All you need is a wormhole, the Large Hadron Collider or a rocket that goes really, really fast

Hello. My name is Stephen Hawking. Physicist, cosmologist and something of a dreamer. Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind I am free. Free to explore the universe and ask the big questions, such as: is time travel possible? Can we open a portal to the past or find a shortcut to the future? Can we ultimately use the laws of nature to become …

As founder of the Internet’s hottest startup, Foursquare Dennis Crowley knows a thing or two about growing a small business.
Foursquare is a location-sharing mobile app that lets users check-in to venues, share that check-in with their friends and social media sites, and discover friends, tips, and popular places nearby. The startup launched one year ago, has attracted massive press coverage, and has grown to around 600,000 members.
This isn’t Crowley’s first success story as a technology entrepreneur, and given that he’s also worked for Google, his perspective is colored with …

Buzz — Google’s entry into the real-time social web — is becoming increasingly more popular. Because it was launched by an Internet giant and initially incorporated directly into Gmail by default (whether a good idea or not), the service was able to instantly compete with other, more well-established competitors like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace in the crowded social networking arena.
What’s more, with Google’s history of supporting web developers through free and public application programming interfaces (APIs), the opportunity to create web-based tools is abundant.
In fact, many of them are …

Some four years ago, I started Bingo Card Creator, a business which sells software to teachers. At the time, my big goal for the future was eventually making perhaps $200 a month, so that I could buy more video games without feeling guilty about it. The business has been successful beyond my wildest expectations and has made it possible to quit my day job at the end of this month. The amount of time I’ve spent on it has fluctuated: the peak was the week I launched (50 hours …

An overnight success ten years in the making, social media is as transformative as it is evolutionary. At last, 2010 is expected to be the year that social media goes mainstream for business. In speaking with many executives and entrepreneurs, I’ve noticed that the path towards new media enlightenment often hinges on corporate culture and specific marketplace conditions. Full social media integration often happens in stages — it’s an evolutionary process for companies and consumers alike.
Here are the ten most common stages that businesses experience as they travel the …

Over the past few months, we’ve talked about whether you should have a social media policy and what should be included in that policy. It only seems logical to discuss the next step in the process, which is what to consider when implementing a social media strategy in your workplace.
Just having a policy isn’t good enough — you need a plan to put it in place. Here are five areas to discuss when implementing a social media strategy.
Read more at: Mashable
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{Photography by geoftheref}

Getting people to interact with others and upload content to a community-driven site enough may sound easy, but engagement doesn’t happen automatically. It takes time and work, and much of the right formula is deduced through trial and error.
Here are 10 tips for increasing user engagement that work for news community web sites, but can apply to all types of online user-engagement communities.
Read more at: Mashable
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{Photography by lulugaia}

With all the banks paying back the TARP money, some folks are assuming that the great Wall Street bailout is finally coming to an end.
But of course it isn’t!
Taxpayers are still guaranteeing all big bank bonds (Too Big To Fail) and subsidizing huge bank earnings and bonuses with absurdly low interest rates.
But instead of bellyaching about it, you might as well just smile and cash in. After all, that’s what Wall Street’s doing.
So here’s how to make the world’s easiest $1 billion:

STEP 1: Form a bank.
STEP 2: Round up …

The Interwebs are buzzing, and by now you’ve probably heard about a social network called Foursquare that’s apparently a big deal. So you cracked open your smartphone (or at least, gingerly removed it from its dock) and downloaded the Foursquare app. After signing up, you scrolled through the tabs and figured out how to “check in” at whatever restaurant, bar, store, or train station you happened to be at. And then you said, “Now what?”
Just like Twitter, at first glance Foursquare may seem a bit inert. To really understand …

If you spend enough time on Twitter, chances are you’ll come across an occasional chat being held on the platform. Twitter chats are scheduled gatherings of people on Twitter to discuss pretty much anything that interests them, using a #hashtag to keep track of the conversation. There are chats for everything from blogging to art to agriculture — over 80 of them are listed in this great running list of Twitter chats.
Over 3 months ago, Lauren Fernandez and I started a weekly Twitter chat for young professionals called #u30pro. …

There are many times or reasons that a small business will receive an influx of new customers — such as around the holidays for retail stores, during a new product or service launch or after a local advertising campaign. While new customers are great, returning customers are even better. Social media offers a number of opportunities to turn your new and existing customers into repeat customers and fans.
Read more at: Mashable
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{Photography by Zemllinki!}

With holiday shopping in full swing, social shopping is already making a big impact. Data from Hitwise shows that downstream traffic to the Retail 500 coming from both Facebook and Twitter increased 36% and 15% respectively on Thanksgiving from the previous day. Downstream traffic to retailers grew again on Black Friday and Cyber Monday as many retailers promoted sales through fan pages and tweets.
This data is very encouraging for marketers, but a social media campaign must still be managed correctly for maximum ROI. Here are some tips on how …

It doesn’t take much skill to tweet — you simply type what you want to say in under 140 characters. But while the barrier to entry is extremely low, tweeting well is something else entirely. I’m sure we all follow people who consistently offer enriching and insightful posts, and about whom we think, “Wow. They really know how to tweet.” We have also likely come across people on Twitter () about whom we have felt the exact opposite.
If we consider tweeting to be something of an art form, then …

Over the past year, Mashable has written extensively on the value of social media to small businesses. We have also contributed regularly on this topic to the American Express Open Forum.
From the fundamentals of Twitter () branding, to the importance of blogging, to getting work done with some great online tools, small businesses face many challenges when trying to understand how to use social media. However, taking the time to learn how to leverage social media and technology to benefit your business will pay big dividends in the long …

There’s a lot of hype behind measuring social media ROI. But what about the payoff on an individual basis? Those who invest time into social media on a daily basis need to see a return on that time to make it worthwhile. Journalists who regularly use social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook on the job with success make it part of their daily routine, and focus on communicating quality content that’s worthwhile to recipients.
Here’s a look at five journalists who use social media, their attitudes and approaches …

The expression of community has changed considerably since the emergence of social media technologies, but its basic foundation — the notion of individuals exchanging information, ideas, and opinions — remains firmly intact. Today, one of the most widely-used tools in developing these types of exchanges online is WordPress, the popular blogging and publishing platform. Part of its appeal is the ease with which users can build advanced functionality into their sites with plugins. If you’re interested in building a community around your site, there are plenty of third-party add-ons …

Want to set up your own online store instead of dealing with eBay? There’s an easy way to get started that uses PayPal as a credit card processor, allowing you put together a simple store without major monthly commitments. Ars shows you how.

Selling stuff online has become the new “side business” of many Internet users, whether it’s used clothes, vintage computer items, custom-made gadgets, or homemade cookies. There are numerous venues to do this without having to expend any brainpower (eBay still being the go-to source) but there are …

To see public wave: with:public
Short guide to Google Wave
Robots:

public@a.gwave.com — public wave
readonliebot@appspot.com — read-only wave
tweety-wave@appspot.com — Twitter interface
blog-wave@appspot.com — manage a Google Blog
boturl@appspot.com — shortens URL
bouncy-wave@appspot.com — remove bots
elizarobot@appspot.com — talking bot
emoticonbot@appspot.com — emoticon
graph-wave@appspot.com — adds flowchart
blog-bot@appspot.com — embeds a wave in a blog
polly-wave@appspot.com — creates a poll
rssybot@appspot.com — RSS feeds
sweepy-wave@appspot.com — removes empty entries
py-robot@appspot.com — adds Wolfram Alpha
wavevotely@appspot.com — vote on a public wave
wikifier@appspot.com — links to Wikipedia
watexy@appspot.com — adds math annotations
wave-email-notifications@appspot.com — email notification

Miscellaneous:

Gadget: use Add Gadget by URL the gadget’s URL.
Embed HTML: allows to …

Try it for yourself!

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