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Shark Week Goes on the Hunt for Viewers on Social Media

Written by Joel
Tuesday, 05 July 2011 10:41
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The Discovery Channel is casting a wide net on social media for Shark Week with a user-generated advertising contest, a co-viewing app for the iPhone and iPad and plugs by Andy Samberg.

The build-up for the event, which runs the week of July 31, begins Tuesday with on-air promos. The cable channel also ran a contest from June 13 to July 1 seeking 30-second video commercials from fans. Sixteen of the top videos will vie against each other in a bracketed competition on Shark Week’s website. The top two ads will run on the channel during Shark Week.

That effort builds on last year’s contest on YouTube that asked fans to make videos promoting Shark Week.

A Discovery rep says that the channel is stepping things up this year because “Shark Week” was frequently a trending topic on Twitter when it aired. Overall, there were 91,000 tweets related to Shark Week.

To foster more such communication, Discovery has partnered with GetGlue for a sticker campaign that began Tuesday (and featured Lady Gaga’s Teeth). There’s also a @SharkWeek trivia contest on Twitter and a Shark Week Live app for the iPhone and iPad and on Shark Week’s website that will aggregate all the social media conversation on Twitter and Facebook around Shark Week and include extra content like behind-the-scenes photos.

The channel has also drafted social media favorite Andy Samberg as “chief shark officer” to star in promos, interstitials and a program called Shark City.

Shark Week, now in its 24th year, continues to be a success for Discovery. Last year’s Shark Week brought in 30.8 million viewers — a new record. The channel has also added seven new hours of content this year and will run a total of 18 hours of shark-related programming during primetime.

More About: andy samberg, Discovery Channel, facebook, getglue, Shark Week, twitter

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Gmail Redesign, Google+ Games & More: This Morning’s Top Stories

Written by Joel
Friday, 01 July 2011 05:39
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Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. We’re keeping our eyes on four particular stories of interest today.

Google Redesigns Gmail, Google Calendar

Google is rolling out new versions of Gmail and Google Calendar, cosmetic (rather than functional) makeovers designed to complement Google+‘s interface.

President Obama To Hold First Twitter Town Hall

On July 6, U.S. President Barack Obama will hold a town hall using Twitter, answering questions about the economy and jobs during a live webcast.

Get Ready for Google+ Games

It looks like Google has some big, as-yet-unannounced features planned for Google+, including a Google Games product.

Twitter Users Sending More Than 200 Million Tweets Per Day

Twitter has announced another milestone: Its users are sending approximately 200 million tweets per day, the equivalent of 8,163 copies of War and Peace (in character counts, anyways).

Further News

It looks like the Village Voice won’t be moving to Tumblr after all, as employees reached a tentative agreement on healthcare plans.
Path, the mobile social network that limits users to 50 friends, has arrived on Android.
WikiLeaks has released a spoof on Mastercard’s iconic “Priceless” commercials.
WordPress has launched a webOS app for the HP Touchpad tablet.
MOG has launched a new player with more streamlined playlists and deeper, Facebook-fueled recommendations.
Using a bit of CSS magic, designer Fabio Giolito has created a theme that makes Google+ look like Facebook.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59
More About: first to know series, Google
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Google Makes It Easier for Small Businesses To Create Mobile Websites

Written by Joel
Wednesday, 29 June 2011 09:32
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Google has launched a new tool that makes it easy for businesses to create mobile-friendly websites incredibly quickly with Google Sites.

The new mobile templates for Google Sites is a follow-up to the mobile sites rollout the company introduced last week.

Now in addition to automatically rendering pages in mobile friendly layouts, users can select pre-formatted templates for things like landing pages, social interaction, lead generation and eCommerce.

Google put a video together that highlights the new feature:

It’s extremely easy to set up a new mobile site. Just select the template you want to use, pick a color scheme and a URL (you can forward a custom domain to your mobile Sites page in the settings), and then use the standard Google Sites editor to make changes.

On the Google Mobile Ads blog, the company touts the benefits of having a mobile-friendly site. This is especially true for small businesses that might not have the resources to have a major mobile presence, but still want to offer mobile visitors important contact information, directions and other data.

After spending some time with the new mobile templates, we’re impressed with the new offering. This is basic, no-frills stuff, but that’s part of the appeal. Try it out and let us know what you think.

More About: Google, Google sites, mobile web design, mobile websites

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