They were doing just fine before, but the biggest of Facebook's minority owners are about to be catapulted into a far more elite bracket. As we ponder what they'll do with with new millions (around $200 million for the... colorful and creative David Choe), here's a look at what got them where they are today.

Who he is: David Choe, the New York Times says, is a "very successful artist with gallery shows and pieces exhibited in major museums." His website describes him thusly: "David Choe was born in 1976 in Los Angeles. Today he is currently homeless, wandering the Earth making good art and bad music" and adds that "even though he dropped out of art school he still gets asked to speak at universities all the time"--lending him the same dropout-to-millionaire status as several other members of the Facebook IPO Players Club.

His art has appeared on album covers and on film sets, and Wikipedia notes that outside of the gallery environment he's "closely identified with the bucktoothed whale he has been spray-painting on the streets since he was in his teens." His ambitions are suggested to be painting the entire Great Wall of China, "but who knows anything with this guy?" Metroactive began an interview article about him by noting his art is so "provocative he gets death threats and gallery offers."

What's his connection with Facebook?: In 2005 Sean Parker commissioned Choe to paint more provocative art, in the form of graphic sexually themed murals on the walls of Facebook's early Silicon Valley HQ, and in 2008 Mark Zuckerberg asked him to paint more restrained ones on the new HQ's walls.

What's his net worth now: Not entirely clear, although the Times calls him "wealthy."

What will he make from the IPO: Offered cash or stock options as a so-called "adviser" for payment in 2005, Choe chose stock--likely gaining between 0.1% and 0.25% of the company's stock at that point. At IPO this could convert to a value of $200 million.

What he may do with the money: Unknown, but that much cash sure buys a lot of spray paint. And mannequins.

Read about others in the Facebook IPO Players Club:

Chris HughesSean ParkerPeter Thiel Dustin MoskovitzReid HoffmanDonald GrahamJim BreyerEduardo SaverinLi Ka-shingJeff RothschildSheryl Sandberg

[Top image: Upper Playground]

Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter and Fast Company too.

They were doing just fine before, but Facebook's biggest minority owners are about to be catapulted into a far more elite bracket. As we ponder what they'll do with with new millions (maybe over $4 billion for Dustin Moskovitz!), here's a look at what got them where they are today.

Who he is: Dustin Moskovitz was born May 22, 1984--the year the Apple Macintosh landed, if that makes you feel old--and he's just eight days younger than Mark Zuckerberg. Wikipedia calls him an "internet entrepreneur," the Los Angeles Times labels him a "self-taught programmer" while Forbes considers him a "drop out, Harvard university." Roommate to Zuckerberg at Harvard where for two years, he was an economics major, he's a native Floridian, and in 2008 he founded and is CEO of Asana--a company who's eponymous app helps people organize group collaboration and project work. He's also the biggest angel investor in new social network darling Path. He dislikes Google+, still flies Virgin America (not in first class) and Zuckerberg once noted he'd "always be someone I turn to for advice."

His connection to Facebook: He left Harvard with Zuckerberg and other friends and moved to Palo Alto to cofound Facebook proper, after first building it as thefacebook.com in their dorm to help resident Harvard students relate. He was its first CTO, followed by being VP of Engineering, building many infrastructural elements still in place today.

What he's worth already: Forbes guesses his net worth as of September 2011 at around $3.5 billion, and once called him the world's youngest billionaire--based on his stake in Facebook.

How much Facebook's IPO will earn him: Moskovitz has a 5% stake in Facebook, which for an $85 billion company would equate to $4.25 billion. That's around $157 million for every year of his life.

What he might do with his money: Moskovitz is, so the rumors go, pretty unassuming about his billionaire status. He's invested in Path and other startups like Venmo and Flipbook, so we may guess he'll do a bit more of this--and probably Asana will get some attention too. Philanthropy could follow, as he signed up to Giving Pledge late last year, and has established Good Ventures with his partner--a mechanism for donating to worthy charities.

 

Read about others in the Facebook IPO Players Club:

Chris HughesSean ParkerPeter Thiel Reid HoffmanDavid ChoeDonald GrahamJim BreyerEduardo SaverinLi Ka-shingJeff RothschildSheryl Sandberg

 

[Image: Flickr user Kevin Krejci]

Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter and Fast Company too.

They were doing just fine before, but Facebook's biggest minority owners are about to be catapulted into a far more elite bracket. As we ponder what Li Ka-shing will do with his extra millions, here's a look at what got him where he is today.

Who he is: Sir Li Ka-shing is a Chinese businessman based in Hong Kong, currently chairman of Hutchison Wampoa Limited and Cheung Kong Holdings. In 2010 the companies he manages were worth about 15% of the entire Hong Kong stock market, which qualifies Ka-shing as a magnate of epic proportions, rather than a mere businessman. He's commonly considered Asia's most powerful man, has the nickname Superman, and like many powerful figures associated with Facebook, he's a a dropout, having left school at 15 (though that led to 16-hour work days at a plastics company). A serial tech investor, he's philanthropic to the extent he thinks of his charity, the Li Ka-shing Foundation as his "third son." Through it he's already given away over $1.4 billion.

What's his connection with Facebook?: In 2007 Ka-shing poured some $120 million into Facebook for a 0.8% share at the company's then valuation of $15 billion. 

What he's currently worth: Ka-shing may be the best example ever of nominative determinism--the notion that your name decides your career. He's considered the 11th richest man in the world with an estimated worth of $22 billion in 2011. Ka-ching, indeed.

What Facebook's IPO will bring: A 0.8% stake in a Facebook worth $85 billion at IPO would equate to $680 million for Ka-shing.

What he may do with the money: Invest, acquire, give it away, dive into piles of it à la Scrooge McDuck: The new value is equivalent to just 3% of his current riches.

Read about others in the Facebook IPO Players Club:

Chris HughesSean ParkerPeter Thiel Dustin MoskovitzReid HoffmanDavid ChoeDonald GrahamJim BreyerEduardo SaverinJeff RothschildSheryl Sandberg

[Image via Li Ka Shing Foundation]

Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter and Fast Company too.

They were doing just fine before, but the biggest of minority owners of Facebook are about to be catapulted into a far more elite bracket. As we ponder what they'll do with with new millions (billions, for cofounder Eduardo Saverin), here's a look at what got them where they are today.

Who he is: Eduardo P. Saverin is a Brazil-born "internet entrepreneur and investor," from a wealthy family that moved to Florida when it was discovered Eduardo's name was on a kidnap-for-ransom hit list--he now lives in Singapore. A classmate of Mark Zuckerberg's, Saverin actually finished his degree, earning a Bachelor of Economics. That didn't fare him too well in Facebook business machinations, as an increasingly wide split with Zuckerberg over the years ended in a court case that was settled out of court. Since then he's been putting his economic skills to use to take an active role in secondary market trading of Facebook stock. Now 29, he's a little camera-shy (we nearly had to use his schoolboy photo here, from his Facebook page) but he's reportedly enjoying his money, with the Daily Mail noting he is "living it up" and last year was "cavorting with a clutch of bronzed beauties" in France. But he's also spending his money on investments: Social net Qwiki and mobile payment site Jumio being notable targets (the latter just landing $25.5 million in funding). He "didn't learn anything from The Social Network."

His connection to Facebook: He was in on it early, when it was still The Facebook, and worked closely with Zuckerberg to launch it in 2004, holding early titles of CFO and the (slightly more hazily defined) business manager. As that famous film tells us, it all went nasty, and now he simply retains a stake in the company.

What he's worth already: Estimates are up to $2 billion, but of course the figure varies as the net worth of the companies he's invested in changes, and dependent on how much secondary market trading he actually got up to before Facebook's IPO began.

How much he could make in the IPO: His settlement with Facebook resulted in him keeping a 5% share, but he's said to have sold it down to 2.5%. At an $85 billion IPO value, that equates to $2.1 billion. 

What he might do with the cash: That Mail story notes he blew $50,000 on champagne in a party session, so maybe he's taking a leaf out of Sean Parker's book. We can probably expect to see a few more tabloid-pleasing antics (All that money! All those beaches and models!), and possibly more investments along the lines of Qwiki and ShopSavvy, and you could be forgiven for thinking he's more likely to try to convert some of his stake into cash sooner than his peers given his earlier behavior.

Read about others in the Facebook IPO Players Club:

Chris HughesSean ParkerPeter Thiel Dustin MoskovitzReid HoffmanDavid ChoeDonald GrahamJim BreyerLi Ka-shingJeff RothschildSheryl Sandberg

Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter, and Facebook if you like and Fast Company too.

They were doing just fine before, but the biggest of minority owners of Facebook are about to be catapulted into a far more elite bracket. As we ponder what they'll do with with new millions (money being no stranger to early investor Jim Breyer), here's a look at what got them where they are today.

Who he is: When we profiled him back in 1997, Jim Breyer was simply a Managing General Partner at Accel Partners, who spent the "bulk of his working hours in meetings" but who "comes to the table only if the stakes are high and the action is guranteed." Now he's also president of Accel Management Company, and founder and CEO of Breyer Capital, and sits on various boards (including Booyah). He's got a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science and economics, which must certainly have played a part in his interest in Facebook. In October 2011 he was elected to News Corporation's board, just in time to be in the middle of the phone hacking scandal, but that probably doesn't detract from his nomination as Forbes' "smartest investor in technology" in 2010.

What's his connection to Facebook?: In 2005 under Breyer's pressure, Accel invested $12.7 million in the nascent Facebook enterprise, and Breyer was so seemingly smitten with the technological and financial promise that he invested one million dollars of his own money too, establishing an ownership share of about 1%. 

What's he worth now: Estimated at $1.1 billion in late 2011

How much could the IPO make him: An assumed 1% stake at an $85 billion IPO would equate to $850 million.

What he may do with the money: Invest, invest, invest! But not necessarily where you may think: His economic smarts also bring caution, and recently Breyer said too much startup funding could be a bad thing, and the current frenzy "may end badly."

Read about others in the Facebook IPO Players Club:

Chris HughesSean ParkerPeter Thiel Dustin MoskovitzReid HoffmanDavid ChoeDonald GrahamEduardo SaverinLi Ka-shingJeff RothschildSheryl Sandberg

 

Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter and Fast Company too.

The fact that the beloved charity that owns the pink ribbon decided to pull its financial support of Planned Parenthood (a decision that was reversed three days later) in the end will help the Planned Parenthood brand even more than it damages the brand of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a nonprofit to which some 200 organizations like Ford, Major League Baseball, and BofA connect. 

Here are the four key ways Planned Parenthood benefits: 

Positive PR.  The decision provided enormous publicity about Planned Parenthood and provided visibility of key statistics, like that it provides 165,000 breast cancer screens and 6,500 mammograms to low-income women who lack access to care, and the fact that only 3% of the budget is allocated to abortion services. This information got widespread exposure and, more important, an attentive, receptive, and enormous audience.

Improved image.  The decision puts Planned Parenthood in a feisty underdog position fighting back against powerful self-centered political interests. For a brand, it doesn't get any better than being perceived as an underdog taking on a bully--look at Virgin vs. British Airlines and many others. Whatever the decision process or motivation of Komen, the widespread interpretation of the decision was that it was caused by political pressure. There was, of course, the political tension around Planned Parenthood. But there was also the addition to the Komen staff of a former Georgia candidate for the Republican nomination for governor who ran with a strong anti-Planned Parenthood platform. And the ostensible reason the funding was pulled was because of an inquiry by a strong anti-Planned Parenthood Republican congressman. The lingering impression is that Planned Parenthood was a pawn that was being crushed by an ideological confrontation.    

More funding.  One role of the brand is to attract funding. Komen's decision drew many new donors to Planned Parenthood, who will provide major sources of ongoing funding. Within 24 hours of Komen's decision, donors had contributed nearly enough to cover the funding Komen pulled, and the number of online donors surged from the typical 100 or 200 a day to 6,000. This surge of financial goodwill was buttressed and legitimatized by credible sources like Mayor Mike Bloomberg of New York and the Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong Fund, who put substantial matching funds on the table. Also, the decision probably solidified the long-term support of Komen for the Cure to Planned Parenthood. The Komen brand will face problems in retrieving its image as an organization that puts care for those women that lack access to health care over political ideological pressure. Any effort that appears to withhold support for Planned Parenthood would affect the difficult journey to regain its credibility and position.

Higher energy.  The decision created involvement in the base. The social media activity, in particular, was enormous and the fundraising was also energizing. Increasing the size of the involved base, those who participate in the dialogue and donate money, will pay off for years. It is just so hard to generate this energy with normal day-to-day activity.   

There has been a lot of analysis about the brand impact of the Komen decision and how it was handled--but sometimes lost in the conversation has been how the Planned Parenthood brand was unintentionally boosted by the incident. 

Related: How Susan G. Komen For The Cure Torpedoed Its Brand 

[Image: Flickr user Timothy Krause]

What a difference a week makes.

On Tuesday, January 31, Susan G. Komen For The Cure announced that it would not renew its grants to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer exams, claiming that it doesn't permit funding to organizations under investigation by Congress. This is equal to more than half a million dollars for low-income women who otherwise would have no options for breast cancer screening and other services.

This announcement was not made publicly, but instead communicated to Komen’s 100-plus U.S. affiliates. Quietly. A done deal. Not up for discussion. Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, got the news by phone in December, and was unsuccessful in setting up a meeting to clarify the issue with the Komen board.

Critics pointed out that the Planned Parenthood was the only organization affected by the new rule, and that the real reason was that Karen Handel, the new senior vice-president for public policy, is a self-described evangelical Christian who has stated that “I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.” It’s hard not to see women’s health getting politicized.

And at this point you might be saying: What? Did they think people wouldn’t find out about this? Does the board of Komen not know about social media? Did they learn nothing from SOPA?

What happened next was that social media exploded. On Twitter, on Facebook, in online petitions and letters and blogs and message boards. Public figures like Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) withdrew their support for Komen. Three top officials at Komen resigned their positions. Individual Komen affiliates said they would not abide by the new rule. And 26 U.S. senators signed a letter asking Komen to reconsider its position on Planned Parenthood.

The term “backlash” is an understatement. Yet Komen’s CEO Nancy Brinker (pictured, top) insisted that the public response had been “very, very favorable.”

Then the spin started. On Wednesday, Komen claimed the decision was made “in the best interests of women” (by denying poor women breast cancer screening?). And on Thursday, Brinker said that "You have to be sure you are granting to the right people."

The “right” people?” Hey, dig yourself a little deeper!

Finally, on Friday, Komen did the obvious and reversed their decision. Brinker apologized in a statement and said that the new rule would only apply to investigations that were “criminal and conclusive in nature." They didn’t promise to renew the grants, only to ensure that Planned Parenthood is eligible for them in the future. They said "sorry," but it was a not-pology.

It’s incredible that the folks who run Komen were so clueless about the effect their actions would have on a brand that’s been built over three decades. They completely ignored both the mainstream press coverage, as well as social media outcry; they chose not to communicate with their supporters, either through Facebook or Twitter, and made transparently disingenuous statements to the press, in light of information coming from former Komen employees and documentation. 

Will the Komen brand ever recover? Unfortunately for them, they were already getting some negative publicity for their tendency to sue anyone using the phrase “For The Cure” and the color pink for other charities. While they certainly have the right to protect their intellectual property, Komen comes off as a big bully when they start sending cease-and-desist letters to tiny charities run by individuals.

They are going to have to work long and hard to win back the masses of people who now view them as an organization driven more by politics and the personal beliefs of its executives than its concern for women’s health, in whatever form that may take. One wonders if Handel or Brinker will have to step down to effect the change. Or perhaps they’ll decide that they want to hitch their wagon to a particular ideology, and stop pretending that they aren’t pushing an agenda.

The good news out of this debacle is that Planned Parenthood has raised an enormous amount of money--nearly a million dollars, donated directly to them. You can, too, if you're so inclined.

And while you’re at it, write a letter to Nancy Brinker to let her know what you think. Perhaps someone can explain that “very, very favorable” does not mean what she thinks it means. 

Related: Planned Parenthood's Unplanned Branding Bonanza

Laurel Sutton is a partner and cofounder at Catchword, a full-service naming firm.

[Image: Flickr user Elaine]

In a previous Fast Company article, I wrote about hitchhiking. Specifically, what I’ve learned about hitching a ride in semi-rural South Africa and how these strategies apply to marketing. I learned something by accident last month that took my thumbing skills to a whole new level.

I Buy a Bicycle

I live in an area with steep hills, dangerous switchbacks, potholes the size of dorm refrigerators, and occasionally incompetent and frequently insane motorists. So naturally I thought: “A mountain bike would be fun here.”

My friend Anthony was selling his old Merida Matts Sport 500. I took it for a spin around his yard, liked it, and told him I’d be back with the money after my next encounter with an ATM.

Given the risks and the fact that most of my income-producing power begins between my ears and ends up at my keyboard, I also picked up a helmet and a pair of bike gloves. And at 8:30 a.m. on a momentous Wednesday, I began walking up the road to Anthony’s house wearing, rather than carrying, the helmet and gloves.

I hadn’t walked 20 meters when a big, new, shiny Toyota SUV roared past, slammed on the brakes, and backed up toward me. A genial tourist leaned out his window and beckoned, “Need a lift?” 

Gratefully, I accepted. I had been feeling a bit dorky about wearing the helmet and gloves on the walk, so I was glad to speed up the trip and reduce my exposure. I wondered about my good fortune; in my experience a man traveling alone is more likely to have a pair of bluebirds alight on his head than get a ride if he actively solicits one. To get offered a ride, unasked, is unheard of.

When I plopped myself down, SUV Man inquired pleasantly, “Your bike broken?”

So that’s what was going on. My helmet and gloves had provided a Reason Why.

Not a Fluke

Later that day, after Anthony couldn’t find a pump with a Presta valve, I walked my flat-tired Merida several kilometers to the cycle shop at Mountain Splendour. Again, wearing helmet and gloves. This time, for added effect, I was pushing a big blue bike down a hill. And again, I received an unsolicited offer of a lift.

How to Hitch a Ride in South Africa

So now I know how to reliably get a ride around here. I just wear my Bell Slant helmet and start walking. Before, drivers had to wonder why a healthy-looking white guy didn’t have his own car. (In South Africa, that’s pretty much an anomaly.) Now they know why I need a ride: My bike must have broken down somewhere.

Once my situation makes sense to them, the ride offers come easily, often unrequested. The Reason Why alleviates their fears that I might be a Psycho Killer or Unpleasant Travel Companion. It also gives them a reason to pick me up: I’m in need, and they’re the kind of person who helps strangers in need.

The only thing that had changed about me was the Reason Why. The power of that insight applies to our businesses as well. 

The Power of Reason Why

Human beings are programmed to make sense of the world, to look for patterns and predict outcomes. It’s how our species survived, adapted, and thrived in so many different environments. And one of the strongest patterns is cause and effect--reasons why certain things happen.

Social psychologist Ellen Langer found that human beings exhibit an automatic response pattern of saying yes when given a reason. In a fascinating study reported in Robert Cialdini’s Influence, Langer and her colleagues asked to cut in line at a library photocopy machine with one of three statements:

"Excuse me. I have 5 pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I'm in a rush?""Excuse me. I have 5 pages. May I use the Xerox machine?""Excuse me. I have 5 pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?"

The first request (“because I’m in a rush”) worked 94% of the time. The second request (no reason) received only 60% positive responses. The third request (“because I have to make some copies”) succeeded in 93% of cases. “Because I have to make some copies” is not, of course, an actual reason. It’s simply phrased in the form of a reason, and that was sufficient to trigger the automatic “that sounds reasonable” response.

Reason Why Marketing

I’m not suggesting that you pepper your marketing with meaningless reasons (“Buy our product because we say so”). Rather, acknowledge the natural skepticism of your market to any claim of superiority or dramatic difference and tell 'em why it’s so.

All business advantage is founded on some anomaly. You have a unique set of experiences that makes you better than anyone else at a particular skill. You engineered a new business model. You found a pool of talent that others had overlooked. You have a patent on a process or material that sets you apart.

It’s not enough to describe the difference or the advantage you hold in the marketplace. Reason Why Marketing explains the difference and makes it believable, credible, even obvious. 

People are naturally skeptical of competitive claims, but we want to believe. We cling to Reasons Why as life vests in a sea of mediocrity and sameness. We’re passionate about the companies that create, and demonstrate, and justify their Uniqueness.

Some Examples of Reason Why Marketing

Why are Apple products so good? Because Steve Jobs was a hyper-driven visionary perfectionist who imbued the company with an ethos of innovation and elegance.

Why is Zappo’s customer service so good? Because Zappo’s spends huge amounts of money on training, creates a fantastic workplace environment, and empowers employees to do almost anything to make customers happy. 

Why are Surefire flashlights so good? Because the company was founded by an engineer with a PhD in laser design who saw the potential of outfitting weapons with laser sights almost 30 years ago.

Why is your company so good? If the answer doesn’t immediately pour out of you, go into reminiscence mode. Why was the company founded? What’s the background of the founders? What was missing in the industry that they wanted to deliver? What was their particular passion? What unique set of perspectives influenced their decisions?

If you truly offer something dramatically better in your marketplace, Reason Why Marketing may be the missing core of your message. In a world where most businesses rely on meaningless platitudes (“Value, service, integrity”) or unfounded claims (“The leading purveyor”), a simple “This Is Why” explanation can cut through the clutter and position you as the obvious choice.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to town. Wallet, keys, phone, helmet…

[Image: Flickr user Nemodus]

Months after India's healthily anticipated $35 tablet was first unveiled, its owners are embroiled in a spat that is raising questions about its future.

A $35 Indian Aakash tablet may turn out to be a pipe dream after all.

In the most recent twist in the development of the unbelievably cheap piece of tech, the Indian government is trying to break a manufacturing stalemate by taking the decision away from the Indian university that created tablet prototypes.

As we wrote in early November, professors at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Jodhpur, along with students at the institute, created the first models of the device, before handing over manufacturing responsibility to U.K. company DataWind. IIT is designing more advanced affordable prototypes, while concurrently testing the first batch of tablets that DataWind has made.

But over the past weeks, DataWind and IIT have disagreed on the final specs of Aakash 1. The difference of opinion, director of IIT Jodhpur Prem Kalra tells Fast Company, involves DataWind skimping on what IIT believed were minimum features. Suneet Singh Tuli, head of DataWind, has rejected the proposed "military grade" specifications but Kalra says they're only insisting on basic necessities for a tablet meant to be used by customers in rural India. DataWind's Tuli says there's no need to build a tablet that can be run over by a truck, while Kalra insists, in his own incindiary way, that his team's priorities are usability and safety. "If you drop it, it should not catch fire," he says. Meanwhile, several reviews of the device, including this recent one from IEEE Spectrum, have dismissed it as clunky and slow.

The recent move by the government could prove to be a butterfingered attempt to break the stalemate. The Economic Times reports that the government's Department of IT could be responsible for picking multiple manufacturers who'll take on production of Aakash 2. In a puzzling second twist, government sources have told the Times of India that two other universities--IITs in Chennai and Mumbai--will join the project as well. However, it is unclear what role they will play.

But there's a chance that the government's decision to hire a third-party tender writer, well-versed in the ways and wiles of commercial contracts, could avoid a future spat of the kind IIT and DataWind are mired in. In that case, this decision could actually streamline manufacturing of the Aakash 2, with the parties involved avoiding roadblocks like this one.

Kalra has been deeply involved with the Aakash project from its early days, and amid this recent fuss, he's keeping a brave face. He says that the decision will allow IIT to be involved, while letting it do what it does best--innovate at the early stage and continue designing. "Our main agenda is to come up with the new devices."

"As far as the first testing phase was concerned, we took that on because it was part of our research agenda," Kalra says. Now someone else has to handle the testing, supply chain, and whole manufacturing loop while IIT continues to research and develop low-cost devices. "That's a good step because we alone cannot do it. But, our research for improving the devices will continue."

In advance of its sales, demand for a souped-up commercial version of the tablet (costing about $50) appears strong. In early January, Suneet Singh Tuli announced that DataWind had seen 1.4 million preorders on its website. The question now seems to be, with all the added performers in this escalating Greek tragedy, what will it take for them to all agree so that Aakash can hit the market?

Nidhi Subbaraman writes about technology and the world. Follow on Twitter, Google+.

Breaking news from your editors at Fast Company, with updates all day.

Introducing The Android Market "Bouncer." Google's newly announced Bouncer is a service that detects security threats coming from apps in the Android app store. The service checks out any app uploaded to the app store for known security threats, and watches it for suspicious behavior. The service also analyzes new developer accounts. --NS

Apple Drums Up 278 Claims Against Samsung In Australia. Apple has extended its legal proceedings against Samsung in Australia. Its new line of attack has grown from three claims on patents involving the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to 278 claims, over 22 patents and 10 devices, some of which have yet to be launched. As legal battles involving Apple patents swell in number, a Chicago judge is beginning to object, asking for a "winnowing" of claims in a Apple vs. Motorola suit. --NS

Panasonic Forecasts $10 Billion Loss . Electronics maker Panasonic is forecasting a grim year and a loss of $10.2 billion. The reason--a wayward TV business with steadily dipping sales and, according to some, a lack of strategy for a solid turnaround. The company will cut 17,000 jobs by the end of March. --NS

--Updated 5:45 a.m. EST

[Image: Flickr user protohiro]

Yesterday's Fast Feed: Amazon (Sorta) Launches In India, Apple Denied German Galaxy Device Ban, Tumblr Hiring Writers And Editors, and more!

The private company behind the Super Bowl's official Social Media Command Center isn't just tweeting fans transit tips, they're monitoring social media for game-day threats by would-be terrorists. And Madonna.

What do Justin Bieber and potholes have in common? This isn't, actually, a joke. The Super Bowl Host Committee in Indianapolis, along with Indiana-based private social media company Raidious, have set up a giant Social Media Command Center in downtown Indianapolis (right, and yes, those are Macs) for the Super Bowl, and they're already monitoring Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, YouTube, and Flickr. They'll watch for tweeted gripes about roads and statuses about parking--plus, you know, any chatter from would-be terrorists looking to create panic with a dirty bomb.

Oh, and they'll keep extra special sharp tabs on Madonna, Justin Bieber, and any other A-list attendees to make sure they find Indianapolis' amenities suitable.

Running the Super Bowl's social media operation will be Raidious's largest project to date (other corporate clients include the Indianapolis Colts, Comcast, and Adidas). Big-game ops will be staffed by 50 employees and volunteers--college students, mostly. 

According to Raidious CEO Taulbee Jackson, the Command Center's main goal is to actively work with visitors and respond in crisis and safety situations if needed. Staff, working on an Awareness, Inc. platform, have a list of approximately 300 keywords to be monitored (along with the Twitter hashtag #social46). Visitors to Indianapolis will receive assistance with their visit--and monitoring for other purposes will continually take place.

Tweets and other social media are filtered by geolocation; Raidious is focusing on tweets and Facebook posts made in Indianapolis and the immediate vicinity. A major part of Raidious' strategy focuses on sentiment response--Twitter messages ragging on Indianapolis or the Super Bowl visit experience are much more likely to get a rapid response. As of Thursday night, the official Super Bowl Host Committee Twitter account @superbowl2012 was busy steering Indianapolis visitors and guests to weekend concerts and festival events; Raidious was also running an extremely busy guest services operation on the Super Bowl 2012 Facebook page.

Then there's the whole first-line-of-defense-against-terrorism thing. A major part of the Social Media Command Center's duties will consist of emergency management and as-needed crisis assistance. Just outside of Indianapolis, a federal command center has been set up with officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who will be in contact with the Social Media Command Center--its staffers and supporting undergrads. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced at a Wednesday press conference that over 35 federal or component law enforcement agencies were collaborating on Super Bowl security. At the Command Center, redundant Internet connections and network infrastructure have been added; all employees are also equipped with smartphones in case of a power outage.

One of the Social Media Command Center's stated goals is to “respond first to any safety oriented issue/crisis.” So while the FBI monitors social media for a variety of keywords that could refer to a terrorist attack or criminal incident at the Super Bowl, the Command Center does its part (while also making sure you don't get a pricey ticket for parking in the wrong zone).

In fact, all social media data related to the Super Bowl is being subjected to intensive post-publishing analytics: Purdue University's Homeland Security Institute has been producing daily reports on Super Bowl social media chatter on behalf of the Super Bowl Host Committee and the Indiana Office of Technology. As a sort of tit-for-tat, the Homeland Security Institute's reports also include information on parking, traffic, and public safety trends.

The Command Center is also actively monitoring the Twitter feeds of celebrities attending the game or participating in concerts or events Super Bowl Weekend. If a famous musician, athlete, or actor makes a negative statement--say criticizing an aspect of their trip--Raidious' team will be able to quickly help sort things out. 

After the Indianapolis Super Bowl Committee bought Raidious onto the project in 2010, the project and Command Center were set up over a period of nine months. Volunteers for the Command Center were trained in corporate PR best practices and set up to work on a stripped-down version of the Awareness interface.

As for learning to spot bona fide terrorist threats--how hard could that really be?  

For more stories like this, follow @fastcompany on Twitter. Email Neal Ungerleider, the author of this article, here or find him on Twitter and Google+.

Quadrocopter Swarms Go Tiny

If you're a fan of This Week In Bots you'll be exquisitely familiar with quadropters--the technology is blooming right now because the battery, motor, and control technology is ubiquitous and the stable flight platform offered by the design promises so much for the future of aerial robotics. That's why we've seen them dance, perform ridiculous aerobatics, and even build things. Now UPenn's GRASP lab, behind so many of these innovations, has taken the design and added a sci-fi spin: Miniaturization. They're calling them nano-quadrotors, and as the video below shows, by making them small you can pack more together in a limited flying space and create truly astonishing swarm behavior.

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It's not just for show, though. If you equipped each of these devices with some AI and a degree of autonomy plus a sensor suite, they could be far more efficient than many other methods in searching a collapsed building (or the upper decks of a sunken cruise liner?) after a disaster--snaking in and out of confined spaces and where terrain would be tricky for humans. Alongside that there are policing and military uses that should be obvious, and one can maybe imagine news agencies adopting the technology to gain incredible footage of developing news scenes.

Lobby Greeters Go Robotic

You've seen telepresence work in medical environments and for remote-attendance of office meetings, but now the makers of one type of telepresence robot have a new and quite remarkable spin on the tech that mixes in telepresence and a dab of call-center thinking. Anybots will now, for $2,400 a month, send you one of their QB telepresence droids and hook your business up with its 40-hour-a-week AnyLobby service so that your offices can get a human-ish face to meet, greet, and help visitors to your office lobby.

As pointed out over at Automaton blog, not only can these robots offer a cheaper alternative to a real person and a better service to visitors than a depressingly inhuman lobby phone with a note saying to "Call Jim on extension x" or whatever, but if your needs are pretty sporadic, then one professional human robot operator could manage a number of robots--and be located anywhere.

Virtual contracted employees--a whole new layer of robot tech to think about. Will your office cleaner be replaced by one operated over telepresence soon, or will your IT support staff spin up to your desk in robot form before visiting in person?

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Real Estate Demos Go Telepresence

Lest you think telepresence lobby staff is just a single example of virtual staffing, the Personal Robotics Group at MIT recently hit the press because of its ideas for telepresence meeting-and-greeting of a different nature, where the job of showing prospective buyers around a property could be delegated to a telepresence droid. The team has been working on the tech for some years, tyring to hone the real-feel qualities of the robots so that a task as highly personal and important as helping someone buy a home doesn't feel odd or less satisfying than talking in person.

There are years to go before artificial agents like MITs can do the job, but we see no blockages to a getup like Anybots trying a telepresence version sooner rather than later. Stairs would be an issue, with most telepresence robots opting for a wheeled chassis to keep costs low, but there are creative solutions that could solve that problem. Plus it saves real estate agents time purring up and down the streets of town in their cars--thus lowering their costs (let's not go crazy and imagine these savings would be passed on to their clients, though).

Cancer Surgery Goes Robo-crab

This slightly stretches the definition of a robot (especially if you go with Douglas Adams' famous "your plastic pal who's fun to be with!" version), but technically the device is designed to replace the work of a human--and potentially do it better and more reliably: It's a novel robot for tackling stomach cancer.

Inspired by a meal of Singapore's famous chilli crab dish, a surgeon and roboticist in Singapore have come up with MASTER, the Master And Slave Transluminal Endoscopic Robot. Designed to be deployed through an endoscope, the robot is a claw-like tool that both grips cancerous tissue and precisely excises it while simultaneously cauterizing the wound. It avoids bigger open-surgery trauma to the patient, and because the robot's limbs don't tremble or slip the way human hands do, it can offer more precise treatment. A company was formed to commercialize it late in 2011, and the team hopes to sell it within three years.

Mannequins Go Sci-Fi

If you're of a certain age, this story will prompt a famous late-1980's film theme tune to worm into your thoughts...and if you're a Doctor Who fan you may get a chill: Dr Hiroshi Ishiguro, the Japanese roboticist behind the freakishly real-looking Geminoid robots, has turned his skills to improving boring, static store-window fashion mannequins. By making them move like a human model may.

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As part of a Valentine's day promotion an Ishiguro Geminoid robot is sitting in a display at Takashimaya department store in Tokyo, doing familiar human things like smiling, yawning, adjusting her position in her chair and nodding at visitors--with a degree of interactivity when she senses passersby. The droid's face is capable of over 60 human-like expressions.

We're not sure what expressions you might suddenly display if the droid activated near you when you weren't expecting it, but we're guessing that even Ishiguro can't quite make his robots display sheer pant-wetting terror yet. He does think it's the "future of shop displays."

Car Robots Go Best-Selling

Skeptics among you may doubt that the robots we write about here will touch your daily life anytime soon, and true many of them are research devices designed to inform far-off consumer tech. But don't believe that the robot revolution is already underway, because as IndustryWeek notes, sales of industrial robots in North America in 2011 hit an all-time high. Well over a billion dollars of robot tech was brought into the U.S., beating the previous record set in 2005, and it's not just car-making robots: Non-automotive customers went up 27%, with the metalworking and semiconductor industry pushing the market. Better yet, while overall orders jumped up 47% compared to 2010, the dollar amount only went up 38%. Robots are getting cheaper, more reliable, and more capable. 

Flapping Bots Go Butterfly-Like

We write a lot about biomimicry in all sorts of technology because it's an important idea--life has already come up with many creative solutions to some of the scientific and engineering tasks we set for ourselves and our devices. Now butterflies are in the mix, as researchers at Johns Hopkins have realized that the efficient way that butterflies can propel themselves through the air can help build better nano-drones. Technically called ornithopters, flapping-wing robots may be the best aids for some search-and-rescue and military purposes due to their efficiency and ability to deal with unexpected air gusts--which is why engineering student Tiras Lin has been photographing them in lab conditions. You may be wowed by nano-quadrotors, but imagine the sensation you'll get in a while seeing a fleet of robo-butterflies perform similar tasks.

Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter (he's not a Geminoid) and Fast Company too.