Test Your Limitlessness

A destination URL built into part of the official website for the paranoia-fueled action thriller Limitless, try and test your ability to manage your limited resources of the powerful drug NZT and personal financial reserves and beat the stock market. Challenge friends on Facebook or start a global challenge against other players to earn more cash and pills. Make over $200,000 without running out of NZT and be entered to win a Motorola Xoom or film prize pack.

Rango Movie Website Update

The official website for the Paramount 3D animated film and video game Rango has been updated so users can explore the Old West town of Dirt. Users can explore the rich media Flash based experience built from in-game models and assets and interact with its curious cast of desert animal characters. Visit the General Store to find out about the video game, read a review and access retail buy now links. Filled with mini-games and Easter eggs, hidden wallpaper pictures and avatar items can be found throughout the town. A grid of 10 squares along the bottom of the main window helps the user check off the major Easter eggs found during their visit to Dirt.

 

Cueler YouTube

Install Cueler on your Facebook page and every time a video is uploaded to YouTube, it will be published along with a standard or customized message to the Facebook news feed. Videos can be added from a YouTube URL through the channel or a specific playlist. Cueler creates a YouTube Videos tab with a banner video that can be customized as the centerpiece of the tab. Users can also be required to Like the page before they are able to watch videos.

Be Like Katamari, Destroy The Internet

Head over to the official website for Katamari Hack and grab the bookmarklet to turn any webpage into a game of Katamari Damacy! Control the magnetic sphere of death and pick up bits of text and images as it rolls around the screen. Hold Down Right-Click to control the ball.  Change the color of the ball to any color you like!

PopCap Gets Social

PopCap is looking to put more social features into all of its future titles. Senior designer Dave Bishop explained the social initiative during a talk at Develop 2010 and gave an example of a future version of Peggle, where players can see details of what their friends are doing and send them messages.

Bejeweled Blitz has led the charge for PopCap on Facebook with over 10 million monthly users, and other franchises from the company will likely follow suit. PopCap is planning a Plants vs. Zombies announcement for August 2, which may include a sequel or more social features.

Source: ShackNews

Japan’s Tweeting Banzai

While certain Internet imports have had difficulty catching on in Japan, Twitter has managed to take off. The service (which translates as mumbling in Japanese) successfully launched a mobile version in October 2009, and brought itself to even more users in the mobile crazy nation.

A Tokyo bar is showing sporting events and even has screens showing tweets simultaneously. 16.3 percent of Japanese Internet users tweet, more than the 9.8 percent for Americans. Twitter even managed to surpass Japanese social site mixi with monthly visitors, according to Nielsen Online.

“Japan is enjoying the richest and most varied form of Twitter usage as a communication tool,” says Japanese writer Daisuke Tsuda. “It’s playing out as a rediscovery of the Internet.”

Part of the attraction for Japanese users is that it takes fewer characters to convey ideas than other languages, leading to more articulate tweets. Also, in contrast to the image of Japanese being reserved, many use the site as a public way to communicate and connect with others.

“Twitter is turning out to be like a cocktail party,” says Noriyuki Ikeda, CEO of Tribal Media House. “Japanese see how fun it is to network and casually connect with other people.”

Companies are also using Twitter as a way to reach out to customers. Retailer Tokyu Hands uses Twitter to answer questions from customers and clothing chain Uniqlo has used Twitter to setting up a virtual line in which people tweet with one another and get free stuff.

Motohiko Tokuriki, chief executive of consulting firm Agile Media Network, thinks Twitter could be the hit new word of the year, and honor in Japan. “It’s telling that Twitter was translated as ‘mumbling’ in Japanese,” he says. “They love the idea of talking to themselves.”

Source: Los Angeles Times

The Next Twitter Is . . . Facebook, Google, Amazon And Xbox

Four stalwarts of online services and networking are positioned to take over Twitter. In the article, IPG Emerging Media Lab argues that these companies, already playing essential roles in our networked lives, are arming themselves with new tech and lessons applied from everything that propelled Twitter’s popularity. The only new player among the four named by the firm is Foursquare, a well-funded location-based networking service going after the growing mobile networking trend.

Read their analysis at iMedia Connection.

Pretty Up Your Twitter Page

Web design site Smashing Magazine has all sorts of tips and templates for your Twitter page. As in the samples provided, for major brands it seems less is more. For Joe Blog Everything, it might be all about putting lipstick on his pig.

Check out the design advice and samples at Fast Company.