Apple Gives Back-to-School Promotion a Mac App Store Twist (Mashable)

Apple launched its back-to-school promotion Thursday, offering students a $100 gift card for the Mac App Store when they purchase a new Mac. The promotion runs from June 16 through September 20. International Apple Stores are also taking part in the promotion, offering users gift cards in local currency (75 Euros, ￡65, etc.).

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Apple does a back-to-school promotion every year, usually giving students a free iPod (or in recent years, an iPod touch) after mail-in-rebate, with the purchase of a new Mac.

College students, students accepted to college, their parents and faculty and staff members at any grade level qualify for the promotion. Apple also offers educational discounts ranging from $50 to $200 off the retail price on Mac products. The promotion is good at Apple Stores, the Apple Online Store for Education and authorized Apple campus stores. A full list of terms and conditions can be found at this page [PDF].

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Apple isn't the only company with a back-to-school promotion. Microsoft is giving college students a free Xbox 360 with the purchase of a Windows PC priced $699 or higher.

It's telling that Apple is switching its promotional tactics to the Mac App Store. The store soft-launched in January and is already proving successful for software developers. When Mac OS X Lion comes out next month, it will be available exclusively through the Mac App Store. All customers who purchase a Mac before Lion's release will be able to download the latest OS for free.

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Want To Meet Justin Bieber? Try Building a School (Mashable)

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You want to meet Justin Bieber? Well, you're going to have to do some good first. The Canadian pop prince has teamed up with Pencils of Promise to launch Schools 4 All, a project to provide an education to some 75 million children across the world who don't have access to it.

The site has set up a platform -- much like Crowdrise -- where anyone can set up a personal fundraising page to build a school in a developing country. Pencils of Promise enlisted the help of Stayclass.org to build a custom platform. Users can customize their pages, add videos, create widgets and share updates through their social networks.

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The goal was to reach a younger generation of digitally savvy users without making the process too complex -- but having Justin Bieber as a prize doesn't hurt either. The page that raises the most money will get to choose which school gets a visit from Bieber and Adam Braun, Pencils of Promise's founder.

Having Bieber on board automatically meant a spike in participation from younger fans, the kind of people that can most relate to education issues. Schools 4 All is an example of kids helping kids and using celebrity in a smart way. Of course, anyone can start a fundraising page — parents, teachers, education enthusiasts, Bieber enthusiasts — but the demographic clearly skews young.

The homepage also does a great of tracking the overall progress of the project, which ends June 30. So far, Schools 4 All has raised more than $145,000, which will pay for about seven new schools to be built. A leaderboard shows which pages have raised the most money. And it isn't a vicious fight between 13-year-olds -- Pencils of Promise is encouraging participation from families, and even entire schools.

What do you think? Did Pencils of Promise and Schools 4 All get it right? Let us know in the comments.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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