As with many things, if you look hard enough down the long tail you can discover something that can truly enhance your life, whether it be a certain obscure genre of music, a movie, or a book. In our case, it’s an iPhone app.

With iPhone apps, the gamut runs from the quotidian to the utterly ludicrous (and hilarious; we recently heard about the now discontinued “I am Rich” app that displayed a useless red gem with absolutely no functionality on your phone for the pure, narcissistic purpose of reminding you and others around you that you were rich enough to cover the $999.99 price tag). But Occipital’s Red Laser is neither boring nor ridiculous. It’s just plain awesome. And useful.

At LivingSocial, we are all about people having the most information at their fingertips so they can make the best decisions possible. So we were uber excited when we heard about Red Laser 2.0. From the people behind ClearCam comes an app that enables you to check online prices, reviews, and more on products with UPC and EAN barcodes. Browsing an electronics store? Want to cross-check the price of a wireless router and see what others are saying about it? With Red Laser, just pass your iPhone camera over the barcode. It’s that simple.

Barcode scanning apps aren’t anything new, but frankly, many of them don’t live up to the hype (though IBM’s new food traceability app Breadcrumbs looks very promising). Other apps require you to actually snap a picture of the barcode, whether it’s a traditional linear barcode or the lesser-known 2D barcodes that are having difficulty gaining traction in the US, and wait for the photo to process before giving you the information you need. But with Red Laser 2.0, the process has been streamlined with added functionality. Now all you need to do is simply hold the camera over the barcode.

It’s also extremely easy for LivingSocial users to add stuff to their collections on the fly. Here’s how:

Download Red Laser to your iPhone.

Scan the barcode of the product you’re interested in. Let’s say it’s a book.

After Red Laser scans the barcode of the book, it will show up in the “Scanned Products” list. From here you can proceed two ways, whichever is more convenient for you:

Email

1) Click the arrow located in the bottom-left corner and email yourself the book (or if you scan multiple books, an entire list). This will send you the title of the book and the ISBN.

2) Next, simply access your email and copy and paste the ISBN into the search box the next time you log in to LivingSocial.

Amazon Wish List

1) After scanning the book or books, click the ISBN # in the “Scanned Products” list (underneath, it says “Tap To Search”).

2) This will bring up a list of places on the web where the book is for sale. Amazon should be the first listed. Click the book title under Amazon.

3) Once you’ve done this, click the yellow “Add to Wish List” button.

4) The next time you log in to LivingSocial, click “My Collection.”

5) Click the “import or export your collections” link on the right.

5) Also on the right, below “Import a Collection,” you should see “Import Amazon Wishlist.” Click that.

6) Now enter the email address that corresponds to your Amazon account and click “search.”

7) LivingSocial will pull up all the books from your Amazon wishlist and you can add them to your collection from here. It’s as simple as that!

And as an added bonus, the development kit is free for the taking. We can’t wait to see how others will use the SDK to integrate Red Laser into their apps. Who knows, maybe we’ll give it a whirl?

Here at LivingSocial we're all about keeping things fresh and appealing, which is why we're proud to introduce you to the newly-redesigned LivingSocial! We appreciate your patience as we roll it out and welcome any comments you have at feedback@livingsocial.com.

We've been hard at work on a design that makes it easier to interact with your collection and see recommendations both from our community and your friends. Read on to learn more about all of the improvements we've made to the LivingSocial experience.

The first thing you'll notice is our new look. Gone are the days of the dark LivingSocial bar running across the top of your screen. In its place you'll find a nice bright green header, with a sleek silver navigation bar beneath it that lets you view your profile, collection, recommendations, leaderboards, settings, and our newest exciting feature: trends! The trends feature enables you to see what's most popular on LivingSocial by week, month, or all time. It also shows the the biggest movers, so you'll never be out of the loop on what's hot!

The next feature change you'll notice is the way you add items to your collection. When you visit an item page, you'll notice a beautiful blue button that says "Add to my collection." When you click it, you'll see a drop down that let's you add it to your collection as easy as 1-2-3!

Speaking of numbers, you're also going to notice that all item images on LivingSocial now have a number at the lower right hand corner. These numbers are there to show you what percentage of people like that item.

The last major enhancement we've added will improve the quality of recommendations we give you by basing them on the type of things you like in your collection. You can find our recommendations in three places: 1) click on the "recommendations" tab in the navigation bar at the top of the page; 2) scroll to the "Try Something New!" section at the bottom of the homepage; 3) you'll notice that sometimes we'll surface recommendations directly to you when you're on an item page. We hope you'll find our recommendations relevant and useful!

We know change is hard, but we think in this case it's definitely for the better and hope that you'll agree! We appreciate your patience as we roll the site out this week and work through any issues. We also want to know your thoughts and encourage you to share them with us at feedback@livingsocial.com. Until next time, keep LivingSocial!

-----

An update:

We know that there are some bugs in the current site, and our development team is working to fix them as quickly as possible. A few things that will be back in the next couple days (some of them broke during the push yesterday, others are still being re-worked):

• Scrolling carousels on profile pages only
• More interaction with your friends (friends list, what your friends are doing, etc)
• Commenting/Discussions
• Updated profile tab in Facebook
• User medals on profile pages

...as well as several new features. Again, we appreciate your patience as we perform this massive upgrade. This new design is enabling us to bring more relevant content to you and will enable us to expand to include several of the most requested features from users.

This week we found a cool article from British newspaper The Guardian talking about how more than 4000 people have signed up for a Facebook group in support of ice cream icon Ben & Jerry's launching a library-themed ice cream flavor after a campaign by a New Jersey librarian gathered thousands of supporters.

Naturally, we decided to see what the 26,000+ fans of our Visual Bookshelf had to say about the matter, which confirmed our assumptions: LivingSocial Books readers are quite the creative lot! Below you'll find a list of just some of the creative names we received - can you pair them with the book they're named after?

• Kit Kat in the Hat
• Munch a Goo About Nothing
• The Best of Limes, the Worst of Limes
• The Apple Cider House Rules
• A Strawberry Named Desire
• Hucklebutter Finn-ger
• The Orient Espresso
• All Marshmellow on the Chocolate Front
• Harry Potter andt he Prisoner of IzeCreamMan
• Grapes of Rathberry
• Even Cowgirls Get the Blueberries
• To Kill a Mocha-curd
• Life of Pi-neapple
• Pride and Pistachio
• David Choco-field
• Last of the Macaroons
• Of Mint and Marshmellows
• Gone with the Mint

Do you have another creative gem to share with us here at LivingSocial? Visit our Visual Bookshelf Fan Page to let us know or vote for your favorite listing here by taking our poll or creating one yourself!

Hi everyone,

There have been a few articles and posts in recent days that claim LivingSocial sells or shares private user information from Facebook or our applications with advertisers. The claims are untrue, and are based on (false) assumptions and unchecked facts.

LivingSocial does not sell or share data with brands or advertisers.
We don’t share, sell or expose individual user data, Facebook profile information, or even anonymized aggregate data to others. Period.

Here’s how we work with advertisers: we allow them to request that we display advertising around specific areas of interest, like movies and music, in our application screens and on our main web site. An example of this would be if you're browsing lists in our music section, you might see an advertisement for a concert tour of a band. This is similar to how a sports site might have an advertisement for sporting tickets. But we do not pass, send, or sell any of your private data to them as part of that process.

We value your trust, and will continue to respect your privacy. As always, thanks for being part of LivingSocial.

Tim O'Shaughnessy
CEO

There is sad news in the book world this week after the passing of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frank McCourt on Sunday July 19th. As a tribute to McCourt, we thought we'd write this post about his work, and the reflections of LivingSocial members like you!

Although he was born in Brooklyn, McCourt's family moved back to Ireland where he suffered through what he called a "miserable Irish childhood" in the slums of Limerick. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, Angela’s Ashes, McCourt shares intimate stories about his father's alcoholism, his mother's struggle to feed her family, and the tragic deaths of his siblings. The resulting read is a delicate balance of heartbreak and humor that few authors are able to pull off.

The impact of this book can be seen amongst the LivingSocial community where Angela's Ashes is rated 5-stars, appears in nearly 45,000 collections, and has been reviewed almost 3,500 times. After buying the novel by mistake, Gina couldn’t put it down and labels it “a story of resolve and the resilience of the human spirit.” Lisa found herself "both crying and laughing," while Antonio calls it "inspiring and beautiful on so many levels." Angelene adds that "it really makes you appreciate the little things that you do have," lamenting at how often she takes those things for granted. You're not alone, Angelene, we all do!

Although Angela's Ashes was McCourt's most famous work, he did write a few other popular memoirs such as 'Tis, which details McCourt’s journey back to America where he experienced firsthand what life was like as an immigrant, went to university, became a teacher, and fell in love for the first time. Teacher Man is a story that highlights his 30-year career as a teacher in the New York public school system, and Angela and the Baby Jesus marks the author's first foray into children's literature.

No matter what your favorite book, it's safe to say that Frank McCourt's contribution to the literary world was magnificent. We found a touching tribute to him online at Newsweek and we thought we'd share it with you. When you're done reading that, be sure to rate, review, and share your thoughts about Frank McCourt and his multiple memoirs with other LivingSocialites in LivingSocial: Books.

We’re very excited to announce that Newsweek has integrated LivingSocial user reviews into it’s 50 Books of Our Time piece. Have you read/reviewed any of the books on that list? If not, do so and let your thoughts be known to the masses!

As always, thanks for LivingSocial and sharing your thoughts about books on the Visual Bookshelf!

It’s a sad day for millions all over the world today as we cope with the loss of Michael Jackson, the undisputed “King of Pop,” who passed away yesterday at 50 years of age. Jackson was not breathing when the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a call at 12:30pm (PST) yesterday, June 25, 2009. They attempted to resuscitate him, but to no avail. Jackson was pronounced dead at UCLA Medical Center at 2:26pm (PST).

The media has covered this extensively in the last 12 hours and major TV networks even canceled regularly scheduled primetime programming to run specials highlighting his life and times last night. Vigils were said to have taken place in multiple cities across the globe, honoring the late great pop star and proving that despite his increasingly reclusive nature and admittedly strange behavior in recent years, Michael Jackson had a tremendous impact on millions of people.

Jackson’s death comes at a time when he was gearing up to start another world tour including shows in London’s O2 stadium that were widely regarded as the “Hottest Tickets on the Planet”, selling some 750,000 tickets at rates of 11 per second, 657 per minute, and 40,000 per hour, prompting this comment from a Ticketmaster representative: “We often talk about unprecedented demand, but this week we have witnessed a live entertainment phenomenon. Today, we saw well over 250,000 fans hitting the Ticketmaster site at 7am for the general sale tickets. This was undoubtedly the busiest demand for tickets for an event which we have ever experienced.”

His musical career spanned nearly 4 decades, beginning in 1971, and included sales of 750 million albums, 13 grammy awards, and 13 number 1 singles, earning him a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records as the “Most Successful Entertainer of All Time.” He was known as someone who was very generous with charities and had an affection for children he claimed to be innocent, but that raised many eyebrows and actually landed him in court a few times. His life certainly seemed to be a rollercoaster with some great highs and some awful lows, which might explain why it was a heart attack that ultimately put an end to it. And yet, despite all the controversy surrounding him, one thing is certain: he will go down in history as a legend, the King of Pop, forever. He is survived by his three children, Prince I, Paris, and Prince “Blanket” II.

It’s not surprising that LivingSocialites love Michael Jackson as well. His major records show up in 15,209 collections and have been reviewed 700+ times. We’ve also got a whole host of books written by or about MJ in our Visual Bookshelf. Have you had the chance to review your favorites? If not, visit our Michael Jackson albums section to catalog your King of Pop albums and review them, or the Michael Jackson books section to do the same for literature.

We’re also seeing a lot of activity in our Pick Your Five and Polls applications, with many people picking their favorite Michael Jackson songs and videos. If you’d like to do the same, follow the links below!

Pick Your Top 5 Michael Jackson Songs

Pick Your Top 5 Michael Jackson Albums

What’s the Best Michael Jackson Album?

What’s the Best Michael Jackson Video?

And of course, you’ve always got the option to create your own Poll in honor of Michael Jackson to share with friends.

She's the 2nd most powerful celeb on the 2009 Forbes Celebrity 100 and made $275 Million in 2009. She's built one of the largest entertainment/lifestyle enterprises in the world, and what Oprah likes, people get! So what is the entertainment diva recommending that you read this summer? Here's a list of O Mag's Top 4 Picks for Your Summer Reading as reported to ABC by Gayle King, editor of O Mag:

Columbine by Dave Cullen

"It's been a decade since the shocking school massacre at a Colorado high school stunned the nation, and journalist Dave Cullen's "Columbine" offers vivid details about one of the most disturbing days in the nation's history. It was a reported piece; he spent 10 years looking into it," King said. "He really paints the story and tells us things you didn't know." As it turns out, the LivingSocial community is ahead of Oprah's recommendation, and has plenty to say about "Columbine", overwhelmingly pointing out that it is a delicate balance between a morbidly disturbing and thrillingly informative read. Check it out this summer, if you haven't already done so!

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

This is what happens when you take one of the most well-known classics of all time and mash it up with themes from b-level movies with zombies and other shenanigans. Think Swan Lake ballet meets Rocky Horror Picture Show and you've got this unorthodox read in which a plague befalls a quiet town, causing the dead to return to life. The main character, Elizabeth Bennet is dead set (pun intended) on eliminating the presence of zombies in her fair town, but gets distracted by Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a lighthearted, cheeky read that includes romance and heartbreak, cannibalism, swordfights, and plenty of other gruesome things that would probably make Jane Austen roll over in her grave. The LivingSocial community seems mixed on this read, the main argument surrounding whether or not this is injustice to a classic or a funny, lighthearted satire worth reading. Throw in your two cents!

Provenance by Laney Salisbury & Aly Sujo

"In "Provenance," authors Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo tell the tale of an elaborate 20th century hoax in which John Drewe forges letters, doctors exhibition catalogs and bamboozles art experts into accepting a slew of "masterpieces." The investigative reporters detail the spectacular scam." As it turns out, LivingSocialites haven't yet sounded off about Provenance, but we're betting that changes now that Oprah's recommended it. If you've read it, be the first to dish the scoop to the rest of the LS community!

Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horn by James Gavin

The beautiful Lena Horne became a pioneer for African-Americans in the arts. The singer and actress was the first African-American woman to win an Academy Award for best actress, and "Stormy Weather" offers insight into her career and personal life. As with Provenance, Stormy Weather is still awaiting some good ol' fashioned LivingSocial critiquing, so be sure to leave your thoughts if you've read it, or once you have done so!

So go on, LivingSocialites, and get your read on this summer. And if you happen to knock these out and want to learn a bit more about the gal who recommended 'em to you, go ahead and scoop up The Uncommon Wisdom of Oprah Winfrey: A Portrait in Her Own Words and give it a read as well.

Let's talk about Kindle, Google, and the digitization of books in general for a second. We here at LivingSocial have a Kompany Kindle, and we like it plenty. The size, weight, and convenience make it a pretty cool little device to have, especially for gadget geeks. And hats off to Amazon for making the screen so realistic looking - it's hard to even tell you're not reading an actual page sometimes. That being said, there has been some serious resistance to the digitization of books because people argue that nothing can compare to the actual feel of a book - some people say they even love the smell of their books! Typically I'm not smelling my books, but I suppose I see where they are coming from.

The question is, can it be prevented? Is it even worth asking that question at this point or is the digitization force one that cannot be stopped? The recently released $489 Kindle DX, which boasts a larger screen designed specifically for periodicals, textbooks, and other large-format reading sold out just 3 days after it started shipping this month. And earlier this month Jeff Bezos reported that of the 300,000+ books available through Amazon for purchase, either for the Kindle or in physical form, Kindle orders represent 35% of all book orders. Promising numbers for Amazon supported by people like Scott Stein who wrote on the CNET gadget blog, Curve, that Amazon is cheaper, more convenient, and even enables people to download books to their iPhones by way of the Kindle app, a feature that is really quite convenient. Of course, the flip side of that argument comes from traditionalists who argue that there's just no replacement for a real book.

And of course, as with any popular internet trend, it's only a matter of time before Google latches on and decides it wants to find a way to reinvent the wheel. Most recently, Google has been battling with the Department of Justice and Librarians everywhere for the rights to make millions of books available for reading and purchase on the internet. Arguments against Google surround privacy, as well as a monopoly that enables Google to inflate prices of books and have zero competition in the space. But those in favor point out that bringing books to the internet for the masses is a positive thing that will ensure books remain relevant in these ever-changing times.

So what do you think? We here at LivingSocial aren't exactly sure what to think. Our VisualBookshelf application serves as the online bookshelf for millions of books cataloged by millions of avid readers out there, and clearly it would take a lot of room to house that many books. Plus, we think the Kindle is nifty, but what about the age-old feeling of getting wrapped up "in a good book"? "Getting wrapped up in a Kindle" just doesn't have the same ring to it....

One part of LivingSocial that you have probably never seen is our LivingSocial Events page. Our events page help bring LivingSocial users in New York City, and soon others cities, together for free cocktails.

This event at China 1, is just one of our many upcoming events where you can meet other LivingSocial users away from the computer or just get all of your friends together for a free drink. Just RSVP to any of these events online, print out your code and show up for free drinks and a lot of fun.

If you attend one of these events or you have any suggestions, let us know what you think by emailing us at feedback@livingsocial.com or tweet us @LivingSocial.

Cheers from the team at LivingSocial!

A lot has been going on here at LivingSocial lately. You already know all about our nine LivingSocial categories and the PickYour5 Facebook application. Recently you might also have noticed our

Here is one example of the many polls you can take and share on Facebook. Plus, if you can’t find a Poll you want to take you can just create it yourself and share it with all of your friends. Once you take or finish creating a poll you can choose to display it in your Facebook feed so your friends can comment and take the poll themselves.

Some of our most popular polls include:

• Who is better Messi or Ronaldo
• What’s the best soda?
• Nike or Adidas?
• Who is your favorite comedian?
• Which actor is best?

Between the nine LivingSocial categories and the PickYour5 application on Facebook, a lot of things (from albums to video games) are being rated, reviewed, picked, and added to collections by the LivingSocial community. That begs the question: Which things are popular lately? Based on various stats from April, we’ve compiled popularity rankings for a few of our subject areas as well as the LivingSocial app.

Artists (based on LivingSocial: Albums)

1. Metallica
2. Pink Floyd
3. U2
4. Nirvana
5. Led Zeppelin

Beer

1. Corona
2. Heineken
3. Guinness
4. Blue Moon
5. Budweiser

Movies

1. Twilight
2. Titanic
3. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
4. The Notebook
5. The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring

TV Shows

1. Lost
2. House
3. Friends
4. Heroes
5. CSI

Video Games

1. Call of Duty 4
2. Final Fantasy XII
3. Halo 3
4. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
5. Resident Evil 4

Pick Your Five lists (based on LivingSocial Pick Your Five)

1. Favorite movies of all time
2. Best TV shows
3. 5 Things i don’t leave the house without!
4. Favorite Sports Teams
5. Favorite beer

Here at LivingSocial, we are all about creating lists and categorizing stuff. With 9 subject areas already in place (from books to slopes) and more coming soon, our aim is to help you manage the things you like easily and socially.

It was with those goals in mind that we introduced a new LivingSocial experience on Facebook called Pick Your Five. Pick Your 5 is a simple application that allows you to quickly generate lists of five things, with a title you create, and share those lists with your friends. Every subject area on LivingSocial.com (video games, beer, books, etc.) is available to be picked from in Pick Your 5 along with new categories we’ve added especially for the Pick Your 5 app, like celebrities, hot sauces, countries, pro sports teams, and others.

Above is an image of the creation screen in Pick Your 5. Once you click “Finish,” your pick five list is complete, and it appears on your Facebook stream, so your friends can comment on your choices or pick their own.

Let us know if you have any feedback about Pick Your 5 by emailing us at feedback@livingsocial.com or tweet us @LivingSocial. Also, please, let us know which new categories you want in Pick Your 5 and which of those you most want to see expanded into new subject areas on LivingSocial.com.

First off, let me apologize for the long radio silence over the past few weeks. We haven't been taking an extended holiday, but rather working on a bunch of behind-the-scenes improvements and bug fixes. In other words, we haven't had any cool, new features to talk about, unless of course, you consider search engine optimization or database restructuring sexy.

Not to worry, we're bringing sexy back. In October, we hired a kick-ass designer, Keith, who has been trucking on a more cohesive LivingSocial. The team has been pouring through user-feedback from the last year and contemplating what ways we can provide a better experience.

In doing so, we realized that we have an idea of who we are but aside from a few praise e-mails a week, we really don't know who you think we are. Our solution: we ask you.

Here's the challenge: Describe LivingSocial.

In one word, eight words, or one thousand fifty-two. Draw us a picture. Send us a video. Rap it. Write a poem (which surprisingly, our CEO can do well.) Be creative. Unfiltered is fine - we don't bruise too easily.

In exchange for your creative juices, we'll send you some LivingSocial schwag.

Tweet us @LivingSocial or drop us a line at feedback@livingsocial.com. And don't forget to send us your mailing address for the schwag. ;)

• Ten hours.
  
• 100% Processing Capacity.
  
• Five Developers with no sleep.
  
• 24 Krispy Kreme Donuts.
  
• Unknown Amounts of Coffee.
  
• 100 Million+ reconfigurations of our data.
  
  

The team at LivingSocial has been a little busy since midnight last night, working to complete our largest maintenance and system upgrade we’ve ever undertaken. Our development team has been working overtime to ensure that our activities today went as smooth as possible. While we hate being down for any significant period of time, we think you’ll be ok with our extended absence in the near future.

Our team is still verifying the success of everything we did, so please excuse any unexpected interactions for the next couple hours. We should have everything back to normal soon.

As we come back online, we know that you’re thinking “Why were they down for 10 hours and yet there are no noticeable changes?” We promise the downtime was not in vain; today we’ve migrated our entire database, improving our performance, efficiency, and ability to provide you with useful data. This was the first step of many to delivering a completely revamped experience on LivingSocial. Stay tuned over the next several months as well roll out new features and improvements that were made possible by our maintenance work today.