Yahoo! News: Yahoo! Announces Global Implementation of Do Not Track (DNT) – Yahoo! is pleased to announce the implementation of a Do Not Track (DNT) header solution that will be accessible across Yahoo!’s global network by early summer. Yahoo!’s DNT header solution has been in development since last year and is in accordance with the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) principles. This site-wide DNT mechanism (to include Yahoo! owned Right Media and interclick) will provide a simple step for consumers to express their ad targeting preferences to Yahoo!

Mashable: Flickr Gets Back to Basics [VIDEO]

Washington Post: Google releases account activity tool – How do you spend your time on Google? If you’re curious, Google has released a new tool that allows those with accounts to look at their monthly activity on Google while signed in to its services. Users can opt to receive the reports by e-mail.

Mashable: Tumblr Adds Facebook Timeline Integration – “Tumblr is joining the Facebook Timeline integration bandwagon. The social blog announced today that sharing posts to Facebook would get “a billion times” easier. Tumblr posts now appear on your Facebook Timeline, News Feed and Ticker when you chose “send to Facebook.” Tumblr likes and replies will appear on Facebook, as well.”

techPresident: New Report Gives a Behind-The-Scenes Look at State’s ‘Digital Diplomacy’ – A new report from the Lowy Institute, an Australian international policy think tank, delivers a remarkably detailed look behind the scenes of the U.S. State Department’s digital diplomacy efforts.

Mashable: 5 Companies Working Hard to Change the World – “In our new series, The World at Work, Mashable interviews the faces behind the companies that are working to make a global impact. Using the power of digital, these five companies have empowered citizens in need, rewarded innovation and created uniquely shareable tools that are key in affecting real change.”

Mashable: 60 Minutes to a More Efficient Social Business Strategy – “This 60-minute audit is different from a full social business audit. You’re not looking deeply at goals, competitors, engagement rates, campaign efficiency, or ROI. The purpose of this is to address the kind of company maintenance issues that often get pushed off into the distance and are then forgotten. Addressing these small issues should help you build a better, more effective, and well branded social media presence. Here’s what you should cover.”

ZDnet: Five ways companies use social media and look like jerks - There are two main aspects to every business. The first is the essence of what the business does, the products it makes, the services it performs, the processes necessary to make those things happen. The other aspect is, well, everything else — everything from employment policies to marketing to company culture to social media.

Mashable: Mobile Advertising: 5 DIY Tips for Small Businesses – “Going mobile makes sense now more than ever. According to a recent Borrell Associates Inc. survey, 48% of SMBs said they are “somewhat likely” or “very likely” to incorporate mobile into their advertising spending this year. Yet, navigating the self-service market can be tricky. Here are five tips on what to consider as you make that decision.”

techPresident: Using Google Maps? You May Be Looking at a Home-Made Map – Google Earth is now using 45 maps from the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, the group announced in an e-mail. The Public Laboratory is a community which develops and applies open-source tools to environmental exploration and investigation. This includes what they call “grassroots mapping” — using relatively low-cost tools like helium balloons and Flip cameras to create satellite imagery independent of big institutions or the government, which made a high-profile appearance along the Gulf Coast after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Mashable: Google Adds a ‘Share’ Button for Google+ – “When your visitors come across something interesting on your site, sometimes you want to encourage a simple endorsement (like +1),” Google+ product manager Rick Borovoy wrote in a blog post introducing the new feature. “Other times, however, you want to help visitors share with their friends, right away. Today’s new Google+ Share button lets you do just that.”

ZDNet: Can Motorola Mobility’s Webtop bail out Google’s Chromebook? – Google may have this Chromebook thing all wrong. Luckily, Motorola Mobility, soon to be owned by Google, may have a better solution. It’s quite possible that Google’s Android plus Motorola Mobility’s Webtop solves the search giant’s Chromebook conundrum. TechRepublic’s Jason Hiner, writing on CNET News, provided an in-depth back story to Motorola Mobility’s Webtop.

Mashable: StumbleUpon Hits 25 Million Users — And is Gaining 1 Million a Month – “StumbleUpon passed the 25 million user mark earlier this week — that’s about one million users every month since it announced it had reached 20 million users in October.”

Washington Post: Obama targets foreign nationals’ use of new technologies in human rights abuses – President Obama issued an executive order Monday that will allow U.S. officials for the first time to impose sanctions against foreign nationals found to have used new technologies, from cellphone tracking to Internet monitoring, to help carry out grave human rights abuses. Social media and cellphone technology have been widely credited with helping democracy advocates organize against autocratic governments and better expose rights violations, most notably over the past year and a half in the Middle East and North Africa.

Mashable: Klout Ranks the Time 100: Guess Who’s #1? – “President Obama may be enormously influential in the real world, but when it comes to online influence, he’s got nothing on Justin Bieber — at least according to Klout.”

MarketingProfs: P.S. Five Tips to Increase Email Click-Through Rates – Why email marketers should use post scripts in their messages and five ways to create powerful email post scripts.

Mashable: Watch Out, Dropbox! Microsoft Updates SkyDrive, Offers Up To 100GB Storage – “Microsoft announced an update to its SkyDrive service Monday. Among other features, Microsoft integrated the drive into Windows Explorer and Apple’s Finder so the drive works as an extension of your desktop, and added the ability to access files stored on your drive from the iPad as well as the iPhone and Windows Phone.”

Royal Pingdom: Current status of the “Browser Wars” — In this report we will examine the current status of what is often referred to as the “Browser Wars.” How popular are the various web browsers around the world right now? As you’ll see, there are significant regional differences in web browser usage.

Mashable: How to Develop Customer Evangelists – “With a critical mass of evangelists, you can succeed in unimaginable ways. Companies like Apple and Amazon are proof of this. Netflix also enjoys evangelists (Remember how evangelists are forgiving? If they weren’t, Netflix would be out of business). So, if you want to develop the kind of evangelists that stick by your side through thick and thin, here are three critical steps.”

techPresident: In Mortgage-Debt Fight, Activists Look Online to Get the White House Involved – A We the People petition calling on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to issue principal reductions for underwater homeowners — and for the head of the regulatory agency overseeing them to allow it or to “step aside” — has reached the 25,000 signature threshold at which the White House promises to respond.

Mashable: Why Apple’s CEO Is Right About ‘Refrigerator-Toasters’ — and Laptop-Tablets – “Answering a question about whether an Apple tablet-laptop hybrid is inevitable, Cook said convergence shouldn’t be done for convergence’s sake. Then, to illustrate his point, Cook appeared to take the first two kitchen appliances that popped into his head.”

GigaOM: Should the NYT charge for early access to the news? — The New York Times recently ran an exclusive exposé about Walmart and bribery allegations in Mexico, a story that helped to shave about $16 billion from the retailing giant’s market value over the past few days.

Mashable: How Social Media Is Changing Sports [INFOGRAPHIC]

CMO.com: How To Turn Your Digital Thought Leadership Into Business Development – “You made the move. You invested heavily to put your thought leadership online. Now you’re wondering what happened to all of the cost savings and audience growth you were promised. Don’t blame digital.”

MarketingProfs: ‘Customer Experience’ Is the Catchphrase for 2012 – “Customer experience is about meeting customer needs, about choosing and using certain words, about aligning touch points, and about creating relationships. To create a memorable and fulfilling customer experience, you need to get into the weeds to understand what customers want and expect, and then deliver that. The ultimate goal is to inspire loyalty.”

Los Angeles Times: FCC wants to put political ad data online; broadcasters balk – Even though such information is already technically public, broadcasters fear that putting that level of detail on the Internet will undermine their own businesses.

techPresident: New America Foundation Scales Up Open Technology Efforts - The New America Foundation today announced the launch of the Open Technology Institute, billed as a center for impartial research, open discourse, innovative fieldwork, and new tech development related to the issues of Internet freedom and open technology. It’s a scaling-up of the foundation’s Open Technology Initiative, which did more or less the same thing.

Mashable: Is The Race For the White House Being Fought on Wikipedia? [INFOGRAPHIC]

techPresident: Obama: Network Disruption in Syria, Iran, Facilitates Human Rights Abuse – In an executive order signed Sunday and released by the White House on Monday as President Barack Obama spoke at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial in Washington, D.C., the president called for financial restrictions on entities involved in the disruption, monitoring, or tracking of computers and networks by the Syrian or Iranian governments.

Mashable: How Does Google Drive Compare to the Competition? – “Now that Google Drive is finally a reality, how does it stack up against the cloud competition?”

MarketingProfs: Why Branding Matters: Stand Out From the Rest of the Herd – “To understand the elements of small-business branding, you first need to know why it’s essential to a company’s success.”

Mashable: 9 Things Businesses Need to Know About Web Security – “Since the cost is so low, the risk is so slim, and the scale has the potential to be so large, SMBs have become an easy target for attackers. This is why all small businesses should know why they’re attacked, how they’re attacked, and the steps they can take to protect their property.”

Mashable: 7 Tips for Women in the Tech Industry – “I asked a panel of successful young female entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs, what challenges women in tech face, and what could help eliminate some of those barriers? Here’s what they shared.”

Mashable: 4 Tips for Keeping Your Gamified Community Motivated – “If you’ve done your homework and found that gamification is right for your business, the next step is enticing your community to become deeply involved. Here are four tips to get you started.”

HowTo.gov: Trust in “People Like Me” – “Trust in government fell dramatically around the globe, according to the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer. The good news: by putting employees out in front to connect with customers, government can quickly begin to rebuild trust. The bright spot of the survey this year is the rise of trust in a “person like me” and “regular employees.” People like to talk to people like themselves.”

Mashable: 5 Food Brands Building Social Buzz on a Budget – “In reality, there are several standout social media marketing tactics that can mobilize an enthusiastic audience while remaining cost effective, and the food industry has consistently been a leader in this department.”

MarketingProfs: Five Key Elements of an Effective Online Video [Video]

PR Daily News Feed: How four brands manage their wildly successful Facebook pages – Social media managers dream of having an audience of millions.  We think of how amazing it would be to have legions of engaged fans commenting, liking and sharing our brilliant posts while sitting back and watching the fan base swell.

Health Care News Feed: 3 reasons why blogging scares hospital communicators – One of the best ways to create leadership and develop a national reputation is to develop an external blog.  Yet only 149 of the nation’s more than 5,700 registered hospitals have a corporate blog.

Mashable: 7 Big Privacy Concerns for New Facebook and the Open Graph – “Here are seven things you may not realize that Facebook knows, and is using to interact with your friends or advertisers. Concerned about what you share on the social network? Be sure to check the Apps You Use in the Privacy Tab to ensure that you have full control of your privacy in a way that makes you feel comfortable.”

Beyond the Arc: Make Your Facebook Page Engaging – To find out what strategies are most effective at maximizing engagement, BEYOND the ARC analyzed posts on the American Express Facebook Wall.  Key takeaways include:

• Address what people care about
• Allow people to show off exciting things they have done
• Appeal to people’s aspiration self such as through charitable cause or community event.

Health Care News Feed: AP updates social media guidelines: 5 takeaways for PR pros – From friending and following to interacting with @ tweets, here are the things PR pros should know about the new guidelines.

Mashable: How the Peace Corps is Building a Community of Volunteers Online – “For that reason, fragmentation is a daily struggle for Burman’s online efforts at the NPCA. Volunteers often make their own niche groups or communities around their personal profiles or interests. There are online groups for black volunteers, blind volunteers and volunteers interested in fair trade coffee issues or water access issues. The NPCA makes it a point to celebrate these user-created groups while simultaneously tying them to the larger Peace Corps online community. Burman’s team has a presence on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter, and the NPCA is always looking for new ways to get volunteers back in the fold.”

Mobile Commerce Daily: Best Mobile Retail Apps Of 2011 – From Walmart to Five Guys Burgers & Fries, take a look at 10 examples of noteworthy application created to improve the shopping experience and cultivate loyal customers.

Mashable: YouTube CEO: The Future of Content Is Niche Channels – “People have specific interests in a variety of topics — say, yoga and stand-up surfing — but it’s difficult to find a continuous stream of video content catered to those interests, Kamangar contends. YouTube is looking to bridge that void by developing channels that are more topically specific and interactive than what viewers are currently able to find through traditional, one-way broadcasting channels. The online video network has invested $100 million in developing premium content channels catering to subjects such as business news, food, dance, education, pets, fashion and fitness.”

Health Care News Feed: Hospital marketing campaign gets trendy with ‘hand hearts’ – Who would have thought that musicians Justin Bieber and taylor Swift would help in a hospital’s social media strategy?

RWW: Blogging Declines Across the Inc. 500 - A new longitudinal study at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth focusing on the online activities of the Inc. 500 has found a huge drop in the number of companies maintaining corporate blogs over the past year. The UMass researchers, under the direction of Nora Barnes, has been following this group for several years. Only 37% of those interviewed had a corporate blog last year, down from half of those interviewed in 2010.

Mashable: NASA Launches Facebook Game to Test Space Program Knowledge – “NASA has launched a multi-player Facebook game to test just that. Space Race Blastoff  poses a series of surprisingly tough questions — for example, who launched the first liquid-fueled rocket? — that cover a range of space-related topics including history, technology and science. There’s even a pop culture category.”

techPresident: For Americans Overseas, Easier Than Ever to Cast a Vote – “My colleague Miranda Neubauer noted in today’s First POST that Americans abroad stand to have a bigger influence in the 2012 election in large part in due to technology, as the International Herald Tribune reports.”

iMedia Connection: A Marketer’s Guide To Engaging The Tablet User – “There is no one-size-fits-all solution to mobile computing. Marketers who create an adaptable, user-led strategy will position themselves to provide engaging tablet experiences to their customers today while preparing themselves for the next big thing.”

Mashable: Why Context Is King in the Future of Digital Marketing – “Since data, devices, and content just keep multiplying, how can we marketers help consumers make sense of the world? By going back to basics, and returning to context. Behavioral targeting is certainly valuable. Knowing what a prospective customer has recently read, browsed, watched, and bought online is definitely useful. But all it illuminates is past behavior.”

iMedia Connection: 3 outdated metrics you’re still using – “Traditional measurement tools, such as impression, post-impression attribution, and click-through rate (CTR), handicap marketing managers and force upon them campaign measurement tactics that should have long been abandoned.”

Mashable: 8 Things You Should Know Before Building a Mobile App – “Here’s (almost) everything you need to know before you get started on your own app — and what I wish I knew before I got into the game.”

The Atlantic: Be Better at Twitter: The Definitive, Data-Driven Guide – “The Most Annoying Tweet Imaginable, in other words, would be overly long. It would contain stale information. It would #totally #overuse #hashtags. It would be excessively personal. It would be aggressively mundane. It would be whiny.”

BostInno: Best Practices for Posting Across Social Networks – “For every brand, business, and marketer, an important step involves evaluating prospective channels as conversation platforms.  This process can be confusing, sometimes frustrating. How do you accommodate the different “personalities” of each social media network?”

Mashable: 5 Privacy Tips for Location-Based Services The year 2012 is certain to reflect U.S. consumers’ continued love affair with sophisticated smartphones and tablets, including their ability to run mobile apps using wireless location-based services (LBS).

Mashable: HootSuite Now Ties in Digg, InboxQ and Trendspottr Social media management dashboard HootSuite is adding three apps to its App Directory and releasing its Engagement API.

Pew Internet: Why most Facebook users get more than they give

Mashable: Twitter Rolls Out Expanded Brand Pages for More Companies  Introducing Facebook-style brand pages for companies to customize and highlight content.