[More from Mashable: ESPN?s ?Social Highlights? Mash Ups Show Big Moments From Fans? Lens [VIDEO]]
Ah, Instagram. The photo sharing that can't be stopped. Its gauzy filters have moved far beyond brunch photos and whimsical shoe-shots to become a hit in all sorts of other subjects, sports included. Teams, athletes and fans from the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball and pro soccer leagues have all flocked to the service to document and promote.
But perhaps no sports translates to Instagram as well as surfing. Give it just a little thought, and it's not hard to see why: Nature, waves and extreme situations are a pretty enticing recipe for photo success.
[More from Mashable: 17 Tips From Instagram?s Power Elite For Amazing Travel Photos]
For a deeper look, we recently caught up with Aaron Carrera, social media editor at Surfer magazine. Surfer has 116,000 followers on Instagram -- from what we can tell, easily the most popular account related to the sport. (Its Instagram handle is @surfer_magazine.)
Carrera says the magazine has increasingly used Instagram over the past year to build its online community, promote the work of its all-star photographers and stay relevant to readers while they're on the go. Lately they've even found success bringing fans back to their online store by posting occasional pictures of merchandise.
"We have the world's best surf photographers and they're on board with what we're doing socially -- they understand it's helping them as well as our brand," Carrera tells Mashable. "We're sharing photos fans can relate to and appreciate."
SEE ALSO: Instagram Hits Sports Illustrated?s Hallowed Pages [EXCLUSIVE]
Shots from renowned and gorgeous surf spots around the world have become highly sharable for the magazine, routinely picking up more than 15,000 likes from the magazine's followers. Zak Noyle is one photographer whose images are especially popular, and some of his work appears in the gallery above.
Despite surfing's unique status and his magazine's advantageous position for Instagram engagment, Carrera looks to the more mainstream sports world for ideas as well.
"I follow a lot of other magazines, like Sports Illustrated, to see what they're doing," he says. "I'm a huge San Francisco Giants fan, too, so I like to see how they manage posting photos just of the team while also incorporating the marketing aspect of it too. They do a really good job of blending marketing and team content."
So what makes a surf photo pop on Instagram? Not totally unique to the sport, Carrera points to striking colors, unique angles and -- of course -- sunsets as reliable ingredients for success. But there's still that ethereal bit of surfing magic that can't be replicated.
"Instagram just gives people a quick little getaway," he says. "If they're stuck in their cubicle, they can get this quick little escape to Bali and think about where they want to go surfing next."
Click through the gallery above for a getaway of your own, then let us know which shot you like most in the comments.
Thumbnail image courtesy @photoblw and @surfer_magazine
For all of the many directions Ubuntu One's cloud storage has gone, it hasn't headed the Mac's way. Official clients have been the province of Linux devotees (naturally, Ubuntu is recommended) and their Windows friends across the aisle. A newly available Mac beta puts all three major desktop platforms on an even keel, very literally -- the OS X port is almost identical to what you'd get in Linux or Windows, including a few rough points where other interface concepts clash. Still, the Ubuntu One test build has a handy Mac-specific menu bar item, and it's one of the few cloud options that will natively support both the Ubuntu box in your den and the MacBook Pro in your bag. Grab your copy at the source link if you can deal with a few unfinished elements.
Blood cells may offer telltale clues in cancer diagnosisPublic release date: 12-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Amy Olson amy.d.olson@dartmouth.edu 603-646-3274 Dartmouth College
Postdoctoral Research Fellow Devin Koestler is a biostatistician in the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He develops and applies statistical methods to large volumes of data, seeking new approaches for understanding disease, cancer in particular. Koestler and his colleagues are investigating the potential use of white blood cell variation as a diagnostic, predictive, and research tool in the study of non-blood cancers.
"There is promise here for a new diagnostic tool," says Koestler. "What we show here is not ready for immediate clinical utility, but I think it is on the right path."
Koestler is working in the Quantitative Biomedical Sciences program with Professors Margaret Karagas and Jason Moore. His focus is the development of computational and statistical tools for investigating the process of DNA methylation.
In methylation, a molecule known as a methyl group (chemically CH3three hydrogen atoms and one carbon) attaches itself to the DNA. When this occurs, the DNA function can change dramatically. An example might be the methyl group blocking the expression of a tumor-suppressing gene.
Koestler is the first author on a paper with Karagas and a host of colleagues from Dartmouth, Brown University, Oregon State University, the University of Minnesota and the University of California. Its subject is methylation in leukocytes (white blood cells) and their association with cancer in tissues and organs other than blood, such as bladder or ovarian cancers.
"When we have an illness or a disease, that does something to our immune system," Koestler explains. "It responds by providing whatever cells are necessary to combat that threat. In the blood, the leukocytes supply that immune response."
Methylation has been studied in biopsied cells from cancer patients, in comparison to cells of cancer-free individuals. "Those studies have compellingly shown there are very striking differences in methylation patterns between cancer and cancer-free subjects," Koestler says. "This brought us to also look at patterns of methylation in blood."
The new studies, in which Koestler took part, showed differences in methylation patterns in the leukocytes of cancer patients versus cancer-free individuals. There are different types of leukocytes, referred to as subsets, each of which exhibits its own signature methylation pattern. The proportions of these identifiable subsets shift, depending on the kind of disease they may be combating.
Using data from studies of ovarian, bladder, and head and neck cancers, the researchers demonstrated statistically significant correlations between the specific cancers and the methylation signatures that characterize leukocyte subsets.
"What made our study unique is that we had the methylation data on the individual leukocytes themselves, enabling us to connect the dots, and better understand the mechanisms underlying the results from previous studies."
Analyzing the relative proportions of the leukocyte types in the blood sample can help predict the onset of a particular cancer or identify and diagnose a cancer in progress. The alternative of sampling a patient's blood is far preferable to undergoing an invasive surgical biopsy.
The advantages of using methylation patterns to assess proportions of white blood cell subtypes in cancer research extend beyond the bedside to the lab bench. Archival blood samples frozen and stored at some time in the past can now be used as research material, whereas existing methods typically require fresh blood samples with intact cells to assess white blood cell subtypes.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Blood cells may offer telltale clues in cancer diagnosisPublic release date: 12-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Amy Olson amy.d.olson@dartmouth.edu 603-646-3274 Dartmouth College
Postdoctoral Research Fellow Devin Koestler is a biostatistician in the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He develops and applies statistical methods to large volumes of data, seeking new approaches for understanding disease, cancer in particular. Koestler and his colleagues are investigating the potential use of white blood cell variation as a diagnostic, predictive, and research tool in the study of non-blood cancers.
"There is promise here for a new diagnostic tool," says Koestler. "What we show here is not ready for immediate clinical utility, but I think it is on the right path."
Koestler is working in the Quantitative Biomedical Sciences program with Professors Margaret Karagas and Jason Moore. His focus is the development of computational and statistical tools for investigating the process of DNA methylation.
In methylation, a molecule known as a methyl group (chemically CH3three hydrogen atoms and one carbon) attaches itself to the DNA. When this occurs, the DNA function can change dramatically. An example might be the methyl group blocking the expression of a tumor-suppressing gene.
Koestler is the first author on a paper with Karagas and a host of colleagues from Dartmouth, Brown University, Oregon State University, the University of Minnesota and the University of California. Its subject is methylation in leukocytes (white blood cells) and their association with cancer in tissues and organs other than blood, such as bladder or ovarian cancers.
"When we have an illness or a disease, that does something to our immune system," Koestler explains. "It responds by providing whatever cells are necessary to combat that threat. In the blood, the leukocytes supply that immune response."
Methylation has been studied in biopsied cells from cancer patients, in comparison to cells of cancer-free individuals. "Those studies have compellingly shown there are very striking differences in methylation patterns between cancer and cancer-free subjects," Koestler says. "This brought us to also look at patterns of methylation in blood."
The new studies, in which Koestler took part, showed differences in methylation patterns in the leukocytes of cancer patients versus cancer-free individuals. There are different types of leukocytes, referred to as subsets, each of which exhibits its own signature methylation pattern. The proportions of these identifiable subsets shift, depending on the kind of disease they may be combating.
Using data from studies of ovarian, bladder, and head and neck cancers, the researchers demonstrated statistically significant correlations between the specific cancers and the methylation signatures that characterize leukocyte subsets.
"What made our study unique is that we had the methylation data on the individual leukocytes themselves, enabling us to connect the dots, and better understand the mechanisms underlying the results from previous studies."
Analyzing the relative proportions of the leukocyte types in the blood sample can help predict the onset of a particular cancer or identify and diagnose a cancer in progress. The alternative of sampling a patient's blood is far preferable to undergoing an invasive surgical biopsy.
The advantages of using methylation patterns to assess proportions of white blood cell subtypes in cancer research extend beyond the bedside to the lab bench. Archival blood samples frozen and stored at some time in the past can now be used as research material, whereas existing methods typically require fresh blood samples with intact cells to assess white blood cell subtypes.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Consumers have gone social, and businesses are overwhelmed.?
With a tweet, Facebook status update or Instagram picture, customers have more ways than ever to publicly praise or criticize your business.?
Customer reviews are more important than any marketing you could pay for because they're seen as more credible, says Ron Kaufman, author of the?New York Timesbestseller?Uplifting Service: The Proven Path to Delighting Your Customers, Colleagues, and Everyone Else You Meet.
Kaufman says that?businesses can take back the power and leverage social media for their own benefit.
"Tell happy customers to go ahead and be social about their great experiences and encourage unhappy customers to come to you via social media so that you can make it right and improve your overall service,? Kaufman said.?
He gave us seven tips from his book for how to use social media to leverage customer service:? 1. Make it easy for customers to be social.?Create a forum section of your website where they can relay good or bad experiences. Then, you are more likely to see what they say about your service. This can help you to identify strengths and fix weaknesses.?
2. Say "thank you."?Be sure to show your customers appreciation for their feedback. But don't offer an incentive, like a discount, for a review. This "dilutes the authenticity" of the review, Kaufman says.?
3. Invite your customers to speak out.?During a business transaction, simply mention your Twitter, Facebook or forum page. Simply encouraging them to reach out can result in good publicity for you.?
4. Ask how you can improve.?Then thank them, even if they provide negative feedback. This "how can I help?" attitude breeds trust and loyal customers, Kaufman says. It also ensures that they'll go to you?and not the general public?with a problem.
5. Start a social program.?Kaufman cited United Airlines, which made a customer service review part of its mobile app. Customers can recognize great service simply by putting an employee's name into their app. This can improve company morale and engages the customer.?
6. Use social media to create an FAQ.?What questions do people ask the most? Keep track of frequent inquiries on social media and create a base of frequently-asked-questions and answers. Your customers will appreciate it.?
7. Make talking about your brand irresistible.?Offer customer service so great that people will want to share with others. Kaufman cites the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain. After a customer's child lost his stuffed animal, the hotel staff found and returned it. But they also took photos of the toy around the resort to show how great its "extended stay" was. This pleased the customer and resulted in good attention for the hotel chain.?
?Your customers? voices are vital to your organization,? says?Kaufman. ?Social media provides an incredible opportunity to engage those voices."
SEE ALSO:
Forrester Analyst Reveals Exactly How Companies Should Be Investing In Customer Service >?
Strategist Tells Us How Small Businesses Can Use 'Big Data' To Outsmart Their Competitors >?
Seth Godin's 9 Tips On Creating A Remarkable Product >?
Being an avid fan of cake pops, marshmallow pops and really, all things confectionary, means I am also a big fan of scouring the Internet for ideas and being a big fat looky-loo.
Pinterest, of course, is the best vehicle for this. BUT I have also found a few sites that just always have fun edible things to marvel at.
Doing one better: instead of me trying to recreate such ingeniousness (and doing a shotty job), today?s Haloween Top 20 is actually an amalgam of DIYs I found done by others that you, too, can do. ENJOY!
Used Q-Tips:
Via Workmanfamily.com
Who wouldn?t want to surprise family and friends with these incredibly delicious yet totally creepy little snacks? Carmel-dipped mini marshmallows on skewers, otherwise known as Used Q-Tips. I saw this DIY on The Workman Family blog, along with several other very cute, very easy Halloween nibbles.
Skull Pops:
Martha, Martha, Martha? Is there anything you cannot do? This is such a simple, adorable idea which involves marshmallows, candy sticks, black licorice and black licorice drops for the eyes. ?Sure, nobody likes black licorice but EVERYbody likes clever and these are darn clever.
Skull Cake Pops:
Bakerella, the reigning queen of cake pops, has a whole slew of the COOLEST Halloween pops on the Interwebs. While the cake pops are all the same basic recipe (see our tutorial here), Bakerella?s beautiful photos show off her truly creative decorating ideas. Among them: skulls, Wolfmen, pumpkins, witches, mummies and monsters.
Mummy Cookie Pops:
Cookie pops look incredibly easy to make. Essentially the same idea as a cake pop, except it?s an oreo, a stick, a dip and decorate. No baking involved! And who wouldn?t love so snack on these cute little guys? HowDoesShe.com offers a basic tutorial on cookie pops, and several Halloween decorating ideas.
Blood Sucker Slides:
While technically not ?pops,? these are suckers and suckers are usually pops and just go with it. As a fan of the show ?Dexter,? I was immediately enthralled by this idea.I mean, why not serve your guests a little biohazzard nosh, AMIRITE?? For full instrux, be sure to visit Forkable.com.
Traci
Traci Arbios is a web designer and syndicated columnist (which she touts because it makes her feel fancy). She is also fancy. And she loves cheese. LOVES.
Randy Orton vs. Big Show: WWE Main Event, October 10, 2012Intercontinental Champion The Miz interviews Kofi Kingston: WWE Main Event, October 10, 2012Kofi Kingston vs. Michael McGillicutty: WWE Main Event, October 10, 2012Kofi Kingston talks about his encounter with The Miz on WWE Main Event: WWE.com Exclusive, Oct. 10, 2012WWE "Main Event" opening intro: WWE Main Event, October 10, 2012Alberto Del Rio attacks Randy Orton after SmackDown goes off the air: WWE.com Exclusive, Sept. 28, 2012Randy Orton vs. Big Show - World Heavyweight Championship No. 1 Contender Match: SmackDown, Sept. 28, 2012
SAN JOSE, Calif. ? The second episode of WWE Main Event continued to make Wednesday nights on ION Television the latest destination for high-octane WWE action. The featured contest pit bitter rivals Randy Orton and Big Show at odds with one another in a rematch from their recent No. 1 Contender?s Match on SmackDown. Plus, Kofi Kingston battled Michael McGillicutty, and WWE Main Event?s first title match was made for next week!
Big Show def. Randy Orton (PHOTOS | WATCH)
Based on their respective interviews before the contest, there was no love lost between The World?s Largest Athlete and WWE?s Apex Predator. The bitter rivalry intensified on SmackDown two weeks prior, when Big Show defeated Orton in a World Heavyweight Title No. 1 Contender?s Match. The World?s Largest Athlete took advantage of an attack by Alberto Del Rio before that match, injuring The Viper?s ribs. On WWE Main Event, though, Orton struck with a fast-paced offense to keep Big Show reeling.The rib injury soon came into play, however, with a powerful blow from the giant stopping Orton?s momentum.
Big Show?s strategy was effective in keeping The Viper on defense throughout the contest. Orton?s injured ribs seemed to be easy targets for the massive fists of The World?s Largest Athlete, and though WWE?s Apex Predator managed to execute an impressive DDT from the third rope, his gigantic opponent was able to roll out of the ring following an RKO.
Relentless, Orton attempted a second RKO at ringside, but Big Show resisted, tossing Orton into the side of the ring with his ribs absorbing the impact. Reeling in pain, Orton?s ribs became the target of a series of huge elbow drops and two Colossal Clutches before Big Show secured the victory with a chokeslam.
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Public release date: 12-Oct-2012
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Randy Orton vs. Big Show: WWE Main Event, October 10, 2012Intercontinental Champion The Miz interviews Kofi Kingston: WWE Main Event, October 10, 2012Kofi Kingston vs. Michael McGillicutty: WWE Main Event, October 10, 2012Kofi Kingston talks about his encounter with The Miz on WWE Main Event: WWE.com Exclusive, Oct. 10, 2012WWE "Main Event" opening intro: WWE Main Event, October 10, 2012Alberto Del Rio attacks Randy Orton after SmackDown goes off the air: WWE.com Exclusive, Sept. 28, 2012Randy Orton vs. Big Show - World Heavyweight Championship No. 1 Contender Match: SmackDown, Sept. 28, 2012