic that makes the images super easy to consume — barely any scrolling necessary! Plus, I love bright colors, and this theme is "slabby, colorful, fun."

Preview it: here.

Install it: here.

Price: Free

6. Solaris

Matt Silverman: Few Tumblr themes make good use of white space while keeping posts organized. Solaris is modern, super clean, and instantly digestable. Well worth nine bucks.

Preview it: here.

Install it: here.

Price: $9

7. Effector

Christina Warren: Lots of options, color styles and built-in social tools make Effector a great theme to use and tweak.

Preview it: here.

Install it: here.

Price: Free

8. Chalkdust

Stephanie Buck: I've always wanted to paint my apartment walls with that chalkboard paint. The "Chalkdust" Tumblr theme allows me to virtually paint – without inciting the wrath of my landlord.

Preview it: here.

Install it: here.

Price: Free

9. Rubber Cement

Stacy Green: I love the Rubber Cement theme from SleepoverSF, because thats what I use — in purple of course.

Preview it: here.

Install it: here.

Price: Free

10. Storybook

Christina Warren: This illustrated Tumblr theme is just beautiful to look at.

Preview it: here.

Install it: here.

Price: $49

11. Blank Slate

Christina Warren: Blank Slate indeed! I love the fixed sidebar and the textured background.

Preview it: here.

Install it: here.

Price: $49

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• 33 Essential Resources for Developers & Designers
  Web developers and designers have flocked to Mashable to learn from and share our how-to guides, analyses, videos, lists, videos and galleries. Here are 33 of those great resources.
• 3 Apps For Pleasure & Productivity This Weekend
  Each weekend, Mashable handpicks a few startups we think are building interesting, unique or niche products.
• 10 Stylish iPad Cases Made From Recycled Materials [PICS]
  From billboards to clothing via vinyl records, our gallery shows off how great creativity and imagination can result in “upcycling” everyday materials into brand new, useful items.
• Review: iPhone Case Has Detachable Piggyback Battery [PICS]
  Need an iPhone case with a little more juice? Check out this review to find out if this one’s right for you.
• Can’t Afford A Stand-Up Desk? Try Standing Clock App [PICS]
  Since sitting is apparently killing us all slowly, here’s a web app to keep track of how much time you spend standing.
• 6 Reasons Tablets Are Ready for the Classroom
  If tablets have penetrated mainstream consumer markets, what’s preventing them from widespread use in schools?
• 15 Mesmerizing iPhone Photos of Cloudscapes
  Whether cirriform, cumuliform or convective, we’ve got a variety of cloud photos for your viewing pleasure, snapped by iPhotographers from all over the globe.
• HOW TO: Optimize Marketing Materials for Mobile Devices
  People consume a lot of content while they’re on the go. Here are tips to make sure your site is mobile-friendly for numerous devices.
• The Case For Making Online Textbooks Open Source [INFOGRAPHIC]
  As companies compete to digitize the textbook market, open source textbook proponents believe online educational tomes should be free.
• 5 Unique Ways to Transform Your iPhone Into an Alarm Clock [PICS]
  We’ve found five fabulous devices that will turn your iPhone into a cool alarm clock, ranging from a seriously analogue option to some high-tech docks that come with free apps.
• HOW TO: Build an SMS App Quickly & Easily
  Ready to get down and dirty with SMS? This new API makes SMS apps a lot easier than you might think.
• Canon & Nikon Cameras Square Off [INFOGRAPHIC]
  In an infographic that’s likely to ignite a powderkeg of controversy, Nikon and Canon cameras are compared in a photographer’s equivalent of a Mac-versus-PC cage match.

For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Business & Marketing

• How Brands Can Work With Startups
  Brand marketers and startups may have little in common, but they have a lot to gain by working together.
• 73 Essential Social Media & Tech Resources for Small Businesses
  Here are 73 resources to help small business owners stay on top of social media, marketing, tech and mobile trends.
• 5 Best Practices for Fashion Retailers on Facebook
  Leaders in fashion marketing and ecommerce offer advice for optimizing retailers’ Facebook Pages.
• 8 Tips for Nailing Your Next Startup Job Interview
  Dozens of smaller-stage companies have emerged and are hiring everyone from programmers to interns. Snag a gig with help from these tips.
• Why Gift Cards Will Lead the Transition From Plastic to Digital
  It wasn’t so long ago that credit cards replaced cash as the dominant form of payment. Now, digital payments are primed to take over, and gift cards are leading the charge.
• 5 Tips for Building Vibrant Branded Online Communities
  What engagement strategies can we take away from the most successful online network of all time?
• 7 Resources for Startup Investment Opportunities
  The Internet has changed the flow of venture capital. If you’re looking to find (and invest in) the web’s next big ideas, check out these sites and networks.
• HOW TO: Hire (or Be Hired as) a Team of Devs
  Need a tech team fast? Here’s how you can find and hire a pre-assembled group of devs — or market your own team as a group.
• 6 Important Tips for First-Time Startup Investors
  Welcome to the startup Wild West. Angel investing is both exciting and lucrative. What do you need to get started? Read on to find out.
• 5 Strategies for Maximizing Your Website’s Conversion Rate
  With all the fuss made over the power of social networks, it’s easy to forget the power and marketing potential of your own website. Here are ways to optimize.

For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Image courtesy of Dawghouse Design Studio

More About: business, facebook, Features Week In Review, gadgets, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, social good, social media, tech, technology, twitter

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Christopher Kahler is a co-founder and CEO of Qriously, a service for measuring real-time public sentiment by replacing ads with questions in smartphone apps. Follow him on Twitter

In late 2010, Apple approved 14-year-old Robert Nay’s app, Bubble Ball, for publishing on the App Store, where it quickly racked up 2 million users and, for a short while, even wrested the ever-popular Angry Birds from its perch at the top of the download charts. It’s a staggering achievement for a young teen with no formal programming experience -– never mind education. No skills. Nada. Zip.

Nay used an application called Corona that essentially allows users to build smartphone apps using a graphical interface, eliminating the need of any coding skills. He’s a pioneering user of the next generation of platform dependencies — innovations upon which further innovations can be built.

The term “platform dependency,” referring to products and services that are symbiotic with an existing platform (FarmVille on Facebook, Tweetdeck on Twitter, Rapportive on Gmail, and so on), has been discussed at length in several recent blog posts that weigh its dangers and opportunities.

While these relationships are not unique to “our” industry, the heady pace of evolution in the information sector, modeled with equal parts idealism and fantasy, is pointing toward some fascinating outcomes. The most fascinating of these is also the most paradoxical: The smartest kids are coding themselves into unemployment.

Before I’m viciously indicted with committing the Luddite fallacy, give me a chance to qualify: Smart kids code platforms that are making it increasingly redundant to know how to code — look at Nay for instance. As such, coding as a skill is becoming a casualty of efficiency, which is a beautiful thing. Coding is a means to an end, and if new methods are developed that enable us normal folks to achieve comparable results, then that’s a win in my book.

To a certain extent this is already happening, albeit to a less romantic degree. Take Google App Engine for instance. Instead of needing to set up whole server infrastructures, you just upload a simple web app and Google handles everything else, from load-balancing to scaling. Many companies don’t even go that far. A Facebook Page, with its built-in tools to distribute content, advertise, promote and engage with an audience, is often all you need.

Beyond the purely technical realm, services and layers are appearing to make aesthetic skills more and more redundant as well. Enterprise software company Cloudera used 99designs, which recently scored $25 million in funding, to crowdsource its logo on the cheap. And apps like Instagram and Retro Camera that allow users with little “skill” to take brilliant photographs.

Eventually, you won’t need to have any technical knowledge in a world increasingly defined by technology.

Rather, the only thing you will need to have is an idea, and having good ones will be the only meaningful thing setting you apart from others. I like to think of it as the triumph of creativity over learned skill — a change that some believe has ramifications for formal education as well.

The only remaining question is: Where are your ideas going to bubble up from?

Interested in more Dev & Design resources? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover information on your favorite Mashable topics.

More About: apps, platforms, programming, web apps, Web Development

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The news cycle this week has been unstoppable, with major events from international politics to British royalty dominating the conversation.

This week saw the marriage of Prince William to Kate Middleton, U.S. tornadoes, the death of Osama Bin Laden, and of course, this weekend’s big event: Mother’s Day.

With all the hubbub, we understand if you missed a story or two from Mashable’s trove of tools and resources published over the past week or so. This week, we have resources on bin Laden as well as our regular social media-focused tools such as PR tips for Facebook, business and marketing case studies, and the evolution of Twitter.

Looking for even more social media resources? This guide appears every weekend, and you can check out all the lists-gone-by here any time.

Editors’ Picks

• Seven Ways to Help Tornado Victims
  The death toll from the catastrophic tornadoes in the South has climbed to more than 340, with thousands injured, homeless, without power or clean water. How can we harness the power of social media to help?
• Timeline: How News of Osama Bin Laden’s Death Unfolded on Twitter
  At 11:35 p.m. ET, the White House’s Twitter feed posted a quote from President Barack Obama that confirmed Osama Bin Laden’s death. Click through this gallery for a chronological look at how things transpired on Twitter.
• White House Releases Situation Room Images From Bin Laden Raid [PICS]
  An inside look at the President’s involvement during the Bin Laden compound raid.
• 6 Mother’s Day Gifts You Can Make [VIDEOS]
  Whether you’re looking for simple craft ideas to create with your kids or just something homemade to surprise your mom on Sunday, we’ve got some great video tutorials to help.
• 7 Ways to Show Mom You Love Her & Support Social Good
  Amidst all that mother lovin’, there are a bunch of ways you can help celebrate Mother’s Day and also give back to good causes. How’s that for two birds with one stone?
• How Barbie & Ken Were Reunited by Social Media
  Take a look behind the scenes at how Mattel reunited its iconic doll couple with a marketing campaign that heavily utilized social media.
• How Converse Became the Biggest Little Sneaker Brand on Facebook
  We spoke with Geoff Cottrill, CMO of Converse, about how the brand found success on social media platforms and stays true to its roots.

Social Media

• Top 10 Royal Wedding Twitter Trends [CHART]
  Stats about who and what was being talked about on Twitter during the Royal Wedding.
• Comic: Sony’s Apology for PlayStation Network Takes a Surprising Turn
  How will Sony handle the ill will from the PlayStation Network fiasco? Here’s a humorous possibility: a very special kind of “apology”.
• Royal Wedding Snapshot: Who Got the Most Buzz? [INFOGRAPHIC]
  The Royal Wedding participants have all put away their tiaras, swords and spurs, and now it’s time to see who created and received the most social media buzz.
• 4 Lessons for Parents in a Constantly Connected World
  Today’s parents struggle to manage their kids’ online time as well as their own connected lives. Here are a few tips for judging when to engage, and when to unplug.
• The World Responds to Osama Bin Laden’s Death
  People around the world have taken to social media channels to share the news and their feelings about Bin Laden’s death.
• Name Fail: The Media’s Most Embarrassing Obama/Osama Gaffes
  The U.S. president was prematurely reported dead and otherwise mixed up with the terrorist that he had ordered killed late Sunday evening.
• How the Social Web Reflected on Bin Laden’s Death
  We found out on Twitter, then turned to Facebook, Foursquare & Instagram to share news and express our joy, our outrage, & even our doubt.
• Too Soon? Osama Bin Laden Memes Abound
  Meme-makers have been on a tear, pumping out graphics depicting Osama Bin Laden’s death and U.S. President Barack Obama’s hand in it.
• HOW TO: Sustain a Social Movement After Initial Success
  It’s one thing to get a cause campaign off the ground with social media. It’s entirely another to achieve your long-term goals. Here are some tips for keeping a social movement on track.
• Does Twitter Drive TV Viewership? [VIDEO]
  Twitter opines that engagement on Twitter drives TV viewership.
• The Osama Bin Laden Takedown, Tweet By Tweet [INFOGRAPHIC]
  Here’s an interesting infographic showing confirmed facts of the raid that ended the life of Osama Bin Laden.
• Explore Twitter’s Evolution: 2006 to Present
  Check out this comprehensive timeline of some of the most memorable moments in Twitter’s eventful five years on the web.
• Google’s Plan To Win Location & Social
  Google VP Marissa Mayer laid out the company’s vision and strategy for winning in local and in social in a keynote and Q&A Thursday at the Social-Loco conference in San Francisco.
• 10 Historic Tweets That Captivated the World
  Here are 10 tweets that changed the world, or showed us how much the world has been changed by social media.
• Stand-Up Web Developers [COMIC]
  Some humor is just too niche for prime time.

For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Tech & Mobile

• How Web Security Will Change With HTML5
  As browsers implement more and more HTML5 functionality, security fixes for current issues will become baked into the web. Here’s an overview of HTML5′s potential.
• The Daily Deals Bandwagon Dissected [INFOGRAPHIC]
  Here’s a cheat sheet for how four of the most popular deals services work — and how much money each one is making.
• Review: Rugged Android Smartphone Takes a Licking [VIDEO]
  The hardened Casio G’zOne Commando Android smartphone is so tough, the company says it can withstand 30 minutes under three feet of water. We’ll see about that.
• Why Location-Based Services Will be the Killer App of the 2012 Elections
  Location-based services will be the killer app of the 2012 presidential election and will change the landscape of all elections to come.
• Review: Pogoplug Software Creates a Personal Computing Cloud
  Pogoplug is now available in a software version, letting you share pictures, music, videos and data with any of your devices or with anyone else.
• HOW TO: Document Your Life Using Photo Apps
  An abundance of apps have launched recently to complement the possibilities of always having a camera on hand. It’s now easier to take, tweak, share and display photos than it ever was in a non-app world. These are some of our favorites.
• HOW TO: Get More From Your iTunes Playlists
  How hard could it be to set up an iTunes playlist, right? We’ve found some tricks you may not have thought of.
• Top 10 Free Android Photo Apps [PICS]
  There’s no need to envy our iPhone-toting brethren. The Android Market is filled with fantastic free photo apps. Here are our favorites.
• Why Mobile Users Aren’t Checking In [INFOGRAPHIC]
  Those who use social location-based apps such as Foursquare or Facebook Places represent just 17% of the mobile population, according to a study commissioned by digital agency Beyond.
• 4 Ways Mobile Tech Is Improving Education
  With Internet in the palm of our hands, educators are looking to mobile as the next big tool for schools.
• How You Can Help Find Alien Life
  The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has launched a contest with Gamify to find ways to get the general public involved in the search for alien signals.
• The Past, Present & Future of Email [INFOGRAPHIC]
  Our reliance on social media, instant messaging, texting and especially email is growing at a rapid rate, according to a new study.
• HOW TO: Build a Mobile App for Better Customer Support
  Most digital natives would rather fire up an app than get on the phone with customer care. Here’s why you should be investing your support dollars into mobile solutions.
• Flip Alternatives: 5 Great Pocket Video Cameras
  It’s a strange twist that the Flip would flop in the market it helped create, but it’s given rise to some seriously capable rivals.

For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Business & Marketing

• HOW TO: Create a Group Tumblr Blog
  Want to create a multi-user Tumblr blog? Here’s a step-by-step guide.
• How 3 Companies Took Content Marketing to the Next Level
  Five years ago your business needed to have a website in order to exist, but soon your company’s survival may depend on your ability to be an effective publisher.
• HOW TO: Ask For an Online Recommendation
  When you’re looking for a job, you want to get a few job recommendations on sites like LinkedIn. Here are tips on whom and how to ask for one.
• 5 Valuable Online Communities for Freelancers
  When you’re a freelancer, it can be hard to find job leads and tips about how to sell yourself and get more clients. Here are 5 communities to make it easier.
• 5 Best Practices for Travel & Tourism Brands on Facebook
  Here are some tips for hotels and airlines that are looking to spruce up their Facebook Pages and drive more sales.
• Big Data: How New Technology Is Helping Marketers Create Better Consumer Experiences
  Just like consumers, marketers are facing information overload. The big question is: How can we use this data to produce better, more relevant customer experiences?
• 3 Traits of the Most Compelling Internet Companies
  Can success be predicted? Here are three characteristics that many successful Internet products share.
• HOW TO: Get Your Employees On Board With Your Social Media Policy
  If your employees represent your company, where’s the line between their personal accounts and their responsibility to your brand?
• Why 5 Big Brand Marketing Campaigns Are Betting Big on Social Gaming
  There are more than 60 million social gamers in the U.S., and big brands are spending big money to target them. Here are five good examples.
• HOW TO: Sign Up Users Even Before You Launch Your Startup
  How do startups break through the consumer-pitching chaos? Here are four tricks smart brands have employed to get the word out before the company is even off the ground.
• The PR Pro’s Guide to Facebook
  Here are tips of the trade for starting and managing a client’s Facebook Page.
• Why Small Risks May Yield Bigger Returns for Startups
  Has the Internet fundamentally changed the way companies think about risk? Author Peter Sims discusses the concept of “Little Bets” in his new book.

For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Image courtesy of WebTreats Etc.

More About: business, facebook, Features Week In Review, gadgets, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, social good, social media, tech, technology, twitter

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The United States government has made its IT Dashboard, a cost-cutting tool for federal transparency, freely available for anyone, especially other governments, to use and customize.

The IT Dashboard gives citizens important information on how the government uses tax money for technology initiatives across various agencies. Citizens can see how government investments are paying off, and they can compare types of IT spending over time by accessing easy-to-reach charts and graphs.

But this clarity of and access to vital information isn’t just good for citizens; it’s also used by the Federal Government, including Congress, to make important decisions about IT budgets and spending. Open-sourcing this cost-saving tool is part of the government’s larger plan to save on IT by eliminating redundant efforts. In other words, the IT Dashboard already exists and has been paid for, and the government isn’t going to hide that light under a bushel.

Here’s a video demonstrating some of the features of the federal IT Dashboard:

The government is working with Code for America for this release. In am announcement, CfA said, “The IT Dashboard was a major component of the process the Federal Government employed to save over $3 billion in just its first two years of deployment.”

In addition to the Dashboard, the government is also open-sourcing the complementary TechStat Toolkit, a set of tools and processes for reviewing any yellow or red flags that might pop up while using the Dashboard.

In this video, U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra talks about the results the government has seen by using the IT Dashboard and how those results were achieved:

But open-sourcing something like this isn’t a cakewalk. The government worked with FOSS and government experts, Code for America and CfA’s Civic Commons project to get the job done.

Project lead Karl Fogel wrote on the Civic Commons blog, “We knew from the beginning that a high-profile project can’t be open sourced casually. It’s not enough to just put an open license on the code, move development out to a publicly visible repository, and call it done.”

He continued to note that for the Dashboard, Civic Commons had to ensure that all the code and documentation was safe for public use (i.e., not classified or a government secret) and audit the code; reduce dependencies on proprietary libraries; write documentation; ceate non-sensitive, non-classified sample data; work with the Drupal community; and much more.

Interested parties can download the Dashboard code now at SourceForge. While the Dashboard is intended to help governments cut costs and manage IT budgets, we can see such tools coming in handy at just about any large company, tech or otherwise.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, GottfriedEdelman

More About: code for america, it dashboard, open source, U.S. government

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Twitter has updated its developer tools, making embedded tweets more interactive and functional. The new tweets allow users to reply, retweet or favorite a tweet directly from its embedded version.

Twitter introduced embeddable tweets last year — and while the end result has been quite effective, the set-up process involved in actually embedding tweets is more trouble than its worth. Fortunately, plugins like Blackbird Pie for WordPress have made the process less cumbersome.

The new functionality of embedded tweets comes courtesy of a developer tool called Web Intents. Users must first insert a script on a page that will use the intent. Those that already use the Tweet button on their websites will be able to start using Web Intents right away.

The integration process is still surprisingly cumbersome — especially for users that just want to easily and quickly embed a tweet. But the code itself looks a lot more clean. Already, WordPress.com users can take advantage of Web Intents powered embedded tweets. We imagine that the WordPress.org version of that plugin will be updated soon.

There are some cool things about Web Intents. Not only can content creators embed a tweet on their website, they can also embed a pre-filled Twitter message window. Web Intents are mobile-friendly and work with both iOS and Android, which is a nice touch.

The fact that users can send a tweet directly from a webpage or retweet messages without having to use a third-party program or extension could make for some interesting possibilities — at least for web developers and app makers that want to add more seamless social ability to their sites.

Developers, what do you think of the new Twitter Web Intents? Let us know in the comments.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

More About: blackbird pie, twitter, web intents, WordPress.com

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