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The provincial NDP says the ruling Liberals are politicizing the Grey Cup, as the Canadian football champion B.C. Lions tour the trophy around the province.

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Stylitics

Quick Pitch: Mint.com for your closet.

Genius Idea: A new way to organize your wardrobe and track your spending.

If you’re like me, your sense of your wardrobe is slightly nebulous. You might be able to recall half the brands and items in it, but you wouldn’t be able to tell me, for instance, how often you wear pencil skirts compared to A-line skirts, or whether you tend to wear Banana Republic clothing more often with accessories from J Crew or H&M.

Now you can. Stylitics, which launched in private beta in November 2011, is an analytics dashboard that does for your closet what Mint.com does for your finances.

Well, almost. What’s wonderful about Mint.com is that you only need enter your credit card details for it to work; the application automatically scans and compiles your spending data into charts and pie graphs. Stylitics likewise takes your data and makes it visual, but you have to input it yourself. Locating, categorizing and tagging everything in your closet is a labor-intensive process. Fortunately, it’s labor you can parcel out over time.

Stylitics is built around your personal style calendar (pictured below). Start by “checking in” your outfits every day, and pretty soon most of your closet will be saved to your profile. Over time, Stylitics will help you track how much you’re spending on clothes, the brands you wear the most, and what brands you tend to pair with other brands. You can also glance back at your calendar to see what outfits you wore when and at what temperatures.

Stylitics doesn’t just reward you with visual data. The company also doles out points for using the service, which you can redeem for free goods, discounts and other perks from brands and retailers. Each brand has its own profile page that allows you to connect with them elsewhere on the web.

Stylitics has raised $850,000 to date, primarily from angel investors, according to cofounder Zach Davis. The startup has no intention of pursuing an ad or affiliate revenue model, at least for now. Instead, Stylitics plans to generate revenue by working with brands, retailers and media partners to “give them a window into what their customers are wearing and buying, and how they’re being influenced in real time,” says Davis.

Next on the roadmap? Moving the site into public beta, and launching mobile apps that will help people add to and manage their Stylitics accounts on the go. The company is also working with several brands and retailers to give users the ability to sync their online purchases immediately to their Stylitics accounts. That feature would, in fact, make Stylitics a good deal more like Mint.com.
 

Invites

Stylitics is still in private beta, but is kindly inviting Mashable readers in. Just use the code mashable over on the signup page.

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: fashion, retail, stylitics

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A CBC Marketplace investigation reveals the Top 10 lousy labels in the grocery store, products which make supposed health claims that aren't always supported by the medical and nutritional evidence.

Like reality television’s Big Brother, Lawful Access just keeps coming back. Having died on the table of Parliament’s last session, Bills C-50, C-51 and C-52 are bound for a legislative reincarnation this time around. And, with the Bills again on the horizon, Conservative Member of Parliament and Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews, has fine-tuned his relentless spin on the honest concerns of well-informed, pro-Internet Canadians.

Touting bare necessity, and speaking in absolute terms, Toews continues to push his ‘tough on crime’ take on Lawful Access and to chide Canadians on the perceivable dangers of unbridled online privacy. Toews, the figure behind Bill C-52, one third of the Lawful Access trio, claims that the components of his bill are innocuous and respectful of the privacy rights of Canadians — despite a vague clause empowering the authorities to demand, in the fulfillment of their duties, personal information from Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

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Like reality television’s Big Brother, Lawful Access just keeps coming back. Having died on the table of Parliament’s last session, Bills C-50, C-51 and C-52 are bound for a legislative reincarnation this time around. And, with the Bills again on the horizon, Conservative Member of Parliament and Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews, has fine-tuned his relentless spin on the honest concerns of well-informed, pro-Internet Canadians.

Touting bare necessity, and speaking in absolute terms, Toews continues to push his ‘tough on crime’ take on Lawful Access and to chide Canadians on the perceivable dangers of unbridled online privacy. Toews, the figure behind Bill C-52, one third of the Lawful Access trio, claims that the components of his bill are innocuous and respectful of the privacy rights of Canadians — despite a vague clause empowering the authorities to demand, in the fulfillment of their duties, personal information from Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

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Monthly water testing is part of a new $50 million 'world class' federal-provincial environmental monitoring plan for the Alberta oilsands.

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: BetaBait

Quick Pitch: BetaBait connects startups with beta testers.

Genius Idea: Access to early adopters that doesn’t require PR skills.

Startups that want to reach early adopters often resort to contacting publications. But I have 3,640 unopened emails in my inbox that can attest to the efficiency of that route.

“For somebody who doesn’t have a public relations background and is tech focused, it can be pretty hard,” BetaBait co-founder Cody Barbierri says.

Barbierri does have a public relations background, and he’s figured out a way to share it with the startup founders who don’t. He’s busy promoting BetaBait, a site he hopes will net startups beta testers without any press.

Here’s how it works: Users who like to test apps sign up to receive daily emails. Startups sign up to have their services included in those emails for free. BetaBait keeps track of each app and feedback related to it in a database.

Barbierri is growing the database through the traditional PR route (see exhibit A here) and his connections. Thanks largely to these efforts, about 3,000 testers have signed on to BetaBait since it launched two months ago.

Now when a startup wants to reach those 3,000 people, they can do it through BetaBait instead of the press — the main advantage being that BetaBait isn’t very strict with its screening. As long as it’s functional and appropriate, it will be posted on the site.

Another advantage for the 750 participating startups is that BetaBait only reaches people who actually want to test apps. Why, you might ask, do these people want to spend their time testing apps? The startup is looking into building more incentives for app testing into its site, but Barbierri doesn’t think users need much motivation.

“The great thing about these early adopters is that they don’t need incentive,” he says. “They want to have an app first.”

BetaBait recently started offering startups the opportunity to sponsor its daily emails. It’s launching a redesign on Monday that includes Reddit-style voting and the option to receive news of new apps through an RSS feed rather than through e-mails. Barbierri says he’d like to see the list, which started as a practical project, become a more substantial site.

We’ve seen some crazy takes on breaching the disconnect between app makers and testers, including one that involved auctioning off equity. Can BetaBait’s solution, which relies heavily on testers’ desire to test, be more successful? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pressureUA

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: betabait, bizspark, Startups

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Father's notice of appeal argues the trial judge erred in admitting evidence from an honour killings expert.

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Companies that rely on a visual or photographic web presence often find it difficult to convey their media on Twitter. Take, for instance, apparel brands that need to get social media eyes on their merchandise, or a design firm that seeks exposure. How can these types of businesses ensure that Twitter followers see their wares?

Ecommerce or design companies may prefer Facebook, due to its inherently visual and expansive nature. However, businesses these days can’t afford to bypass Twitter entirely — especially because many people keep their Twitter feeds open all day long.

Read on to discover four pillars of “visual tweeting,” or how to make sure that your Twitter followers get the picture.

1. Twitter Voice Should Be Consistent and Relevant

Obviously not all businesses can afford to hire a social media manager who monitors and shares across social channels full-time. However, try to keep the same individual tweeting most of the time so that your Twitter account’s voice and style remains consistent.

That said, people come to visual-centric brands for a reason. They follow these types of companies and individuals in the hope of discovering new clothing, products, design tips and inspiration in general. Therefore, be sure to provide that very thing.

Amazing new borderless display from LG. Now this looks like the future. cl.ly/D0TS

— Mike Rundle (@flyosity) January 2, 2012

Remember these two tips: Be descriptive and be relevant. If you want to share a new collection of animal print blouses or a fancy new gadget, explain as much about the product as you can in 140 characters. If you include detail, like in designer Mike Rundle’s tweet above, people will be more inclined to click when they’re intrigued by the prospect of a visual payoff. Then, either link or embed an image at the end of your description.

Inexplicable craving for Lucky Charms – does this ever happen to anybody else?

— Topshop (@Topshop) January 5, 2012

On the other hand, if your Twitter account represents a visual brand, don’t get too personal to the point of being off-topic (read: Lucky Charms?). People are following your business, not your personal account, for a reason. It’s a tough balance to strike, especially because people want to feel that a brand is relatable and human. A good rule of thumb is to keep every tweet related to your visually-pleasing products or personal brand, but to kill two birds with one stone by injecting a fun or off-beat voice at the same time.

2. Favor Native Images

Now that you’ve got a tweet’s description down, it’s time to attach an image. There’s no rule that says you must embed your images into your Twitter feed, but now that Twitter allows you to do it, why not make it easier for your followers?

Third-party photo apps like Instagram, TwitPic and yfrog allow you to attach images to a tweet that can be expanded immediately within a Twitter feed, so the user doesn’t have to jump to a photo app’s website. Keep in mind, however, that these apps perform differently on mobile. For instance, on Twitter’s iPhone app, Instagram kicks you out to a separate page, but you’re able to view a TwitPic image directly underneath the tweet. Perform a test-run to determine which app suits your business best.

3. Pageviews Are Paramount

Although embedding images into tweets is convenient and visually pleasing, you’re likely still clamoring for pageviews, and therefore, will want to link out to your site as often as possible. That means you’ll have to be more strategic than ever.

15% OFF for type lovers at @FontShop until Friday. Use ‘Veerle15′ in the promo code field. fontshop.com

— Veerle Pieters (@vpieters) January 4, 2012

Try putting attractive language at the beginning of a tweet that your followers can’t resist. Designer Veerle Pieters advertises a sale using caps lock, and then directs people to her site.

The Doctor is in. ow.ly/8jCMX

— NASTY GAL (@NastyGal) January 5, 2012

Above all, don’t be vague or else people won’t click through to see your product or design, ultimately losing you valuable pageviews. For example, women’s apparel company Nasty Gal may have a distinct and irreverent voice, but its tweets often do little to introduce attached links. How are we supposed to know that “The Doctor is in” refers to a blog post about Doc Martens?

4. Backgrounds Still Matter

Although more and more people are accessing Twitter profiles via simplified mobile design or dashboard applications like TweetDeck, you might still consider customizing your Twitter.com profile background.

Take a tip from Etsy, which set up a contest for users to submit a background design. Winning designs were featured as Etsy’s Twitter profile background for one month.

Or create your own background that reflects your product or design aesthetic. But be sure to take into account Twitter’s new profile design, which locates the tweet feed on the right-hand side of the page, and lists and suggestions on the left-hand side. Therefore, don’t let important images fall underneath your profile’s opaque boxes. For instance, can you spot the elusive third model in Topshop’s background above?

Instead of obscuring important information, create images that account for the placement and width of the Twitter feed, like designer Grace Smith, whose left-hand mini-bio adds a smart touch.

How do you or the brands you follow optimize a tweet to reflect its visual content? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, SteveByland

More About: design, ecommerce, fashion, features, Marketing, open forum, Twitter

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Crowd-sourced social photo sharing appears to be the latest community engagement trend among professional sports teams, largely powered by the online startup Olapic.

Olapic’s service allows organizations to quickly and easily enable fans, readers or other types of audiences to submit photos of their own experiences at a game or event. Members of a crowd use social networks to submit their photos to the larger organization. The photos are then automatically collected on a subdomain and published after a moderator approves them. No new site, no new laborious curation process.

After launching in June by running a crowdsourcing campaign with the New York Daily News for the city’s gay pride parade, Olapic has found a niche with sports teams. It has since partnered with the New York Giants, Baltimore Ravens and Indianapolis Colts of the NFL; the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks; and international soccer powerhouse FC Barcelona. Olapic is also running a new contest with the Giants for Super Bowl XLVI.

“Everyone has a camera now and everyone is taking pictures, so what we’re trying to do is help these sports teams and brands leverage those photos in a new way,” Olapic co-founder Jose de Cabo said in an interview. “We want to help replicate that warm, fuzzy feeling people get again and again.”

Crowdsourcing photos isn’t a new idea, but Olapic makes it exceptionally easy to do so. Photographers snap a shot and upload it to a page of the team’s website or — easier yet — tweet it to the team’s Twitter handle. Tweeted photos are automatically sent to the corresponding team page, then go live after a moderator approves, which they can do in batches. When the submission is published, the photographer gets an automated tweet back letting them know.

Teams have so far used the service to run a variety of promotions, often for prizes like gear or tickets. The Mavericks told fans to imitate their star player’s signature move, and FC Barcelona asked fans to submit supportive photos when their star suffered an injury.

The Ravens ran a contest in which they painted a series of golden logos around the Baltimore area. Fans who found and submitted a picture of themselves with the hidden emblem were entered in a drawing for free tickets to the AFC Championship game last month.

Dave Lang, the Ravens’ digital media manager, said that the team ran a similar contest last year but received about four times as many submissions after adopting Olapic’s solution. Lang also said that several fans were so excited to see their photos on the Ravens’ official site that they would then capture screenshots to post to their own Facebook or Twitter pages.

While Olapic can be used for a variety of purposes, the marriage between social photo sharing and sports seems especially strong.

“Football isn’t just about the game. There are so many things that go on around it like fan clubs, tailgating, and traveling to road games,” Lang told Mashable. “So this is obviously something people get really excited about and a way to get them involved creatively on a more personal level.”

More About: Marketing, photography, Social Media

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Dustin Paxton entered not guilty pleas Friday to four charges, including assaulting a jail guard.

If you’re not aware of Kim Dotcom, the man who changed his last name to pay homage to the World Wide Web, we offer you this brief history lesson. Born in Germany, Kim Schmitz (a.ka. King Kimble, a.k.a. King of the Kimpire, a.k.a. The Kim-pin), is a larger-than-life Internet hustler who hauled in money hand-over-fist by creating Megaupload, a site that essentially allows — er, allowed — people to share copyrighted content.

But that’s not all. His flair for the grandiose knew no terrestrial bounds. He loved to race fast cars and he coveted beautiful women — sometimes having them sprawl out on top of his massive, 6′ 7″ frame. His exact size remains somewhat of a mystery — it seems like each reporter uses a different measuring tape. His list of eccentricities goes on.

Check out our gallery and regale us with your favorite Kim Dotcom stories or anecdotes in the comments.

Additional reporting for this piece was contributed by Sam Laird.

1. MegaRacer Domination Ends

Until recently, Kim Dotcom was the top Modern Warfare 3 player in the world. He even apparently posted a video to prove it. We imagine it's tough to maintain such a coveted position while being held in jail for multiple copyright violations.

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More About: Kim Dotcom, Mega, Mega Upload, Upload

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Mitt Romney, heavily favoured to win Nevada's presidential caucuses Saturday, focused on the state's unemployment rate — which is well above the national average — rather than campaigning against chief Republican rival Newt Gingrich.

Macala Wright is the publisher of FashionablyMarketing.Me, one of the leading fashion and retail industry business websites. She is a retail consultant and business strategist who specializes in marketing consulting for fashion, luxury and lifestyle brands. You can follower her on Twitter at @InsideFMM or @Macala.

In 2010, branded content was one the largest trends among retailers and brands. In 2011, branded content shifted to branded entertainment. Now, in 2012, we’ll look toward content cultivation and aggregation.

By creatively using Pinterest and Tumblr, brands are becoming enthralled with consumer curation, primarily because these types of curated sites create non-linear paths to purchases.

First, retailers post visually appealing images and ideas that are accessible to the online user/consumer. Then, consumers post those images to curated sites. From there, retailers can build brand awareness by directly linking to product pages and encouraging purchase conversions.

“We’re demonstrating the power of peer-to-peer shopping search,” says Buyosphere’s Tara Hunt. “Algorithms are a long way off from picking up nuances that a person can. And personal taste is full of nuance.”

The future of ecommerce, search and social marketing is now tied to personality-influenced consumer curation. Here are 10 product discovery and sharing sites worth paying attention to.

1. Mulu

Launched in December 2011, Mulu is a social platform for sharing the things you love and making the world a better place at the same time. Mulu allows users to make product recommendations, ask for suggestions and earn money for themselves or a social cause they want to support.

Mulu CEO and founder Amaryllis Fox says, “Zooey Deschanel and HelloGiggles are using their Mulu to support 826 LA, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.”

Click here to view this gallery.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, tetsuomorita

More About: content curation, ecommerce, features, Marketing, pinterest, Social Media, social shopping

A man has been killed in an avalanche that hit a large group of skiers Friday morning in southeastern British Columbia.

Each day, Mashable highlights one noteworthy YouTube video. Check out all our viral video picks.

Century 21 has enlisted a team of celebrities for its first-ever Super Bowl commercial.

Reality TV star and business mogul Donald Trump, Pro Football Hall of Fame member Deion Sanders and Olympic speed skater Apolo Ohno will help showcase what Century 21 feels are the primary characteristics of the company’s agents: “Smarter. Bolder. Faster.”

In the 30-second ad, which will air Sunday on NBC during a third-quarter commercial break, the trio is seen participating in the home-buying and home-selling process as a Century 21 agent one-ups each of them.

“The Super Bowl offers an unparalleled stage for showcasing our agents and their capabilities, and we wanted to make sure we were taking full advantage of the opportunity to quickly impact not only the more than 110 million viewers expected to tune in, but their social sphere as well,” Bev Thorne, Century 21‘s chief marketing officer, told Mashable. “Celebrities help us do just that — not only as stars of the commercial, but by building excitement for the ad on their own social networks.”

Historically, brands and agencies have often mixed in high-profile faces into their Super Bowl commercials, which this year cost $3.5 million each. On Sunday alone, for example, actor Jerry Seinfeld will be in Acura NSX‘s ad and actor Matthew Broderick (playing Ferris Bueller) reportedly will be in another ad.

SEE ALSO: Coca-Cola Polar Bears Will Watch, React to Super Bowl in Real Time

The celebrities tend to have strong online followings, which likely incite significant mentions on social networks for the brands shilling out the bucks to feature them. Trump, Sanders and Ohno have more than 1.6 million followers on Twitter and 840,000 fans on Facebook.

“All three are very active in the social space,” Thorne says. “Through social media we are able to amplify our message online.”

Philadelphia-based Red Tettemer + Partners created the ad for Century 21.

BONUS: Are These the 10 Funniest Super Bowl Commercials Ever?

1. Sprint

This ad from 2006 shows off a Sprint phone's advanced theft-deterring technology.

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More About: Advertising, celebrities, century 21, Entertainment, Super Bowl

Today the HarperCons stepped into the [cesspool / polluted waters] tarsands issue to announce a water monitoring project which will take 3 years and $50 million to fully implement. the regina mom agrees with Halifax NDP MP Megan Leslie; this is a PR stunt.

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Travel is so much easier when you’re prepared and know what to expect. Airfare shopping website CheapAir.com now lets you find out which flights offer Wi-Fi, live TV and movies before you book.

Onboard technology can make flying a much more pleasurable and productive experience. But unless you book with a particular airline that offers Wi-Fi on every flight, you’re not guaranteed these services. There is often little or no difference between the price of flights with or without WiFi and live TV — but the difference in experience can make or break your flight.

A spokesperson from CheapAir.com said she didn’t know the exact number of flights with Wi-Fi but did say “from our experience, on domestic flights it’s about 20% for WiFi and 10% for Live TV. For international flights, both are less common but that will change over the next couple years.”

CheapAir will never say a flight has Wi-Fi unless it is certain. The service is not yet perfected: In some rare cases, you might book a flight thinking there is no Wi-Fi or live TV and be surprised that the flight does offer those amenities.

We also asked if travelers can find out which movies will be playing on flights. No, said CheapAir, but “flights with personal video monitors and movies-on-demand usually have a pretty decent number of choices and a lot of variety to cater to every jetsetter’s tastes.”

CheapAir.com did issue one caveat: “last minute maintenance problems can, on rare occasions, lead to an aircraft change with fewer features.”

Over time, though, more airlines will be updated with modern technologies that consumers demand, making the probably of ending up on a WiFi enabled plane — even with maintenance problems — a more likely scenario.

CheapAir started in 1989 and operated from a call center under the name 1-800-CHEAP-AIR. The company was founded in a University of Michigan dorm room by Jeff Klee.

While Mashable was interviewing CheapAir, we thought we’d take the opportunity to tap them for travel booking tips. Here’s what they said:

• “A great travel trip that isn’t widely known is that, very generally speaking, the cheapest day of the week to buy domestic airline tickets is Tuesday. In fact, Tuesday late afternoon or evening. This is because most weeks one or more airlines will announce a mid-week sale Monday night or Tuesday morning. To stay competitive, other airlines will typically match those sale fares and by Tuesday night all of them have will have joined. The sales usually last one to three days, but availability is best toward the beginning of that window.”

What do you think about CheapAir.com? Will you use it? How important is it to you to have Wi-Fi or live TV on airplanes when you travel? Tell us in the comments.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Clintus McGintus

More About: airfare, cheap airfare, travel

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A three-month-old polar bear cub born prematurely at the Toronto Zoo last year was introduced to the public on Friday.

An Army officer has ordered a court martial for a low-ranking intelligence analyst charged in the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history.