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12 Top YouTube Videos for Social Good

YouTube videos are becoming an increasingly popular way to generate awareness for causes. Recent natural disasters, such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan and the floods in Pakistan, led to a slew of charitable uploads.

This list picks out 12 of the best, most interesting or just plain popular charity-focused videos on YouTube. Surprisingly, a large portion of our picks are charity singles released by popular artists in support of timely causes.

The charity single phenomenon long predates the video sharing network. In 1979, a group of artists including ABBA, the Bee Gees and Earth Wind & Fire jammed in the U.N. General Assembly Hall as part of The Music for UNICEF Concert: A Gift of Song. Not only did the perfomance kick off the U.N.’s Year of the Child, a call to protect and support children’s rights, but it started a movement of charity single copycats.

YouTube has created more opportunities for charity singles, but our top videos for social good do more than raise money for their selected campaigns. This list showcases videos that integrate their cause into the viewing experience in the hope of making a greater impact.

Here are the 12 YouTube videos that stand out for their commitment to humanitarian causes. They are ranked according to views, although that alone did not qualify a video for the list. Let us know in the comments what you think of the list, and whether we missed any video or cause that matters to you.

1. “We Are The World,” 25 For Haiti

Cause: We Are The World Foundation

Views: 83,529,900+

Why it does good: Lionel Richie and Quincy Jones launched a foundation for rebuilding Haiti with this remake of Michael Jackson’s famous 1985 single. More than 80 artists collaborated to make this tribute to the island nation. Initially released to aid Ethiopian famine, Michael Jackson’s “We Are The World” raised $63 million.

2. “Oh Africa,” Akon

Cause: Konfidence

Views: 24,260,500+

Why it does good: Akon, a Senegali artist, made this video to benefit Konfidence, his charitable organization. It combines African costume, dance and drumming. Akon highlights positive elements of his rich cultural heritage rather than dwelling on the poverty he’s trying to end.

3. “Wavin’ Flag,” Young Artists For Haiti

Cause: Free the Children, War Child Canada and World Vision Canada

Views: 13,989,900+

Why it does good: This YouTube cover of K’naan’s World Cup 2010 hit “Wavin’ Flag” is a tribute to the victims of the January 2010 earthquake. K’naan, a Somalia native, opens the video by handing off his song to the people of Haiti.

4. “Honk For Japan,” Ryan Higa

Cause: American Red Cross Relief for Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami

Views: 7,048,600+

Why it does good: Ryan Higa calls on his online following of almost 4 million people to help raise money for Japan. The video highlights his creative street campaign: Higa pledged to contribute $10 for every honk and another $600 for every million views.

5. “It Gets Better,” Dan and Terry

Cause: It Gets Better Project

Views: 1,519,400+

Why it does good: Author and columnist Dan Savage and his partner Terry recorded this video to let young LGBT youth know that their lives will get better after high school. After sharing their story, It Gets Better became a worldwide movement — everyone from President Barack Obama to pop artist Ke$ha has recorded messages of encouragement to children facing harassment.

6. “You Are Not Alone,” The X Factor

Cause: Great Ormand Street Hospital

Views: 1,016,300+

Why it does good: For the past three seasons, the finalists on this British reality show have recorded a song for a charitable cause. We chose this remake of the Michael Jackson hit since it’s the most viewed of the X Factor’s charity singles.

7. “Earth Day Remix,” Biz Markie

Cause: Repower America

Views: 1,085,400+

Why it does good: Hip hop DJ Biz Markie remixed his hit song “Just a Friend” in honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. As funny as the video is, it sends a serious message: We require clean energy.

8. “One Voice,” The Bilz & Kashif

Cause: War Child Canada

Views: 580,000+

Why it does good: This video was inspired by the November 29, 2009 terror attacks in Mumbai. It is an extension of both artists’ campaigns to support children in war-ravaged regions. Their music video is a tribute to the victims of the attack as well as a call to improve the lives of children in regions of ongoing conflict.

9. “Everybody Hurts,” Helping Haiti

Cause: The Disasters Emergency Committee and The Sun‘s Helping Haiti appeal

Views: 412,400+

Why it does good: “Everybody Hurts” is the last of the three star-studded Haiti earthquake relief videos to make this list. The heartfelt video integrates news footage and documentary photography into a cover of REM’s “Everybody Hurts.”

10. “Gracias a La Vida,” Voces Unidas Por Chile

Cause: Habitat for Humanity

Views: 315,500+

Why it does good: Images of the strength of the Chilean people uniting after the February 2010 earthquake alternate with shots of famous Hispanic artists including Juanes, Julieta Venegas and Juan Luis Guerra. The video plays up national solidarity rather than the destruction caused by the quake.

11. “Rise Again, Japan!,” Rise Again Project

Cause: Relief for the earthquake and tsunami in Japan

Views: 297,600+

Why it does good: This video from New York City to the victims of the Japan quake sends a simple message: NYC is here to help Japan rebuild. Celebs Robin Williams and Ice-T, along with fundraisers in Union Square, joined forces in this artfully edited donation campaign that promotes a number of relief organizations.

12. “Hear Your Call,” Sami Yusuf

Cause: Save the Children‘s emergency relief efforts in Pakistan.

Views: 254,800+

Why it does good: Following the floods that left one-fifth of Pakistan under water in August 2010, Yusuf recorded this charity single that combines original composition with photos of the destruction. As an artist who regularly lends his musical talents toward charitable causes, this video makes our list because Yusuf’s success brought attention to a cause that has lagged behind other global relief efforts.

More About: charity, charity singles, music, non-profit, social good, youtube

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Klout Now Factors in Foursquare Checkins

Foursquare checkins will now play a role in determining your Klout score.

The San Francisco-based startup has just added Foursquare to its scoring system, which already factors in Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to measure the online influence of social media users.

For Klout to integrate your Foursquare checkins into its algorithm, go to your Klout dashboard and click on the grayed-out Foursquare button.

Klout has gained some steam in recent months. It started figuring in users’ LinkedIn activity in June after many users requested LinkedIn integration.

Also in June, Klout unveiled a +K button that allows you to give other users a +K on topics you think they influence. And brands have began offering perks to people with high Klout scores.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Juanmonino

More About: facebook, foursquare, klout, linkedin, social media, twitter

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Kraft Mac & Cheese Launches “Smile Tagging,” Partners With Cheezburger

While many brands are attempting to rack up as many Facebook “Likes” as possible, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese has introduced its own version of the “Like” button: smile tagging.

The brand launched a smile tagging Page on Facebook Tuesday. An icon on the page instructs visitors to “Get the Smile Tagging button” by dragging it to their browser’s bookmarks bar. After that’s installed, if users see anything they like on the web, they can activate the button, which uses their computer’s webcam to take a picture of them smiling.

That picture is then sent to the smile tagging Facebook Page. Users can also share their smiles via their Facebook walls or on Twitter. Anyone who clicks the smile will be taken directly to the page that the user was smiling at. In addition, some sites will have smile tagging, including I Can Has Cheezburger

Ben Huh, CEO of the Cheezburger Network, says the brand tie-in is the biggest his site has done. “Cheezburger is looking to create unique and creative opportunities for brands while making the user experience fun,” he says.

For the Kraft brand, this is the latest in a line of attention-getting social media campaigns conceived with ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky. The brand and agency teamed up in March for a program that pitted two people who tweeted about “mac & cheese” at the same time against each other to earn prizes. Later that month, the agency created five TV spots within 24 hours based on followers’ tweets. One of the ads ran on TV that night.

Carolyn Clark, associate brand manager for Macaroni & Cheese, says the goal of the campaign is to engage consumers. “There’s an emotional aspect of Macaroni & Cheese,” she says. “It brings joy and happiness, so we’re linking it to other experiences.”

More About: crispin porter + Bogusky, facebook, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, twitter

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New Android Market Brings Movie Rentals & Book Sales

Google is launching a new version of Android Market for devices running Android 2.2 and higher. The update will offer book sales and movie rentals.

The market has also been thoroughly revamped to be faster and offer more ways to find content, with more top charts and collections of content such as staff picks and editors’ choice apps. The design of the new market is sleek, but it seems to take a cue from the tile design that adorns Windows Phone 7.

To start with movie rentals, download the free “Videos” app from the Android Market, and you can rent movies (starting at $1.99) from the web or your Android phone or tablet. You can also download movies to your device of choice for offline viewing.

Similarly, you can purchase books directly from your phone or tablet. Both books and video rentals are linked to your Google account, meaning they’ll be instantly available on all the devices you own.

The new market will be rolling out in the following weeks to devices running Android 2.2 and higher. Movie rentals and book sales are currently limited only to U.S. customers, but Google promises to expand it to select countries “soon.”

Check out an introductory video for the new Android Market below.

More About: android, Android Market, book rentals, books, Google, movie sales, Movies

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3 Doors Down Premieres New Album Via Ustream, Soundcloud & Twitter Mashup

Album releases sure feature a ton of bells and whistles these days. The latest ringer and whistler? 3 Doors Down’s fifth studio album, Time Of My Life.

The band has teamed up with Los Angeles-based creative firm The Uprising Creative to get fans buzzing for the disc, which drops on July 19, with a social-driven campaign. It all kicks off July 15 with a live chat event at 3 p.m. ET on the band’s website, courtesy of Ustream.

During the chat, fans are encouraged to ask the band questions via Twitter, using the hashtag #TimeOfMyLife. The more times the tag is used, the more tracks from the new album are unlocked from a Soundcloud stream featured on the site. The hashtag-to-unlock aspect of the campaign recalls one Warner Bros. launched to reveal a picture from the upcoming film, The Dark Knight Rises.

The campaign is a rather interesting mix of social and viral. Fans are able to interact with the band and hear the new disc, but they’re also paying it forward by alerting their followers to its existence with the eponymous hashtag.

Incubus recently launched a similar initiative to promote its new album, If Not Now, When?. At the time guitarist Mike Einziger told us how hard it can be to let people know that you have an album coming out (without touring around the country, that is). It seems that 3 Doors Down has found another interesting approach to that issue.

Image courtesy of Frank Ockenfels

More About: 3-doors-down, MARKETING, music, soundcloud, time-of-my-life, twitter, ustream

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Charlie Sheen Is Alive — Even if the Social Web Says Otherwise

Checking your feeds today and wondering if Charlie Sheen is dead or alive? Chatter on the web would imply that the actor has died, but don’t believe everything you see online.

Sheen confirmed he’s still breathing — and tweeting — this morning:

The actor has sent several tweets Wednesday morning, but still “Charlie Sheen dead” is the number-one Google trend. This may be fueled by rumors that Sheen’s character, Charlie Harper, on the show Two and a Half Men will be offed.

This isn’t the first time rumors told of the actor’s death. A malware scam in March glommed onto the public’s interest in Sheen with headlines spreading on Facebook that said “RIP” and “Breaking News” and contained text that said Sheen had died due to cardiac arrest.

More About: charlie sheen, Google trend

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Top 3 Stories This Morning: Klout, Foursquare, Google+ & TED Global

Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. We’re keeping our eyes on three particular stories of interest today.

Klout Factors in Foursquare Checkins

Klout has just added Foursquare to its scoring system.

For Klout — the startup that measures the influence of social media users — to integrate your Foursquare checkins into its algorithm, go to your Klout profile page and click on the grayed-out Foursquare button.

Google+ Cheat Sheet Offers Tips for Early Adopters [PIC]

Thanks to Google+ user Simon Laustsen, a handy Google+ cheat sheet has surfaced, and it has been translated into a dozen languages. The cheat sheet includes syntax, hotkeys and tips you can learn to improve your Google+ skills. And if you’re not a fan of the social network, watch these five Google+ parodies instead.

TED Global Conference Showcases Cool Gadgets

At TED Global in in Edinburgh, Scotland, musician Imogen Heap demonstrated a new way of creating music by using a pair of gloves equipped with lots of technology. Gesturing with her hands and moving her body, she produced a song with that included several effects and sounds from various instruments.

Fellow speaker Yves Rossy showcased a jet-propelled wing that allows him to fly like a bird at speeds of up to 190 miles per hour and a height of 3,000 meters.

Further News

• Visual.ly, a startup that lets you find and create infographics with all kinds of web-based data, launched Wednesday. Right now, you can use Visual.ly’s Twitter tool to generate infographics based on yours and others’ Twitter usage.
• An official teaser video for Google’s upcoming photo-sharing service, Photovine, has been released. A registration form that accepts invite requests is also available.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59

More About: foursquare, Google Plus, klout, startups, TED

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1 in 10 Pets Have a Social Networking Profile [STUDY]

One in 10 UK pets have a profile on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, according to a recent study.

More than half of pet owners in the UK share photos of their pets on the net, suggests a study commissioned by pet insurance company PetPlan. Neil Brettell, director of PetPlan, even goes so far as to suggest that “animals are more popular than celebrities on Facebook and other social networking sites.”

Pets on social networking sites aren’t new. One might even argue that they’re one of the driving forces behind the rise of the social media phenomenon. We’ve seen dozens of popular videos and memes featuring pets, social networks aimed exclusively toward pets and popular social networking profiles “owned” by dogs, cats and other animals.

These findings support another a recent study that suggested 14% of dog owners have Facebook profiles for their dogs.

How about you? If you’re a pet owner, do you maintain a Facebook, Twitter or YouTube profile for your pet? Please, share your opinion in the comments.

Image courtesy of Emily Banks

[via Telegraph]

More About: cats, dogs, pets, social networking

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How 4 Cities Are Deploying High-Tech Bike Sharing Programs

The Global Innovation Series is supported by BMW i, a new concept dedicated to providing mobility solutions for the urban environment. It delivers more than purpose-built electric vehicles — it delivers smart mobility services. Visit bmw-i.com or follow @BMWi on Twitter.

Cities around the world are at various stages of bike sharing initiatives, offering membership-based systems for short-term rentals of bikes to get around urban areas. From San Francisco to Toronto and London to Melbourne, these programs incorporate high-tech features to manage and monitor thousands of bikes.

Most of the bike programs operate in similar ways:

• Stations are placed in strategic locations and consist of a kiosk with docks — the kiosk contains software running the system. Each dock holds a single bike. Each station can hold one or several docks, depending on space restraints and demand.
• Users subscribe to service plans in varying increments of time to gain access to bikes in the system. Each city offers independent plans and fees.

Here’s a closer look at some of the programs and technology bringing more efficiency to the massive undertaking of monitoring and managing bikes amongst thousands of city residents.

Denver — B-cycle program

The Denver B-cycle program launched in April 2010 and claims dibs as the first large-scale municipal bike sharing system in the United States. The key organization involved in the launch of Denver B-cycle is Denver Bike Sharing, a non-profit owner and operator of the bike sharing system. Denver Bike Sharing works closely with multiple city departments and agencies to ensure the success of the program, and multiple private businesses have become sponsors of Denver B-cycle.

The pilot for the current bike program was initiated during the Democratic National Convention as Denver’s “Freewheelin’” program — 1,000 bikes were distributed to visitors and residents for use during the convention. Afterward, the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee contributed $1 million to Denver Bike Sharing from the convention’s surplus money to benefit the city’s residents and visitors.

The B-cycle program now runs with 500 bikes, and members can access more than 350 miles of bike paths and trails in addition to traversing the city. To obtain a bike, users walk directly to the B-cycle they want to ride, press a button and tap their B-cycle card — a bike is released within 3 to 8 seconds. Access to the system starts at $5 for 24 hours, $20 for 7 days, and $30 for 30 days; annual membership is $65. If a biker picks up and returns their bicycle to any station within 30 minutes, no additional usage fees apply since short trips are largely the intention for the program.

Denver’s program incorporates technology and renewable energy with:

• 21 solar-powered stations
• RFID chips embedded in every B-card
• Wireless technology for communication between the stations and a central server
• GPS in the bikes
• An iPhone app called “Bcycle” created by Amadeus Consulting, which lets users check real-time B-station status, including the number of bikes and open docks at nearby stations

According to Ben Turner of Denver Bike Sharing, the program has been successful. Annual memberships rose from 1,807 members in 2010 to more than 2000 so far in 2011. Short-term memberships went from 32,922 in 2010 to 15,351 to date putting them on track to at least matching, if not surpassing, last year’s numbers. In 2010, there were 102,981 B-cycle rides. Just over halfway into 2011, there have been 73,863 rides.

Montreal & Toronto — BIXI Bike Programs

Montreal’s Bixi bike sharing system launched in May 2009 with more than 1,000 bikes — it claims to be North America’s first large-scale bike-share program. The program has expanded to 5,050 bicycles at more than 400 bike stations, most recently adding the city of Westmount to their coverage area. More than 40,000 Montrealers are members, and since the start of the program, they’ve logged 5 million trips, 1.5 million of which have taken place since April 15, 2011. The Montreal program includes stations both downtown and in more residential areas reaching commuters.

The company behind the program’s bikes, stations and technology is Montreal-based Public Bike System Company (PBSC) using the brand name Bixi (“bike” plus “taxi”). PBSC also runs similar programs in Toronto, Melbourne, London, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, Ottawa, and on the Washington State University campus for students. A program in Boston is launching soon. Initially, the quick assembly and mobility of the stations was critical for Montreal to facilitate removal of the stations during heavy winter snows, but cities deploying the system today benefit from easy installation with no need for construction.

The Toronto Bixi Bike Program launched on May 3, 2011, with 1,000 bikes, 80 BIXI stations and 1,500 docking points. PBCS has worked closely with the city’s transportation agency since being awarded the contract to install the system into the city’s downtown core. In the short time since the program’s launch, it has garnered more than 2,000 members and logged 100,000 trips.

The Bixi systems are modular and portable, running off solar power and battery. When a system isn’t being used for an extended period of time, it goes into sleep mode until the next user touches the screen to wake up the station. This feature ensures there is enough energy to power each station throughout the day, and there is also a power management system monitoring each station’s power.

Because PBCS has opened some of their data for public use, other companies have developed mobile apps to help users find Bixi bike stations and check bike availability in any of the cities where they’re located. One of the more popular apps is SpotCycle for Android and iPhone.

Users can purchase a subscription plan, set up their accounts on their respective city-specific Bixi website, connect their credit card securely to their account, and monitor their usage at any time. All trips 30 minutes and under are included in their subscription. Additional fees are applied to trips over 30 minutes. Members are mailed a plastic “key” with an RFID chip that is read by inserting the key into a slot on any Bixi station.

San Francisco — Bay Area Regional Bicycle Sharing Pilot Program

One bike-sharing program that has been a long time coming is in the Bay Area. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) is planning for a pilot bike-sharing program that will run along the San Francisco Peninsula, which includes the cities of San Jose, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Redwood City and San Francisco County. The service will be focused on the Caltrain corridor (Caltrain is the commuter rail for the San Francisco Peninsula). A request for proposals will go out this summer, and the plan is to award a contract to a vendor in the Fall of 2011. The initial goal is to deploy 1,000 shared-use bicycles at up to 100 kiosks by spring 2012 — 500 of those are to be in San Francisco proper.

Heath Maddox, senior planner for the Livable Streets Subdivision of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), says the defining characteristics of the service they’ve outlined in an RFP draft is that the bike system be solar-powered with no need for external AC power and no requirement for excavation that would turn the installation process into a construction project. The portability of stations and docks vastly simplifies environmental review based on the California Environmental Quality Act, Maddox explains.

“As a planner, one of the interesting things about this project is that there will be a lot of data about how bikes are being used,” says Maddox, referring to not just the retrieving of and returning of bikes, but also where the bikes actually are being ridden. “It would tell us where the high demand corridors are, and we could plan network improvements accordingly, not just for users of the bicycle program but for anybody riding a bike in the area.”

In San Francisco, the stations will be concentrated within a roughly two-mile square area in the city’s core where the Caltrain line, Transbay bus terminal, BART stations and ferries converge. Along the Caltrain line outside San Francisco, the places suitable for bike sharing are limited due to much smaller downtown areas with a focus on local Caltrain stations. Maddox anticipates many more people using the bikes independent of transit in San Francisco, while use in other downtown areas may be limited to people living or working close to the Caltrain stations.

Maddox, who first experienced bike-sharing programs in Europe more than 10 years ago, says the technology then was much simpler. Copenhagen, an early leader in bike sharing, employed nominal deposit locks where a user inserted coins to unlock a bike and could only retrieve their coins once the bike was properly returned to a docking station. Today’s ultra-modern systems integrate RFID and cellular communications, solar power, GPS and mobile apps, taking bike sharing to a whole new level.

The Global Innovation Series is supported by BMW i, a new concept dedicated to providing mobility solutions for the urban environment. It delivers more than purpose-built electric vehicles; it delivers smart mobility services within and beyond the car. Visit bmw-i.com or follow @BMWi on Twitter.

Are you an innovative entrepreneur? Submit your pitch to BMW i Ventures, a mobility and tech venture capital company.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Denver B-cycle

More About: bicycle, bike sharing, bixi, Global Innovation Series, public bike share, rfid

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The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Coffee Shop Etiquette

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

In their early stages, when dedicated office space is unrealistic, unnecessary or too expensive, small businesses and startups tend to frequent coffee shops for their working and meeting needs. It’s nice to get away from the home desk, and a nice café can be just the spot for sparking creativity. But with the increasing amount of coffeehouse commuters, the guidelines for what’s appropriate and what’s just downright obnoxious can be a bit foggy.

Mashable interviewed three coffee shop vets and four coffee-toting, WiFi-using professionals about their best practices for entrepreneurs hoping to mind their Ps and Qs while working from their local café. Meet our group of esteemed panelists:

• Maciej Kasperowicz is a barista and social media coordinator at Gregory’s Coffee in New York City.
• John Dustman is the director of coffee at Red Rock Coffee in Mountain View, California.
• Jeremy Dunning was a Starbucks store manager for 10 years and previously served as the social media manager at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.
• Shawn Pelsinger is the president of business development at startup imup4 and works “almost exclusively” from coffee shops.
• Justin Isaf is the community manager at Huffington Post and the community director at StartupBus.
• Wil Shipley is the owner of Delicious Monster Software, which has been headquartered from within coffee shops since 2004. The team of four currently operates from Coffee Bar in San Francisco and is trying to open its own shared workspace / coffeehouse.
• Terry Phillips is a project manager in sales and support at Delicious Monster Software.

Read on for our experts’ top tips for keeping your coffee shop usage at a kosher level.

How Much Should I Buy?

Short Answer: Buy something.

With air conditioning, free Wi-Fi, comfy couches, potpourried restrooms and the smell of espresso in the air, a coffee shop can seem like an answered prayer for the bootstrapping entrepreneur. Gratuitous amenities, though, should be appreciated in the form of making purchases and leaving tips for the baristas. The big question, though, is how much should an entrepreneur shell out in return?

Isaf, Pelsinger, Phillips and Dustman all told Mashable that one drink per 2-3 hours seems to be the sweet spot. And four hours seems to be the tipping point — if the shop is full and you haven’t bought anything in about four hours, you should give up your seat to paying customers, say Dunning and Dustman.

Phillips also notes that if you’re camping out at the coffee shop during lunch time, it’s a good idea to eat lunch there.

If your bladder just can’t handle a drink every two hours, Shipley says you can make up for it by tipping well:

“We always make sure to buy drinks, I usually only get two a day, and I’ll often get something to eat. For me, the biggest thing is to tip — I tip very heavily on every transaction, so the baristas are getting paid. This helps the café owners, too, since they obviously have happier and better-paid baristas. And it makes the whole environment very friendly, as the baristas pretty quickly learn to love me and my monsters. (Also, don’t tell anyone, but they’ll start our drinks early when they see us in line.)”

“If you can sit around our shop for eight hours and not be tempted to drink or eat anything, we’re probably not doing it right,” Kasperowicz adds.

How Long Can I Stay?

Short Answer: All day, if you’d like, but get your tail out of there when the café closes.

All of the coffee shop employees we interviewed agreed that they love having customers around. “I’d much rather have someone in my store than have an empty café, even if its the same person the whole day,” says Dunning.

So, if you’ve got work to do, and the store has enough space to accommodate you, be their guest. Shipley recommends establishing yourself as a regular, though, before you camp out all day. “At a new place, I’ll generally only work there a couple hours until they know me,” he says.

In Dustman’s book, eight hours is pushing it, especially if you’re freeloading. If you’re expecting to have a long day, show the baristas some courtesy by letting them know.

But by no means should you ever outstay your welcome. “Past closing time is too long,” says Kasperowicz. “Seriously, there’s no real reason for us to mind you camping out all day, but when the we’re trying to close up shop, it helps tremendously to not have to spend time getting people to leave.”

Can I Take Business Calls?

Short Answer: It’s most polite to take calls outside, but short, quiet conversations are permissible.

Whether via a cell phone or Skype, business calls are going to happen. Phillips, Shipley and Pelsinger maintain that you should almost always go outside to take business calls out of courtesy for the other café guests. But the two factors that get in the way, says Pelsinger, are talking on Skype and winter. “I try to stay within the halo of the Wi-Fi just outside the café, so that I can still Skype on my iPhone,” he says. “As for winter… sorry, bring a jacket and don’t disturb the rest of the patrons of the coffee shop.”

If you’re going to take calls indoors, though, the rest of our interviewees stress: don’t shout. Dunning elaborates:

“You’re looking for that sweet spot, of being in a café that’s busy enough where most people won’t notice, but not too busy that everyone around you can hear your conversation. My general rule as a manager was phone calls of any type were good to go until they were disturbing the other customers. But use headphones. Those conversations are twice as disturbing to other people with another voice coming through your tiny computer/phone speakers.”

Kasperowicz offers up a handy tip: “Do take into account, however, whether the shop has too much background noise to effectively communicate over the phone. We might not mind the sound of your voice, but the person you’re on the phone with might not be able to hear you over coffee grinders, steam wands and music.”

Dustman adds, “We would prefer that people not Skype video because those conversations tend to get a bit more involved and eat up bigger chunks of Wi-Fi bandwidth at the same time.”

Is It Ever Okay To Turn My Computer’s Sound On?

Short Answer: Sound = never appropriate. Use your headphones, n00b.

All of our interviewees agreed that you should never use your computer’s sound without having headphones hooked in.

The only exception? “If you’re meeting with multiple people and desperately need them to hear something, it’s not the end of the world, as long as you’re not blasting it,” says Kasperowicz. And even then, it should be a really short sound clip, says Shipley. “I’ll only rarely do, say, a four-second sound clip if I want to show it to someone. And even then I’ll cup my [MacBook] Air’s speakers so I don’t bug people around me.”

In the end, you don’t want to look like a loser, right? Isaf explains, “Everyone just laughs at that person who is holding their laptop up to his ear trying to hear someone on Skype. Use headphones for other people’s sanity and your own dignity.”

What If I Need Extra Seats for My Belongings?

Short Answer: You only get one seat. Put your stuff on the floor.

Okay, we get it — you shelled out for that limited edition laptop bag, and the thought of putting it in the floor makes you feel a bit queasy. First off, if you’re camping out in cafés, but buying top-notch computer accessories, perhaps you should re-evaluate your spending habits. Secondly, get over it. People are more valuable than your laptop bag. Put it on the floor.

Besides the fact that it’s common courtesy, Pelsinger also explains why it may be better for your pocketbook: “In the big picture, using more than one seat and crowding out paying customers is a bad idea. It’ll raise prices in the long term, and likely inspire greater crackdowns on the availability of Wi-Fi, outlets, etc.” He adds, “I also think it kills the sort of café-culture that likely draws most people to do work there in the first place.”

And what if people aren’t around? Is it okay to occupy more than one seat? Shipley can clarify that for you:

“It’s not even okay to set your bag on a chair with the ‘I’ll move it if someone looks at me’ thought, because you discourage people from even approaching the spot. We make sure all our stuff is at our feet, or on our chair in front of us if we’re working standing up at the counter, which we started doing this year. We make darn sure not to even encroach on the spaces around us — like, keep our cups and napkins well ‘on our side,’ so that the places around us look inviting. And we tend to bus dishes for anyone who forgets, just so it doesn’t even appear that we’re staking out an entire table or counter.”

Is It Kosher To Ask Others To Watch My Stuff?

Short Answer: Certainly! They’ll watch your stuff, and you can watch theirs when they need it.

Dunning explains that watching your neighbor’s belongings is “an unspoken rule of coffee shop etiquette.” He continues, “We’re not the airport — it’s perfectly okay to keep an eye on someone’s stuff while they use the restroom or step outside to make a phone call (so they don’t disturb the other guests!). If no one else is in the café, ask the staff. The last thing you’d want is your stuff to disappear because you went to the restroom while the staff wasn’t aware and someone just walks in and walks out with your stuff.”

Kasperowicz warns, though, “You can’t expect them to devote a huge amount of their attention or energy to the task.” So, keep your requests within reason.

Are Group Meetings Welcome?

Short Answer: It depends on how many people the space can accommodate, but four is the magic number.

If you’ve spent enough time in the coffee shop at hand, you probably have a feel for how many people it can handle and when the busy hours are. If you’re planning on setting up a group meeting, consult the baristas or call ahead to see if there’s enough space for the time and date you have in mind.

In group situations, make sure to keep the noise level down and purchase drinks or food. Pelsinger suggests, “As a rule though, if you’re with a group of 10 and you are making more noise and causing greater distraction than five groups of two people, try to rein it in a little.”

Dunning and Dustman agree that four people seems to be the tipping point. “Four people can be handled pretty smoothly, both for the lack of table rearrangement and maintenance of reasonable noise levels,” says Dustman. “You can also pull a couple tables for four together to have a meeting for up to around eight people without too much trouble. We would just ask that everyone buy something and help out by putting the tables and chairs back where you found them.”

What Can I Do on the Wi-Fi?

Short Answer: Be considerate, and keep to the basics of browsing the web and checking email.

Be grateful that your local coffee shop offers free Wi-Fi, and show it by limiting the amount of bandwidth you’re using. Dunning puts it very nicely:

“This is impossible for the staff to control, so we depend on everyone to police themselves. But really, we should respect each other and keep coffee shop activities to the basics of browsing the web, email, etc. Uploading or downloading large files, using BitTorrent, or online gaming are not appropriate uses of free coffee shop Wi-Fi.”

Pelsinger adds that continued abuse could lead to more coffee shops cracking down: “Just think about where that’s going in the long term. More and more coffeeshops are limiting access, and to the extent it’s completely wide open, use it responsibly. This means you don’t need to spend the entire time downloading enormous files while simultaneously streaming video and Skyping. As a caveat, if you’ve got your own MiFi card, you can use as much bandwidth as you like.”

Here’s a general rule of thumb offered up by Kasperowicz: “If it’s taking up enough bandwidth that you notice your own Internet crawling at a snail’s pace, that might be too much. However, I think most shops with free Wi-Fi have a decent enough connection to avoid this, and I’ve never noticed it to be a problem.”

Final Tips

We asked each of our entrepreneurs and coffee shop vets to give some final tips of advice for others hoping to master the coffee-shop-as-office lifestyle. Isaf says that in most cases, the trick is to follow the Golden Rule: “Don’t be ‘that guy.’ Everyone knows who ‘that guy’ is … don’t be him.” Here’s a bit of insight to exactly what that means:

• Don’t bring your own food.” — Phillips
• “Enjoy the space provided for common usage, but don’t freeload. It sucks for everyone and will mean losing access in the future.” — Isaf
• “Try not to have anything super offensive up on your screen — think of that as equivalent to cursing loudly throughout the coffee shop.” — Pelsinger
• “The staff works hard making your drink, getting your food, cleaning up after you and even keeping the Wi-Fi up. Remember to tip. I suggest using the same percentages as at a casual dining restaurant.” — Dustman
• “Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Baristas know a lot about their shops and will be happy to tell you, for example, when the best time to bring in a large group or the most power-outlet-adjacent location is. Finally, this is probably very obvious and applies far beyond coffee shops, but as long as you pay a small amount of attention to the people around you (both employees and fellow guests), you’ll be fine. A little empathy goes a long way.” — Kasperowicz
• “It’s so very not cool to not bus your own dishes if there’s a visible bus tub. Sure, eventually the café employees will get around to it, but in the meantime you’ve just left the rest of us staring at your garbage, and you’ve messed up your spot so it can’t be filled by someone else immediately. That’s just rude.” — Shipley
• “Frequently, power outlets are at a premium in cafés. Just as you shouldn’t hog all the prime seating locations when the store is busy, you shouldn’t hog the power outlets. Belkin makes a fantastic small, easy-to-stick-in-a-computer-bag power strip that has three outlets and two USB slots. There have been several times when I’ve been out either at the airport or the cafe and have been a hero for everyone there because I had that power strip. Great way to make some friends!” — Dunning

Image courtesy of Flickr, Nishanth Jois, Kevin O’Mara, PARADISIACA, clintw, CarbonNYC

More About: Coffee shop, etiquette, small business

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