Last week, the discovery of a hidden feature in the Yelp iPhone app sparked buzz about augmented reality (image via Flickr).

Now that augmented reality has established itself as the technology buzzword of the year, what impact will it have on social media?

Google Trends shows the growth curve for augmented reality, first appearing in the United States in November 2008, and then picking up more steam in March and June of this year. Putting it in perspective though, over the past 12 months, there were 16 times as many searches for “widgets” and nearly 26 times as many searches for “Second Life.” It has some catching up to do with the emerging trends of yesteryear.

So what is augmented reality (often abbreviated as AR)? Here’s the simplest definition I can muster: augmented reality provides a layer of digital content over real-world experiences. Vague? Perhaps. But it covers the main ways augmented reality is used today.

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With the latest Google search announcement of its BETA Caffeine engine, what can marketers expect if Google flips a switch or starts a transition to a newer “next-generation” infrastructure?

Now that Google’s sandbox beta engine has stabilized – it was previously too volatile to run comprehensive and accurate testing – we’ve evaluated rankings for a sample set of 40 retail keywords. We looked at ten major retail brand names (keywords), ten retail head terms (single keywords), ten retail torso terms (two-word phrases) and ten retail long-tail phrases (four-word phrases) and compared the search results on the first three pages of both engines (standard Google and “Caffeinated” Google).

40 Retail Keywords Used in the Analysis

Six things stood out to us as notable differences that could impact marketers when Google makes the switch.

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David cites the 140 Characters panel with Rick Sanchez and Ann Curry as one of the best. In this column he’s got six ways to improve industry conferences (image by David via Flickr).

In May and June, I participated in 13 events as a moderator (six), panelist (four), and featured or keynote presenter (three). They weren’t evenly dispersed; May brought a stretch of four events in two and a half days, while June had a span of three events in three cities within 48 hours. It was both thrilling and tiring, and I’m glad I get to return to the day job for a while.

Along the way, I came up with a few thoughts on what can make events even better for all participants going forward. Some organizers have a real knack for this; Jeff Pulver in particular deserves a lot of credit for his thoughtful considerations that he incorporated into his 140 Characters Conference. Ultimately, participating in so many events spanning a range of topics mostly around social media topics gives me a way to cross-pollinate some of the best of what I’ve seen.

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Can a flurry of Tweets and $5 Footlongs save Chuck?

Twitter is abuzz this week with the news that NBC’s Chuck needs saving. Word is out that the show, which has a small but enormously dedicated fan base, may not be picked up for another season. In response, fans are organizing, largely via Twitter, to descend upon Subway restaurants (the chain was featured prominently in a recent episode), to show the size — and presumably, the purchasing power — of the show’s audience. The phenomenon is not unlike the movements to save another NBC program, Journeyman, a bid that ultimately failed, and the CBS program Jericho, which got the show picked up for an additional season.

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Twitter has debuted Sign In with Twitter to match Facebook Connect (Image by VanMildert.com via Flickr).

Twitter is now making it possible for site owners to let users log in with their Twitter accounts. Should you offer this option as it becomes widely available? We’ll get to that momentarily.

This comes on the heels of Facebook Connect, a similar service. The gist of all of these third party login technologies (and there are many others) is fairly straightforward:

1. A publisher adds an option for site visitors to sign in with an already existing account that they have (Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc).
2. Visitors then sign in with their existing account, rather than registering anew with that site.
3. The site pulls any available information from the visitor’s account, such as their name.

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Mashable says its new sponsorship module can help brands grow their social media presence.

Today, 360i met with Adam Hirsch, Chief Operations Officer of Mashable, to discuss the site’s newest social media branded advertising initiatives. Mashable, which dubs itself as the Social Media Guide, is known for delivering fresh news on movers and shakers in the Web 2.0 world. To date, the site garners 5 million page views per month – not to mention it has a larger Twitter following than 50Cent (closing in on 500,000 followers).

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StumbleUpon search results for top ranked videos.

Yesterday, TechCrunch reported that Web site recommendation network StumbleUpon has bought out eBay and regained its rank as an independent company. Co-founders Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith announced in a blog post that they will lead the charge to make StumbleUpon “the web’s largest recommendation engine.”

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