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AT&T has a viral marketing campaign that lets you use a Facebook app on your desktop or smartphone that lets you build a case (as in a mock "legal case") to convince someone you designate to buy a phone for you.

The aptly named app development firm Hiccup has finally fixed a major meow mixup: The interface in their free iPad app, "Game For Cats," allowed felines across the world to download premium content add-ons by accident. Like many iPad gaming firms, Hiccup opted to go for a freemium profit model. Their game comes loaded with a screen emulating a laser pointer, whose darting red dot is irresistible to most cats. But screens displaying other forms of virtual catnip--a mouse on a string, for example--cost 99 cents as DLC (downloadable content). There was only one problem: Early versions of the game had a user interface that made it extremely easy for cats to purchase the DLC with their paws--taking their human guardians (but not their credit cards) completely out of the equation.

We were aware of POLITICAL ANIMALS via the pre-premiere buzz, including mention of it in Maureen Dowd's "State of Cool" piece, and discussed with USA the idea to create a list of America's biggest "political animals" of all time.  With Huffington Post's highly engaged community for opinion and conversation, and USA's tremendous reach, we felt this partnership would provide a great opportunity to start a dialogue about power and leadership. As we prepare to decide on the next chapter in America's future, there's a lot to be learned from those who defined our political past, so we felt that it was a unique platform from which to reflect on what it means to be a "political animal" at a time when leadership is on the minds of all Americans.

The vast majority that clicked on ads was likely to take some action, including receiving a coupon (51%), research a product (49%) or making a purchase (46%). After coupons, ads featuring specific product searching, favorite brands, and location information were most likely to entice smartphone users to interact with them. When it comes to mobile platforms, the study found iOS users trumped Android device owners in ad responsiveness. People using iPhones and iPads were more likely to make a purchase than Android-based users. The findings, presented Monday at the IAB's Mobile Marketplace conference, were based on a survey conducted by ABI Research of 552 U.S. adults who use a smartphone with data service at least once a week, and 563 corresponding tablet users. The sample was split evenly by gender and covered those18 to 65+. The study also emphasized that mobile no longer means merely "on-the-go," with virtually all tablet and smartphone owners using their devices at home-the most common place for mobile activity. Tablets are viewed mainly as media consumption devices;  smartphones are considered "mission-critical" tools that 70% won't leave home without.

"It's Even Pin-Worthy On fan sites for the books the Audis are mentioned, and Pinterest pages dedicated to "50 Shades" have pinned images of the cars. The Edgewater Hotel in Seattle, one of the cities where much of the books take place, even created a promotion to bait consumers inspired by the books that includes waterfront accommodations, champagne and a demo drive of an Audi through a partnership with a local car dealership. While that sort of attention's been great for the brand, the real potential lies in the possibility of Audi being written into the forthcoming film version of "50 Shades of Grey." A couple years ago, Volvo milked its tie-in with the tween vampire saga "Twilight", creating a viral-video campaign by EuroRSCG and promotional giveaways."

news site that integrates community bloggers, facebook, twitter, flickr, foursquare, allows crowdsourcing of stories- readers can add missing info, feeds specified based on readers location

gonna blog this mofo

"Facebook is now the second biggest server of online video, behind YouTube. Although Facebook is a distant second to YouTube, that's still huge progress. Facebook now shows more video than Yahoo!, Vevo, Microsoft, AOL and everyone else. Facebook has a partnership with Nielsen, to develop "Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings" (OCR), which measure the audience for Facebook ad campaigns in a similar way to how Nielsen measures TV audiences, by reach and frequency. The result is that it is now a lot easier for big advertisers to compare their TV ROI with their Facebook ROI. Facebook has a partnership with Datalogix, a consumer data company. It allows advertisers - particularly big packaged goods companies like Procter & Gamble and Unilever - to target their own customers with ads inside Facebook, and to compare those campaigns against control groups that did not see them, and thus calculate exactly how many sales any Facebook campaign created."

According to Carter, food lovers just need to download the app and start exploring. By navigating the app, they can find foodie friends and post articles or videos, as on their Facebook feeds, follow the chefs they like, as they would do on Twitter and publish photos of their preferred meals, as they would do on Instagram. When users publish a pic of a meal, the system suggests a selection of wines to pair with it. Professional chefs and restaurateurs will need to go through a few additional steps to join True Foodies. They can either be invited by a chef who is already part of the community, or by supplying validation of their professional identity and qualifications. (Credits: TrueFoodies) (Credits: True Foodies) "We do a validation through social media and through our community, which includes already 3,000 restaurants in about 15 countries and 50 professional chefs," said Carter.

"Kids looking for an Android experience without a phone bill have no shortage of options, but the MG is a bit different. By teaming up with BillMyParents, it lends kids a sense of financial freedom in their interactions with the Play Store, and a host of unique and exclusive apps streamline the experience. The price of entry isn't astronomical either -- it'll be $170 when it launches this holiday season, and early bird supporters can snag one for a paltry $99 on Kickstarter. That's not bad, for what amounts to a darn decent media player running ICS. Check it out for yourself at the source link below."

"Sam Glassenberg, CEO of Funtactix, which develops social games for major motion pictures like The Hunger Games, said the in-game ad market presents both huge opportunities and new risks for brands and agencies. He cited statistics from NPD and said that there are almost 200 million online gamers out there who play games for an average of 13 hours a week. Yet, the majority of ad spend still goes to TV or banner ads and only a fraction to games, he noted. "How are we going to close that gap?" he asked. The discussion was organized by SponsorPay, a Berlin-based engagement advertising company whose application rewards users that watch an ad with virtual currency and other goodies. SponsorPay is one of a handful of companies out there including SocialVibe, Flurry and WildTangent seeking to help games developers monetize their product and brand advertisers engage consumers with such ads. Games entrepreneur Wilson Kriegel, formerly with Zynga, addressed this potential by discussing his involvement with mega-hit Draw Something, an online drawing game developed at his former company OMGPop, which Zynga acquired in March. The game allows people to draw things and share them with their friends. Since its launch early in 2012, it has seen over 90 million installs, 10 billion drawings created and was a top trending topic on Twitter.  Companies including McDonald's, Disney and Sprint have incorporated their ads into the game. Kriegel said that ad features including in-game banners, game features and in-game call to actions seen a clickthrough rate of 1 percent to 10 percent-unheard of in an industry where average CTRs are 0.7 percent."

""With YouTube external annotations, we're trying to make it a very seamless process," said Lisa Green, industry director at Google. "If while you're watching it, you see something you really want, you can click... We've allowed the user to make the decision to make the purchase" in the video. The beta feature is available to all existing clients, although Google won't disclose how many advertisers have shown interest or signed up thus far. Juicy Couture, one of the first brands to adopt the shoppable feature, released a new video directed by Terry Richardson featuring Candice Swanepoel at the famed Chateau Marmont hotel. The fashion label features nineteen different products in the second video. YouTube's shoppable video ads will display a shaded rectangle in the middle of the screen whenever a product appears. When a user rolls over that embedded video link, the product name is displayed with a link to the purchase page. Google's product and sales teams are working with advertisers to bring these new ads into their videos on YouTube, Green said."

"For now, sticky notes is a perfect comparison for Keep. It's simply an online replacement for the random lists and notes you've jotted in your Moleskine. It's only a power tool if a butter knife is a power tool, but it may be the only app that can capture a phone number or random thought as fast as pen and paper."

Users "plant" a song, a book, a movie, a venue, a famous person, you name it, along with an associated message for others to enjoy. CircleMe has also pre-populated the database with close to 1 million items to "like", and another 11 million to access via API connections with other networks. They just want you to put all these things on a map.

Levi's is putting a new twist on its annual fall "Go Forth" campaign with a glossy virtual spread in social newsreader app Flipboard. The effort introduces a new ad format that Flipboard calls a "brand magazine," which combines all the images, content and social elements tied to a campaign into a single channel in the iPad app.

Mitchell says three main things have emerged over the past few years. First, while simply soliciting Likes for chances at a sweepstakes win was once enough to grab users' attention, that no longer flies. "Now they want an experience that's rich unto itself," he says. "They don't want to interact with this app because of a .001% of chance of winning something, but because it's fun and something they want to share." But that doesn't mean adding unnecessary layers of complication; the second thing the Movement team has found is that simple apps perform the best with fans. Especially on Facebook, where a friend's photo album or potential paramour's profile are just a click away, too much clutter without a simple call to action can kill engagement. The third key: plan for mobile, even if it means just a page letting smartphone users know the app isn't mobile compatible.

Uniform, a British brand communications agency, has rigged up a crazy gumball machine that gets activated whenever anyone follows them on Twitter-sending a gumball careening down a long and winding chute, coming to rest in the agency's studio, where workers presumably fight over it (or maybe not). In the meantime, the agency @replies you with a link to a video of the machine in action (though not, sadly, featuring footage of your particular gumball).

The film, to be directed by Sundance-winner Drake Doremus (Like Crazy), is based on the story of Alex, a young man who wakes up every day with a different appearance. Intel and Toshiba are seeking actors for the film via a Facebook Page. The first episode in the film is scheduled to premiere on Aug. 16 at 3 p.m. PST. The final episode will air on Sept. 20. In a bit of product placement, Alex will employ a Toshiba Portege Ultrabook during the movie. Grace doesn't appear in the trailer above, but he narrates it. The two tech giants collaborated on a similar project last year called The Inside Experience starring Emmy Rossum. In that case, the plot was moved along by comments from viewers on Facebook and Twitter.

While Shazam for TV has continued to grow, Shazam's music footprint still has a big affect on social TV. It's no surprise that many times users take out Shazam to uncover a song they're listening to on TV. Even for a recent WWE  episode there were over 1,000 tags, without any call-to-actions on TV. The most popular songs were:  "Voices," "Break the Walls Down," "Radio" and "I Came to Play," which are the entrance anthems for:  Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, Zach Ryder and The Miz, respectively. Additionally Shazam has shared with Lost Remote some of the most Shazamed songs during TV from June. British dubstep band, Nero, gained 100K tags since 7 June 2012 when the record was first used in the new ad campaign for HP dm 4 Laptop. Keeping with British acts Alex Clare's 'Too Close' gained 312K tags this month thanks to the record's inclusion in Internet Explorer ads. Some of these tags have been driven by radio, but generally we've seen that big spikes in traffic for 'Too Close' coincide with TV play. So far 'Too Close' has been tagged over 2 million times worldwide! Lumineers 'Ho Hey' scored 91K tags this month thanks to the inclusion of 'Ho Hey' in the new Bing commercial. Dire Straits 'Walk Of Life' gained 31K tags thanks to its use in a Burger King ad. TV shows also drove huge engagement this month. Suits (Caught A Ghost 'Time Go' was used and scored 12K tags) and Pretty Little Liars (The Strange Familiar 'Unwanted' 4K tags) both scored highly. The Middle East 'Blood' saw a huge rise in tags when HBO broadcast the film Crazy Stupid Love which uses the track. 'Blood' scored 29K tracks in June.

Eventually we'll get to SF-quality hard AR, but it'll take a while. I'd be surprised if it was sooner than five years, and it could easily be more than ten before it makes it into consumer products. That's fine; there are tons of interesting things to do and plenty of technical challenges to figure out just with soft AR. I wrote one of the first PC games with bitmapped graphics in 1982, and 30 years later we're still refining the state of the art; a few years or even a decade is just part of the maturing process for a new technology. So sit back and enjoy the show as AR grows, piece by piece, into truly seamless augmented reality over the years. It won't be a straight shot to Rainbow's End, but we'll get there - and I have no doubt that it'll be a fun ride all along the way.