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a-mazing. could be cool for an event marketing thing.

Infographics to tell a story relevant to your brand and its positioning. 

Trover is an app that lets you share geotagged photos and shows things nearby for you to discover.

"Like seemingly every startup currently exploring an ad-supported business model, Waze has gone native for its ad platform. Typically startups wade into advertising by working directly with brands then erecting a self-serve platform down the road. Waze sped things up. The company began testing ads in its U.S. app over the summer, working directly with Zipcar, Best Buy and a number of fuel brands and convenience store chains; at launch it has added Procter & Gamble, Dunkin' Donuts, Wyndham Hotels, Whole Foods, Jamba Juice, CircleK and Kum & Go to its advertiser roster. The direct sales channel continues, but Waze has also set up a self-serve platform for its most basic ad units. The self-serve platform operates on an auction model with floor prices set at $1 per thousand impressions. In addition to a branded search result, marketers can pay to plot branded pins at their locations on the Waze map. When users click on these branded pins, they can click a link to the company's website, a number to call the location or-borrowing the idea of drive-to advertising popularized by driving navigation company Telenav-a button that would navigate them to the location."

"The program, which Boston.com calls Insights, came about partly because so many advertisers are creating content for their own sites, according to Thomas F.X. Cole, executive director-business development at Boston.com and The Boston Globe, units of The New York Times Co. "It's a new unit to address a new need," Mr. Cole said. "Our advertisers and particularly our smaller advertisers have been creating their own content. They need to get it exposed. As much as 50% of small businesses are blogging. The one thing they want is to have people see their material.""

"If your products are blamed by health professionals for causing obesity and diabetes, you can probably do one of three things (aside from not selling them): 1) ignore the critics, 2) deny the evidence, or 3) work with the grain of modern opinion."

"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."

"Walmart began recruiting top Silicon Valley talent and acquiring start-ups last year. For instance, Walmart acquired Kosmix, a company that specializes in making web design more seamless, for $300 million. That team has been working for over a year to fix Walmart's systems and improve its website.  Walmart is investing in the "social gifting" market. A year ago, Walmart launched "Shopycat," which makes gift recommendations based on friends' Facebook profiles. The site is now called "Walmart Gifts" and allows customers to log in and get personalized recommendations based on Facebook and Twitter profiles.  The retailer got a better search engine. A dozen top engineers took 10 months to build it, and while the company won't discuss sales figures, they said the new system is more user-friendly. "If you search for cotton socks now, you'll actually find them," Manjoo writes.  Walmart is trying to lead the charge in same-day shipping. Its at an advantage considering that 96 percent of Americans live within 20 miles of a Walmart.  Walmart is investing like crazy in its mobile app. "Walmart imagines that as you go through an average day, you'll remember things you need--milk, bread, a new tennis racquet, a toy truck for your nephew's birthday--and tell the voice-enabled Walmart app. The app will list each item's location inside your local Walmart and include product info; eventually, it will also learn your preferences and offer recommendations. And once you're actually in the store, you'll be able to summon an associate to help you," Manjoo says. "

"Here are five lessons in the art and science of storytelling I learned by studying the pros ... 1) Adopt a newsroom mentality Make content development a core part of the way you do business - just as it is in journalism. Embed it in every department. Hire journalists just as LinkedIn, Qualcomm and others have done. Curate voices like we do on edelman.com. 2) Hand-craft your content for each venue Some companies try desperately to create singular pieces of content that can be simply be dumped in different places. That no longer works. Instead, hand-craft your content for each venue. Jonah Peretti, Buzzfeed's co-founder, summed it up best when he said: "Twitter is for your head, while Facebook is for your heart." 3) Cultivate superstars who have a POV News and information, to some degree, is commodity content - it's everywhere. Deep, thoughtful analysis, however, is in high demand. Just as the New York Times has Nate Silver and ESPN has Bill SImmons, you too can grow and cultivate rock stars who create thoughtful content with unique analytical point of view. 4) Be relentlessly data driven Speaking of Mr. Silver, if there's one thing he taught us this year it's that data rules. Follow in his footsteps in not only how you use data to inform and deliver your storytelling but also in how you measure your results. Many newsrooms, for example, now have real-time dashboards that help shape their decisions. 5) Let constraints fuel creativity Finally, it's often hard to convince management to put resources behind content until there's proven ROI. However, constraints can breed creativity. The Wall Street Journal's daytime video network, for example, was challenged to cover the Olympics without footage. So instead it creatively turned to using puppetry - and with great success. Be creative to get around constraints."

"Citi piloted LinkedIn's first branded community in April, erecting Connect: Professional Women's Network as a sponsored group for members to discuss topics online, such as women-on-women bullying in the workplace. Then in late summer something unexpected happened: Members began taking things offline. One New York-based member posted a question, asking if others would like to meet in person. That has spawned nine different meet-ups in not just New York but Seattle and Miami. "That's not necessarily behavior we could have predicted from an online social network," said Citi's managing director and head of North American marketing Vanessa Colella."

Interesting to see Coke doing yet another campaign allowing fans to vote, considering the flop of the Superbowl spot. And touches on the growing concern of allowing users to dictate content. It's one thing to use data, it's another to directly ask what people want and then give it to them.

The new, weird thing that is hot on Twitter right now.

"Ultimately, [these technologies] may lead us to an autonomous vehicle, but there are a lot of things that have to happen. Society in general has to approve of all this. A trust has to be built with customers."

"Matching Amazon's prices during the holidays is one thing, but Target today announced it plans to continue the practice on a year-round basis. The extended policy will also apply to competitors other than the internet retailer, of course, but Amazon has become the main threat when it comes to "showrooming," a process where consumers visit physical stores to get a quick peek at products before ultimately placing an order online. Target also plans to match rates from Walmart, Best Buy, and Toys R Us if customers should find the same item priced lower there."

combining voice recognition and natural language processing with search to create a really smart way to easily find the things you want quickly. If you've already forgotten: It's kind of like Siri, except it works.

Is this really a thing?

VZW has been promoting it a lot lately...its only $3 a month or something.