60+ Events in Social Media, PR and More

The Mashable Events Board is a great place to find leading conferences in your industry, whether it's advertising, technology, media or public relations. This week, we're highlighting five events that we think can help move your career forward, from those in New York to California. If you don't find something that's right for you, check out more than 60 events featured in our complete listing.

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On the Events Board, you can sort listings by date added, get discount codes as a Mashable reader and watch videos of past events to get previews of what to expect. You can also follow @MashableEvents on Twitter to catch the best events before they sell out. More about Events, Public Relations, Social Media, Business, and Jobs



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Facebook Enacts New Regulations on Gun Sales

Those using Facebook and Instagram to market sales of regulated items, namely guns, will now face new restrictions.

In an attempt to minimize the networks' roles on facilitating illicit activity, Facebook will require pages promoting regulated items to include a legal notice, and the those pages will be restricted to users over 18 years old, Facebook announced on Tuesday. The company also plans to provide "special in-app education" for those seeking illegal firearms on Instagram.

Additionally, Facebook also said it will not permit any pages or posts that "indicate a willingness to evade or help others evade the law," such as sites that promote private gun sales with "no background check required." Read more...

More about Social Media, Instagram, Facebook, Us World, and Us



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Twitter Can Detect HIV Outbreaks in Real-Time, Study Says

A team of UCLA researchers found that Twitter and other real-time social media can be used to track HIV outbreaks and drug behavior, potentially helping detection and prevention efforts.

The team's study, published in the journal Preventive Medicine and conducted through the Center for Digital Behavior at UCLA, suggests a link between geographic outbreaks in the U.S. and tweets with phrases that indicate drug-related and sexually risky behavior.

See also: Use Social Media to Fight for an AIDS-Free Generation

Researchers collected more than 550 million tweets between May 26 and Dec. 9, 2012, and developed an algorithm to find phrase including words such as "sex" and "get high." They then plotted those tweets on a map and ran statistical models to check if the locations matched areas where HIV cases had been reported. Read more...

More about Twitter, Social Media, Social Good, Aids, and Hiv



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Mashable Readers Show Us the Fuel That Gets Them Going

Last week, we prompted Mashable readers to photograph their sources of motivation and energy. We asked: What fuels you? What drives you and gets you going every day?

Some of our favorite submissions from this challenge featured cute kids and pets, cups upon cups of caffeine, healthy breakfasts, power smoothies and inspiring hobbies like jogging along a lake

See also: 44 Beautiful Candid Moments Captured in Photographs

We selected a handful to feature, below. Scroll through our picks, and feel free to browse the rest of the #MyFuel submissions here.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments. Read more...

More about Inspiration, Motivation, Social Media, Mashable Photo Challenge, and Brandspeak



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If This Car Could Talk: A Vine Challenge

A fully stocked glove box can be worth its weight in gold. Storing everything from Kleenex and Band-Aids to flashlights and phone chargers (and, of course, your important insurance docs), a jam-packed glove box could seriously save your bacon.



And this year, the Esurance Glove Box will once again be fully stocked with awesome prizes and making an appearance at SXSW. With that in mind, we want to see what kind of wisdom lies within your glove box.

See also: 9 Pieces of Everyday Wisdom From Uncle Phil

If your glove box could talk, what would it say? Tell us in a six-second Vine video. Maybe your glove box conveys profound truth in the voice of Lao Tzu: “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” Or, maybe it would act as Tumblr IRL, constantly feeding you nuggets of wisdom, like “life is too short to wait” and “do more of what makes you happy.” It could even provide inspiration and help you seek enlightenment with deep questions like “when was the last time you did something for the first time?”



As always, use your creative innovation and smarts to come up with ideas. If you don’t have access to a real glove box, make your own using whatever's handy — a shipping box, your lunch box, or even your freezer. Read more...

More about Social Media, Cars, Vine, Startups, and Lifestyle



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The Justin Biebers of Minecraft Are Rewriting the Marketing Playbook

On large screen in a conference room at Salesforce.com's San Francisco office, the face of an adolescent girl appears. Like an affectless Wizard of Oz, her floating head manages to mumble “Hi,” but is otherwise wordless. She's dialed in at the behest of her father, an executive at the cloud computing company. He insists she's a huge fan of YouTube supergroup TeamCrafted, who just happen to be in the house.

One by one, the YouTubers pop in front of the camera to talk to her. They smile, wave and videobomb each other, playfully scooting their office chairs around in the background

The girl looks on. Quiet Read more...

More about Video, Youtube, Marketing, Entertainment, and Gaming



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The High-Risk World of Instagram Storm Chasers

Jason Bagby has followed extreme storms across the country for over a year. Like many of his fellow storm chasers, Bagby is prolific on Instagram

Modern storm chasing, particularly in the U.S., has seen bouts of rapid expansion since its inception in the 1950s. Popular documentaries and feature films like Twister have inspired meteorologists and adrenaline junkies of generations past to take up the chase, following dangerous supercells across the continent

The sizable storm chasing community on networks like Instagram has helped kick off yet another expansion period. But many aren't taking the necessary precautions Read more...

More about Social Media, Weather, Features, Science, and Instagram



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