Mobile media company JiWire and satellite broadband provider Row 44 are teaming up to deliver an in-flight Wi-Fi system that will come to you for free via advertising support.

Southwest and Alaska Airlines have already begun to test the new service, which will make it possible for advertisers to target the coveted “business traveler” demographic in exchange for free Wi-Fi. The system is expected to launch fully on at least those two airlines this fall.

The company doesn’t specify exactly how the ads will appear, whether via pre-rolls or some sort of browser framing experience. Row 44’s Skytown Center is mentioned as one place where ads will appear — a virtual shopping mall and content portal unique to specific airlines. Perhaps a mandatory stroll through the virtual mall will be required for entry into the wild and wooly internets.

The service sounds like a boon to consumers, who will benefit from free Wi-Fi (that’s hopefully not too caged by the ad experience). It should be a good opportunity for advertisers as well considering a recent study by the Wi-Fi Alliance showing that 76% of business travelers would pick an airline based on Wi-Fi, and more than 70% would choose Wi-Fi over a meal service.

When you travel, do you pick your flights based on Wi-Fi availability? Would you leap at the chance for a free hot-spot in the air, or are you content to shell out a few bucks for an ad-free experience? Let us know in the comments.

[via Marketing Vox]

Tags: advertising, Airlines, free wifi, jiwire, planes, travel, wifi

When big brands try to create novelty Facebook applications, the results are often disappointing (remember Whopper Sacrifice?).

It’s too early to make a final judgment on Coca-Cola’s Coke Zero Facebook tie-in, but the idea is fun enough that it just might work.

The Coke Zero Facial Profiler app aims to use Facebook to find your digital double. Coca-Cola promotes its Coke Zero brand under the guise of “having Coke’s taste but with zero calories” so finding an identical stranger is an interesting tie-in.

The app is pretty simple. Grant the Coke Zero Facial Profiler app access to your Facebook account via Facebook Connect and it will search for photos you have uploaded of yourself and scan them with its face recognition software. If you don’t have enough photos uploaded or if the photos aren’t right for the software, you can upload a photo from your computer or take a picture from your web cam.

As soon as the app has enough information, you’re added to the database and asked to invite your Facebook friends to join in on the fun too. Once the database is large enough (how large isn’t specified, but it was 22% full as of this writing), Coke Zero will show your doppleganger.

Coke hints that you might be able to have some fun with the information after a match is made, but is playing coy with the details. If you decide you DON’T want your photo in Coke’s database, you can request that it be removed and Coke says it will comply within 48 hours.

Like iPhone apps, Facebook applications are increasingly being used by small and large companies to promote or reinforce a brand. Personally, I like the idea of this app and can’t wait to see who it matches my face with!

Tags: coke zero, coke zero facial profiler, facebook application, MARKETING

The team behind Google Maps today reports several interesting improvements to the service. First of all, they’ve created a new base map dataset, which includes several publicly accessible geospatial government-created datasets, with information pertaining to toll roads, bridges, road networks and the like.

In practice, this simply means more data and more details in Google Maps. For example, maps of college campuses and cycling trails have been vastly improved; cyclists should soon even be able to check out biking directions directly on Google Maps, a feature which I’ve personally been anxiously waiting for.

The most important new feature, however, has to do with you: the user. On the bottom right of Google Maps you’ll find a new link: “Report a Problem”; you can also find it by right clicking anywhere on the map and selecting it from the drop down menu. It’s not related to technical issues with Google Maps, but rather to mistakes in the actual geospatial data. For example, if you see outdated or just plain wrong data – a street name, direction, or a missing road – you can now report it through this link. You’ll soon be able to see what difference you’ve made, as Google plans to resolve reported issues within a month.

See an overview of this new feature in the video below.

Tags: geospatial data, Google Maps

The Smarter Cities series is supported by IBM. Read more about building a smarter planet on the IBM A Smarter Planet Blog.

Social media has certainly changed the way we interact and the way we do business, but the way we eat? No really, it’s true: social media is positively affecting virtually all aspects of our lives, including how we find, sell, and eat food. From helping restaurants connect with customers in new and innovative ways to helping consumers locate good eats, social media and the web are making our cities more delicious places to live.

In this post we’ll look at some of the ways that social media is giving small food businesses the power to promote themselves and find new customers, as well as how it is providing city dwellers with the tools to find great (and safe) food. How else is social media making your city tastier? Let us know in the comments.

For Food Providers

Food vendors have put social media to some incredibly innovative uses in order to better locate and connect with their key demographic. The Albion Cafe in London, for example, uses Twitter to automatically alert customers when fresh baked goods have just come out of their ovens. Using a specially built box called BakerTweet, the people at Albion are able to automatically update Twitter any time something new comes out of their ovens. The result is that their customers know exactly when the freshest cookies and scones are available for sale. BakerTweet is a clever way to use social media to connect with customers on a new level and get them more interested in coming into the shop to purchase food.

Social media has also proven invaluable to the food truck business. Mobile food trucks have embraced the mobile web in a big way, by using status update services like Twitter to communicate with diners. By utilizing Twitter, food trucks have found they can create demand by keeping customers apprised of their whereabouts, and effectively advertise their good by running promotions, posting pictures, and announcing their menu.

Restaurants with more permanent locations are finding social media tools valuable as well. New Orleans pizza joint Naked Pizza has famously used Twitter to connect with the people that have eaten at their restaurant and turn their customers into die-hard fans. That attention to social media has created an exceptional amount of buzz for Naked Pizza and brought them national press coverage. Another pizza place, the Pie Hole Pizza-Joint in Chicago, effectively uses Facebook and Twitter to accentuate the fun atmosphere of their restaurant.

Promotion, of course, is one of the main reasons food merchants are using social media. In addition to helping restaurants connect with current customers in new and more personal ways, social media also allows restaurants to better connect with new customers. By making their establishments more easily discovered, food vendors can use the web to grow their business. Local guides like MerchantCircle.com, Judy’s Book, and even Google Maps make restaurants easier to find and allow business owners to advertise directly to their most likely customers: hungry people searching the web for food.

Once people find a place to eat, social media is making it easier for them to order. Creative online ordering applications like the one employed by Pizza Hut on their Facebook Page or the iPhone app from Starbucks that even lets you pay for purchases using the app, are big wins for both consumers and restaurateurs. By making the order process painless using social media tools, restaurants are encouraging more business, while customers are getting their food more quickly. iPhone applications like the ones from OpenTable (iTunes), CityMint (iTunes), and GrubHub (iTunes) are allowing smaller restaurants without the resources to create custom online ordering apps get in on the action, as well.

For Food Consumers

Social media and the web are also changing food from a consumer perspective. The most obvious way is by making good food easier to locate. Social review sites like Yelp, the Chowhound discussion boards, and FriendsEAT help hungry Internet users to find the best places to chow down based on the advice of their peers. Mobile applications, such as Urbanspoon for the iPhone (iTunes) and WHERE for the BlackBerry, do the same thing for people on the go.

Once you find a place to eat, you can view menus online at sites like Menuism to figure out what you want to order and which items are the most popular. You can even order your food online and have it delivered via services such as SeamlessWeb, Delivery.com, and Campusfood.com (specifically for college students).

But web-based tools aren’t necessarily just helping people find the best places to eat, they’re also helping people locate the safest restaurants. Sites like EveryBlock, which lets users access visualizations and information about restaurant inspections in a number of cities, and SafeFoodFinder, a Seattle-based site that puts local food inspection data on a Google Map, are making data about food safety more accessible to consumers.

Further, social media has acted as whistleblower and exposed unsanitary conditions at restaurants, such as those in the infamous Domino’s Pizza video that surfaced on YouTube in April and garnered national attention. Because social tools have a tendency to spread things virally, stories of import to the safety of restaurant goers can be spread quickly and social media can act as an alert system to help keep people safe.

The social web also offers tools specifically designed to help you in your goal to eat healthier food. Applications like GoodFoodNearYou for BlackBerry and FoodScanner for the iPhone can help you find the healthiest food at restaurants and in the supermarket, and get nutritional information about things before you eat them.

Finally, sites like NutritionData can even help you analyze recipes to get nutritional information about the food you eat, even if you’re cooking at home.

The Smarter Cities series is supported by IBM. Read more about building a smarter planet on the IBM A Smarter Planet Blog.

More food resources from Mashable:

- Tasty Tweets: 55+ Foodies to Follow on Twitter
- Top 15 Social Media Resources for Foodies
- 15 More Fantastic Social Media Resources for Foodies

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, loooby

Tags: Food, health, restaurants, smarter cities, social media

PDFs, the file format often used for “official” documents and typically opened with the frustratingly slow Adobe Reader, are starting to get much more manageable, thanks to companies like Scribd and Docstoc, which make them embeddable, and Google, who has built its own web-based PDF viewer into Gmail and Google Docs.

Now, that same functionality has arrived in Google search results. PDFs now include a “quick view” link, which opens up the given file in your web browser. From there, Google has options like zoom, paging, print, and search.

The company says that they’ve been able to do this for more than half of the PDFs in its index – the ones that haven’t yet been converted will still have the “View as HTML” option if you’d like to avoid the download.

This feature has been one of my favorite additions to Gmail, as it eliminates the need to download and then open a PDF on the desktop with Adobe Reader, which can grind system performance to a halt. Now that it’s a part of search results too, there aren’t too many scenarios in which you’ll still need to view PDFs the old fashioned way. And that’s a good thing.

Tags: Google, pdfs, Search

Interested in user generated content and the positive impact it can have on your business? Mediabistro’s UGCX is headed to New York City from October 20-21, and will be exploring how user generated content is changing the business landscape and the ways you can get involved and generate revenue.

As a media partner of UGCX, we’ve given away two tickets to the conference, and have two more tickets to distribute, each valued at $345. To enter, let us know in the comments by noon PT on October 8: “Why do you want to go to UGCX?” Answers will be judged based on creativity and winners will be contacted via email (see rules below).

How to Enter and Win

The giveaway: Comment on this post by October 8 at 12:00 pm PT with the answer to the question, “Why do you want to go to UGCX?” Entries will be judged based on creativity and originality, and winners will be contacted via email.

Rules: Only one comment per person, please (duplicates will be disqualified). Please use a Disqus account to comment, or sign in as a guest. We’ll need to pull your email address from your comment to notify you if you’ve won, so Twitter and Facebook Connect do not work!

Prize: Two winners will each receive a ticket to UGCX in New York City. You’ll still be responsible for arranging your own hotel and travel accommodations. Tickets are not transferable.

Notification: Winners will be notified within one business day via email.

About UGCX

October 20-21, 2009, New York City: Following the success of Mediabistro’s UGCX in San Jose last February, the fall 2009 conference will uncover the best places to target and maximize content, optimize customer data, and generate revenue as the big shift in media continues to take shape. Learn the best ways to incorporate the customer into your business plan to positively affect bottom line revenue. Discover how to aggregate, analyze, and organize data to provide a better brand experience to customers and partners. And learn how businesses and individuals can harness and take advantage of the powerful voice of the customer. Register with promo code UGCMASH and save 20%!

Mashable is a media partner of UGCX.

Tags: Contests, ugcx

Just a few weeks ago FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski made news when he announced a commitment to net neutrality with definitive rules and requirements for ISPs to treat traffic on the Internet equally.

Today Genachowski took the stage at CTIA as an opening keynote speaker and not only addressed net neutrality as it relates to wired and wireless internet, but went a step further to introduce and outline the FCC’s Mobile Broadband Agenda.

The Mobile Broadband Agenda is a comprehensive four part plan that clearly demonstrates the FCC’s commitment to an open internet and supporting a projected 30 fold increase in wireless traffic. The four parts are as follows:

1. Unleashing spectrum for 4G

2. Removing obstacles to a robust and ubiquitous 4G network (basically speeding up the deployment process for carriers)

3. An open Internet, with the rules and regulations previously announced

4. Empowering consumers by supporting a vibrant and transparent marketplace

Each of the four parts are fairly consistent with the tone that the FCC has set in the fast few weeks. Most notably, however, is the desire of the FCC to remove the obstacles around 4G. Genachowski even went so far as to say that there is a “looming spectrum crisis” and that the FCC’s “highest priority is to close the spectrum gap.”

You can read the full text of the FCC Chairman’s speech below:

Tags: fcc, mobile broadband agenda

Over the weekend, we reported on Drew Carey’s bid of up to $100,000 (if he reaches 100,000 followers by Nov. 9th) for the Twitter name @drew. The name is currently up for auction by Drew Olanoff, who was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, to raise money for LIVESTRONG as an extension of the #blamedrewscancer campaign.

News of Carey’s bid has been spreading like wildfire across Twitter, as he’s already passed 50,000 followers on his current account (@drewfromtv), up from just 13,000 or so at the start of the month. Now, Carey has upped the ante significantly, telling Shira Lazar of CBS News that he’s willing to donate up to $1 million if he can reach 1 million followers by year end.

In the interview, Carey says he’ll “pro rate” the donation, so if he only gets to 500,000 followers, he’ll donate $500,000. We certainly hope to see it go all the way though, and definitely expect it to given what @drew and @drewfromtv have already been able to accomplish in just a few short days.

Here’s Lazar’s interview with Carey:

Tags: drew carey, drew olanoff, livestrong, twitter

Since its official launch in June, the narrative for Microsoft’s Bing search engine has largely been about growth in market share.

That may be changing, as a new report from Experian Hitwise shows that Bing usage in the United States for the month of September dipped 5% from the figures in August. This correlates with smaller declines reported by Net Applications last week.

According to Hitwise, Bing’s market share in the US dropped from 9.48% to 8.96% last month. Meanwhile, Google increased its share 1% from 70.24% to 71.08% in the US. And although Yahoo Search experienced a 3% decline (ending at 16.38% for September), it is still the second-most popular search engine in the US according to Hitwise.

Assuming the Yahoo/Microsoft search deal goes through, Microsoft could still potentially end up owning 25% of the search market, which even if trends are dripping, is still a pretty good start to continuing to battle against the juggernaut that is Google.

It will be interesting to see the reports from other reporting firms (Nielsen, comScore, etc.) to see if Bing’s decline is an anomaly or a sign of an overall monthly trend.

If you’ve tried Bing, have you gone back to using Google or has it won you over? Let us know!

Tags: bing, Google, Search, search market share, Yahoo

Google has significantly expanded its Street View coverage in the US and around the world since launching in 2007, but one country left out of the voyeuristic fun has been Canada.

That changes today, as the company is launching Google Street View in 11 different Canadian cities after bringing its service into compliance with the country’s privacy laws.

According to CBC, that includes automatic blurring of faces and license plates, as well as easy ways for users to request image removal. Other countries, like Greece, have requested similar modifications before allowing Street View.

For our uninitiated Canadian readers, Street View can used by dragging Google’s orange buddy icon to the steet where you’d like to see imagery, or by simply clicking the “Street View” link you’ll see for a specific location when pictures are available.

Google appears to be planning an event in Vancouver later today to officially unveil Street View. Meanwhile, Twitter search provides some amusing insight, as Canadian users for the first time get to discuss what Google was able to capture in their neck of the woods.

Tags: Canada, Google, google street view, privacy