Show The Love With Your Mech

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Hawken is celebrating Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year with the Hearts of Fire promotion. {link no longer active}

Valentine’s Day: LESSTHAN-3 and AU-REVOIR

Chinese New Year: DGN-SCALE, LUCK-DGN, and DGN-BREATH

Pilots will be able to purchase any of the camouflages permanently, and it will automatically become available to all present and future mechs the pilot may own; no need to purchase them individually. The thruster will also be available for purchase, but it is on a per-mech basis.

To fill Hawken with these seasonal styles, pilots will be able to “rent” the Hearts of Fire items for free. These free rentals will expire on February 19. Also, as a token of love to the Hawken community, pilots will be able to claim the LESSTHAN-3 Valentine’s Day camo for free, also until February 19.

These cosmetic items will leave the shop when Hearts of Fire ends on February 26. Get yours before they’re gone!

 

Are You Living Under The Dome?

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During the Superbowl, CBS started to whet the appetite of its audience by airing a teaser for its upcoming series “Under the Dome” based on the book by Stephen King.

The simple teaser mostly promoted a new website, underthedome.com which prompts the user to type in an address and watch their home or office be swallowed up by a mysterious dome.

That’s what happens to a small New England town in the series, which will debut on CBS in June. Read more about the series here.

The website also allows you to sign up to receive more information about the show from the network.

Facebook Hub For App Makers

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Facebook has launched Developers Live, a new destination where developers can educate themselves on best practices for bringing apps to the platform.  The service is described as a curated video channel by Facebook and will feature live, recorded and interactive broadcasts geared towards app maker education.

Facebook positioned the new channel as the “central place to learn about the latest tools and to get access to the product managers and engineers who created them.”

Developers Live is for mobile developers, game developers, websites and publishers, essentially any third-party product or service provider who wants optimized integration with the platform and maximized exposure to users.  Examples of what tutorials will address include app discovery and audience growth, better web to mobile transition, and best practices to drive traffic to product — all from the mouths of industry and Facebook experts.

Facebook director of product management Doug Purdy will host the service’s first live event “What Developers Need to Know in 2013″ on February 19. Interested users can RSVP or watch the first live event here.

Source: Facebook.

Your Watch Begins

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In anticipation of third season of Game of Thrones, HBO has launched a destination URL called My Watch Begins where fans can record the oath of the Night’s Watch.

Fans must use their microphone and repeat the sacred oath:

“Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.”

 

 

Facebook Frenzy Fizzling?

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A recent study by Pew got personal with Facebook users and has revealed a wishy-washy relationship with the site. There wasn’t a groundbreaking finding, such as a massive dip in overall Facebook usage, but the study did show a majority of users are less satisfied, and their usage less prolific.

According to Pew, 61 percent of current Facebook users say at one time or another they have voluntarily taken a break from using Facebook for a period of several weeks or more. The dominant reason given was that they simply needed a hiatus from using the site. Other reasons were more startling, such as lack of compelling content, loss of interest in the site, “drama” from friends, and concerns that the network was being too much of a time sink.

The stats get worse – 20 percent adults who are online said they once used the site but no longer do so. Only eight percent of those who never used it are interested in becoming users in the future.  If the site’s magnificent growth and pestering of friends didn’t convince them to do that over the past nine years, it’s hard to believe even that entire eight percent will be on the site anytime soon.

It’s still safe to say Facebook remains the dominant social media platform, and Pew points out that two-thirds of U.S. adults are using it. It’s the relationship with the network that has reached a mucky ground.  For brands, that could affect the debate over which social platform delivers the best overall value.

In 2011, CNET compared Facebook to Google+ and Twitter, looking at five key metrics that determine value to companies: reach, flexibility, design, interaction, and mobile presence.  It found Facebook was delivering the best brand experience of any other social network. Fast forward to 2013 and we could be seeing user fatigue on the once phenomenally popular platform.

Pew’s study doesn’t disprove Facebook’s relevancy and value, but it presents an interesting shift in the social sphere. Facebook, which has never been spotless in the public eye for its privacy practices, has suddenly had service pratfalls such as the backlash over its Instagram advertising policy.  Meanwhile that other leading platform, Twitter, seems to be going the opposite direction.  It picked up a video app maker called Vine that could give brands seamless video ads embedded as tweets.  Last week it had itself one heck of a Super Bowl party, spotlighted by a brand lovefest on the network.

Source: Pew

Super Bowl Reinforces How TV Can Feed Twitter

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While the country debates whether the infamous Super Bowl blackout helped the 49ers rustle the Ravens’ feathers in the second half, the hiccup had one surefire effect. It drove hordes of people sitting in front of a TV set to take to Twitter. With tallies now in, more than 200,000 tweets were dedicated to the power outage alone on Super Bowl Sunday. But the blackout was just one example of how prevalent a force Twitter can be during televised events.  The social net had a record breaking night of 24.1 million tweets and generated 100,000-200,000 tweets per minute every time something memorable happened during the game.

It’s not out of the blue that Twitter acquired Bluefin Labs this week, a firm that provides audience data to advertisers, agencies and TV networks. Twitter nicely tied the affair together with its Super Bowl performance.

“As millions of people around the world experienced during Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast, Twitter is an amazing complement to live television viewing. We look forward to working with Bluefin and our partners in the television industry to make the experience of Twitter and television even better,” it said in a statement.

Having Bluefin under its wing is meant to help Twitter broaden its ad portfolio, and no-doubt some level of TV tie-ins is part of the strategy.  From a brand standpoint, there was already plenty of that on display during the Super Bowl. According to Marketing Land’s Matt McGee, Twitter was mentioned in 26 of 52 Super Bowl TV spots. Facebook mustered four mentions, followed by one each for Instagram and YouTube. The love affair was two-way.  Consulting agency Whispr Group reported that ad-related tweets drove 30 percent of tweets deemed relevant to the Super Bowl.

It all seems like a testament to the effectiveness of the platform as a social net for simultaneous TV viewing.  It has few bells and whistles, but that simplicity allows for immediacy, acceptable brevity and, at times, forced wit that transcends cooked messaging. That’s what advertisers are catching on to, and it could be Twitter will have a strategy to monetize that by the next Super Bowl.

Source: CNET

The Great And Powerful Chrome Experiment

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A new Chrome Experiment Find Your Way To Oz inspired by the upcoming feature film Oz The Great and Powerful brings together Disney’s unique storytelling tradition and the power of the web platform, allowing users to interact with the web in a completely new way.  The experience will take users through an interactive journey through a Kansas circus, which leads you to the land of Oz after you are swept up by a massive storm.”

 

The desktop version of “Find Your Way To Oz” uses many of the open web’s more advanced features like immersive graphics, rich 3D audio and camera based interactions where users can become circus characters or record their own mini-movies.

The experiment’s mobile web version also uses cutting-edge web technologies such as accelerated 3D transforms and sprite sheets as well as mobile hardware features like camera, multi-touch, gyroscope and accelerometer. Together they create an experience that can normally only be found in native apps.

To learn more about how this experiment was built, read the technical case study.

 

Get Your Planet Cracker Plasma Cutter Now!

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Do you still have your Dead Space 2 save file If you do, you’re in luck. People that have played Dead Space 2 will unlock and receive the Planet Cracker Plasma Cutter upon reaching the first bench in Dead Space 3.

The Planet Cracker Plasma Cutter has slightly better parameters then the starting one and has all 8 circuit slots unlocked from beginning giving you an ever so slight edge against the Necromorph terror.

 

Twitter Illuminates As Stadium Lights Go Out

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Twitter was fast and furious last night as the Baltimore Ravens flew to glory as NFL champions, upsetting the San Francisco 49ers to cap a Super Bowl full of unexpected events.  The most unusual was a 30-plus minute post-halftime pause in the action session due to a power outage, which drove fans into a tweeting fury with speculations. Brands took clever advantage of the distraction, intercepting Super Bowl hashtags and using the social platform as the longest commercial break in Super Bowl history.

Twitter set the stage for a stellar Super Bowl. It paid off. According to Twitter, the virtual roar of the crowd set a record high of 24.1 million tweets. Despite an exciting finish and a memorable halftime show, the power outage took the spotlight with more than 300,000 tweets fired off during the commotion.  Interestingly, most fans were crediting Beyoncé’s fierce halftime show as the culprit. Celebrities Neil Patrick Harris and Kelly Clarkson were among those who lit up the social network with tweets.  Clarkson tweeted, “The force and power that is Beyonce just shut the Super Bowl down ha! Too funny!”

While fans made cheap puns over lights out, brands took advantage in their own way. The half-hour-plus downtime gave companies on Twitter a chance to showcase humor and creativity that ranged from Oreo’s “You can still dunk in the dark” quip to  Calvin Klein sneaking in a six pack… of abs.  And by taking advantage of well-trafficked hashtags, these brands a slice of the Super Bowl pie for free.

 

 

While the blackout was the most buzzed about, some of the other popular moments came from the game itself.  The Ravens Jacoby Jones scored on two spectacular plays and set Twitter peaks on both, generating 185,000 tweets per minute with his 108-yard TD kickoff return and 168,000 tweets for a spectacular TD on an underthrown ball from quarterback Joe Flacco.  The 49ers Frank Gore generated 131,000 tweets per minute on his TD run, and the clock expiring to mark the Ravens as champs set off a flurry of 183,000 tweets per minute.

 

Twitter’s Super Bowl Social Playbook

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This weekend, Americans will watch the Baltimore Ravens go against the San Francisco 49ers for Super Bowl XLVII, and Twitter has rightfully positioned itself as the vehicle for real-time updates during the showdown. Rightfully because the social network thrives on the unpredictability of live events.  And the Super Bowl, that mecca of sports sensationalism where even halftime generates headlines, is perfect for Twitter’s rapid-fire 140-character inputs to cover and comment on everything that happens.

According to Twitter, more than 13 million tweets took place during last year’s game, with over 100,000 per minute during Madonna’s halftime show alone. Twitter is planning for similar action on Sunday, with no less reasons for the hundreds of millions who tune in to chatter away about halftime performances and the drama on the field, not to mention the buzz generated by pricey TV commercials.  This year, Twitter has outlined a few plays of their own to best follow the action.

Fans may need to use a Twitter client or open a few browsers to follow everything.  Beyonce’s stream @Beyonce will surely be hopping about her halftime performance.  The Ravens have their @ravens stream to interact with their players, and the official hashtag following the Ravens’ point of view on the action can be found at #RavensNation.  The 49ers are interacting through @49ers, and for what their fans have to say they’ve set up the hashtag #questforsix, a nod to this potentially being the franchise’s sixth Super Bowl win.

For Twitter’s part, it has created lists for users to see rosters for both the 49ers and Ravens {Twitter content no longer active}.  There’s also what you could call a virtual VIP area with photos, videos and more from the front lines of the show.  And coming back for a second year in a row, Twitter is promoting Twitter Ad Scrimmage, which allows users to watch and vote on their favorite Super Bowl spots as they air during the game.

Some aren’t even waiting until Sunday.  Players and fans have already begun to share their experiences and excitement, and that’ll see hockey stick growth (or call it slant route growth) over the weekend.

Which aspect of the Super Bowl are you most excited to watch — the game, the halftime show, or the ads? Tell us in the comments below!

Source: Twitter