Daily Dose of social media: MySpace launching social business directory

MySpace Teams with CitySearch to Launch Local Business Portal – This is exactly the kind of product that newspapers should be developing. It combines social media, a large user base and a business directory. Imagine if newspapers did this for their local communities. It seems like common sense and something that would both serve users well and make money.

Unfortunately, if newspapers and news organizations don’t act fast, partnerships like this could further erode online revenue potential for news organizations. Check out what this partnership could bring to the table:

Citysearch is bringing its database to the table, while MySpace is going to be “socializing” the whole affair. In doing so, businesses will be able to connect with each other, and users will be able to connect with businesses. MySpace Local will over listing pages for small businesses, which will cover three categories at launch: Restaurants, Bars and Nightife. On each listing page, users will be able to rate, review and share media for each business. Users will also be able to add the business to their profile, share a business listing with friends, and add it to their bookmarks.

MySpace Local could also offer up useful channels for direct content distribution to users, sending them coupons, special discounts, exclusive content, and more. This would be especially powerful as there will likely be added integration with MySpace’s own platform, which adds to the viral potential of a business utilizing the Local portal.

Building on MySpace Local will be a slew of commercial opportunities for the businesses as well as for MySpace. It sets the stage for integrated payment options from which users can benefit, as well as extended revenue generation for MySpace, from ads or premium features.

Twitter replies morph into mentions — For those of you who regularly use search.twitter.com or a an app like TweetDeck, this may not seem that revolutionary, but, for everyone else, the Twitter Web interface just got a whole lot more useful. Now instead of just showing tweets @ your username that start with your username, Twitter’s Web interface also shows every time your user name is mentioned.

For Twitter newbies, you may have been missing a lot of times when you were mentioned on Twitter. Now, with the new system, you can see every time you are mentioned (people often @reply to more than one person at once) or when one of your tweets is retweeted (RT).

This simple update also makes the Web interface a lot more useful. This will be especially helpful for journalists who work at organizations that won’t allow them to install an app like TweetDeck.

Tweecious turns Twittered links into Delicious bookmarks — If you’re like me (or worse, @MsBeat) you share a lot of links on Twitter. A big part of what I do is curation. The problem is that while Twitter is great for sharing links, it’s not a great place to store links, unlike sites like Delicious.

Problem solved.

Tweecious is a simple Firefox add-on that turns links you share in Twitter into Delicious bookmarks. It even adds tags. This add-on is still “experimental” but its worth checking out for all those Twitter curators out there.

Send in social media and Web app related tips via our Publish2 group.

Daily Dose of social media: Chrome can’t be pwned, nor owned

Google Chrome, Mobile Browsers Survive Security Challenge — After one day at the Pwn2Own challenge, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari all fell victim to malicious exploits. For those who don’t know, Pwn2Own is a yearly hacking contest to test the security of Web browsers. Google’s Chrome was the only one of the four to survive the challenge:

The lone survivor in this year’s contest is the newcomer: Google Chrome.

Chrome was affected by one of the flaws that brought down the rest of browsers, but thanks to the tightly-sandboxed way that Chrome runs, no one was able to actually exploit the flaw, which is good news for users facing every more sophisticated attacks.

With most browsers offering roughly the same range of features and comparable speeds (you knew browsers where running out of ways to stand out when they start advertising JavaScript benchmarks), security is fast becoming an important benchmark for many users. But it’s also a very touch one to measure.

Journalists are increasingly working on the Web, and many of you work almost exclusively on the Web. Proper security from malicious Web attacks can prevent you from losing your work or having your data comprised. Chrome has two things that should really appeal to people relying on a Web browser for work: security and stability.

It’s all worth noting, despite a higher prize for compromising a mobile browser at Pwn2Own, no one was able to successful run an exploit on one. That phone in your pocket might be your safest browsing experience.

iPhone Makes Up 50 Percent of Smartphone Web Traffic In U.S., Android Already 5 Percent — Despite being out less than two years, the iPhone has the majority of smartphone Web traffic in the U.S. iPhone users use the Web all the time and download lots of apps. News organizations need to start developing products that work well on mobile, especially the iPhone and other smartphones with rich Web experiences. Before the iPhone came around, mobile browsing wasn’t fun, but now it’s a big part of many people’s lives:

The gains shown by the iPhone and Android show what is possible when phones are built with fully capable browsers and support a rich array of Web apps.

Google’s Android platform is already up to five percent of smartphone Web traffic in the U.S. Android has a rich Web experience like the iPhone, and as more people gets phones like these, more will be utilizing their Web capabilities. With Palm’s Pre due out later this year, this is destined to be the year of the consumer smartphone.

Blackberries largely appeal to business users who use their phones for e-mail and for calendars. But consumer-oriented smartphones are beginning to take over and news orgs have to get on this platform early. So, if your news org gives out Blackberries for business purposes, don’t let that cloud your judgment of what is possible.

It won’t be too long before having a smartphone with a rich Web experience is the norm, not the exception.

And yes, people are getting rich selling apps on the iPhone App Store.

Happy Birthday Twitter! — Yes, Twitter recently turned 3 years old. For the first few years, Twtter was very niche, but now it’s exploding. Try it out.