Terminator Salvation Launches Elaborate Twitter Game
The upcoming movie Terminator Salvation has come to Twitter, with the recent launch of the Resistance2018 game. The premise: Twitter users can help in the fight against Skynet and the Terminators, earning points that bump them up the leaderboard.
The rules, according to the Resistance2018 site, are as follows:
1. Follow Terminator Salvation on Twitter (@resistance2018)
2. Log In on 2018blog.com
3. Watch for tweets from @resistance2018
4. Send answers via @replies with hash tags to @resistance2018 or RT through the blog
5. You will receive a direct messages in Twitter with point updates
Marketing Becomes Entertaining: A Positive Trend
This may be a little involved for the casual Twitter user, and trivia games have seen the most success on the service. Nonetheless, we can agree that it’s a very good thing for marketers to experiment with engagement-based advertising, which focuses on making content interesting, useful or entertaining rather than just serving up banner ads.
This is absolutely the right way to use Twitter for marketing: completely opt-in, and incentivizing people to join in because it’s fun, rather than paying cash for Twitter buzz. We can only hope more marketers follow Sony Pictures’ lead.
See the full article at Mashable.
Acer says it’ll "likely" have one Android phone this year
We’ve already heard plenty of talk that Acer would be rolling out one or more Android phones this year, but it looks like the company’s head of mobile phone products, Aymar de Lencquesaing, has now come out and made the clearest statement yet on the matter, saying that while Acer has "not made any formal announcement of an Android-based device," it is "likely that we’ll have one in 2009." No more details beyond that, unfortunately, but there has been some speculation that Acer’s first Android phone would be known as the A1, which may or may not be similar to the mysterious C1 touchscreen phone pictured, and could land as soon as September. In related news, Acer has also reaffirmed its commitment to become one of the top five handset makers by 2012, adding that it would need to sell 20 to 25 million devices a year to meet that goal.
See the full article at Engadget.
Core MySpace Executive Team “Definitely Out.” Expect Announcement Soon.
News Corp., under new CEO of Digital Media Jonathan Miller, is looking to replace MySpace CEO and cofounder Chris DeWolfe. We’ve confirmed that things are actually moving much faster than we first understood, and that a decision has already been made to terminate Chris DeWolfe’s employment with MySpace. We’ve also been told that the core MySpace executive team will follow.
MySpace has a dozen or so “execs,” but our guess is that it’s the very senior team that will be terminated: cofounders Chris DeWolfe (CEO), Tom Anderson (President) and Aber Whitcomb (CTO). Removing any more of the team would be much more than a morale blow to the company – it would also bring operations to a screaming halt.
Our understanding is that a new CEO has already been recruited and is in the final stages of contract negotiations. An announcement could come as soon as this week or next. We’ll be posting a shortlist of who we believe are the likely candidates for the CEO position shortly.
See the original article at TechCrunch.
Adobe in Push to Spread Web Video to TV Sets
The denizens of Hollywood and Silicon Valley have, by and large, vastly different value systems, role models, even tastes in cars, food and clothing.
But they increasingly agree on one thing: a standard for online video called Adobe Flash.
Flash was once known primarily as the technology behind those niggling Web ads in the 1990s that gyrated and flickered on the screen. Today, it is a ubiquitous but behind-the-scenes Web format used to display Facebook applications, interactive ads and, most notably, the video on sites like YouTube and Hulu.com.
Now Adobe Systems, which owns the technology and sells the tools to create and distribute it, wants to extend Flash’s reach even further. On Monday, Adobe’s chief executive, Shantanu Narayen, will announce at the annual National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas that Adobe is extending Flash to the television screen. He expects TVs and set-top boxes that support the Flash format to start selling later this year.
For consumers, what sounds like a bit of inconsequential Internet plumbing actually means that a long overhyped notion is a step closer to reality: viewing a video clip or Internet application on a TV or mobile phone.
For Hollywood studios and other content creators, a single format for Web video is even more enticing. It means they can create their entertainment once in Flash — as the animated documentary “Waltz With Bashir,” from Sony Pictures Classics, was made — and distribute it cheaply throughout the expanding ecosystem of digital devices.
“Coming generations of consumers clearly expect to get their content wherever they want on it, on any device, when they want it,” said Bud Albers, the chief technology officer of the Disney Interactive Media Group, who will join Adobe executives at the convention to voice Disney’s support for the Flash format. “This gets us where we want to go.”
See the full article at the NY Times.
Ning: 1 Million Social Networks Strong
Ning is going to be reaching a big milestone this week, when it sees its one millionth social network created on its self-serve platform. Ning, which had its initial beta launch in 2005 and ‘full’ launch in 2007, makes it easy for people to create niche social networks focused on the topics they care about.
Ning continues to grow steadily despite the fact that it banned ‘adult’ social networks late last year (some had suggested that the site relied on these adult networks to drive a significant amount of traffic, which isn’t the case). Ning now reports 22 million registered users overall, 700,000 of whom have created their own networks. Of the 1 million networks created, 200,000 remain active, across which 2.5 million new pieces of content (including comments and photos, and other media) are added per day.
Recently the site has been adding a number of new features that help its network creators spruce up their networks, including a persistent chat feature similar to Facebook Chat. The site also recently revamped its homepage at Ning.com to make it easier for users to manage their activity on multiple social networks and to discover new ones. Network Creators can also access a new directory of OpenSocial applications which run the gamut from games and Ecards to enhanced messaging services.
Because many of its users (particularly network creators) tend to be quite passionate about the sites they’ve built, Ning hasn’t been without its share of controversy, but its continued growth seems to indicate that most users are satisfied.
See the original article at TechCrunch.
