Barbie & Ken are reunited using Social Media

A shout out to my Mattel peeps.  I remember back in the day when I worked there, there were jokes that Barbie was seeing G.I. Joe on the side (of course, I worked in Hot Wheels such comments were never made on the Barbie team). Then alas, Barbie and Ken “broke up.”  In Barbieland it was a big deal. Very controversial. What message did that send?

Does it even really send a message?  Beleive it or not, it did not sit well with some Moms and collectors alike.  Well, via social media the couple has reunited.  This is a creative campaign and great integration with social media.  Good job Mattel! So, I guess Barbie finally dumped GI Joe.  You know how those soliders are, a woman in every city. (just kidding, I love our troops, all is said in jest).

See the full article: http://mashable.com/2011/05/05/barbie-ken-social-media/

May 6, 2011
Categories: Events, Inside Hollywood, Vendor News . . Author: jamagno . Comments: Leave a comment

Nintendo Wii 2 – Stream Controller update

More news regard the new Controller system – to be introduced at E3 in June (?)

The new Nintendo Stream controller includes a 6″ touchscreen interface. The Stream is also reportedly backwards-compatible with the Nintendo Wii motion controllers.

Mockup: Stream Controller

A mockup of a potential Nintendo Stream controller by IGN.

stream-controller-mockup_0

April 28, 2011
Categories: Technologies, Vendor News . Tags: , . Author: MyMotorways . Comments: Leave a comment

Netflix earnings Way up despite Growing Competition

Netflix revealed this week that its earnings are up 88% compared to this time last year. The subscription movie service reported a net income of $60 million on its Q1 report.

More than 3 million new subscribers have signed on to Netflix since January, pushing its total number of viewers to 23.6 million — more than those buying Comcast cable alone. (Comcast still has many more subscribers than Netflix does if you count the customers who buy video service alongside voice and Internet.)

Netflix’s earnings have benefited from a price increase on its hybrid service that took effect with its pure streaming plan in November. While the changes were made in Q4 of 2010, they took effect in Q1. Meanwhile, Netflix set a new company record for marketing spend.

Netflix is reaping the benefits of establishing a post-Blockbuster model of video rentals. Several competitors have launched to challenge it in the last 12 months — Hulu Plus and Amazon’s Prime Instant Video. Dish Networks, which purchased Blockbuster in April, will likely launch a subscription streaming effort under that brand.

The competition helps explain why Netfix has a new focus on original content. It has made exclusive partnerships with CBS and Lionsgate, as well as a non-exclusive agreement with Fox in Q1.

“Our competitive strategy relative to other streaming services is simply to grow as fast as we can, so we can afford more content, more marketing, and more R&D than our competitors,” explains Netflix’s Q1 letter to its shareholders.

April 27, 2011
Categories: Inside Hollywood, News you can Use, Vendor News . Tags: , . Author: MyMotorways . Comments: Leave a comment

Facebook’s New Deal Page Premieres

Today, Facebook’s new Deals feature was launched in five cities around the U.S.; here’s a first glimpse of how those offers will look and function.

First, users who opt into Deals will get to see opportunities specific to their locations. Those offers will arrive via email or, in some cases, will appear in the user’s news feed on Facebook.

To be clear, these aren’t like the checkin-based deals for mobile users that Facebook launched for its nascent Places platform; while the initial mobile Deals product competed with Foursquare, the new product competes more with Groupon.

Each deal will have its own Facebook landing page, as shown below. Users can “Like” a deal, share it via several channels on the site, or opt to buy it right away. When purchasing the deal, users can pay with credit card or Facebook Credits.

It’s unknown whether Facebook will make more money from Credits purchases than from traditional ones. A rep said via email, “We’re not disclosing details about revenue splits, but paying with Credits will work the same way as paying with a credit card. It’s simply another way for people to pay for Deals. We think this just makes things easier for people using Facebook.”

Facebook Deals’ Landing Page

Example of a Facebook Deal

Buying a Facebook Deal

Sharing a Facebook Deal

April 25, 2011
Categories: Events, Technologies, Vendor News . Tags: , . Author: MyMotorways . Comments: Leave a comment

Best Buy Is Shrinking Stores, Adding Mobile Units and to sell Broadband Network

After suffering weaker sales, Best Buy is thinking small: It says it will focus on expanding its petite Best Buy Mobile stores, which are about 1,400 square feet, and shrink its regular stores by about 10% in the next three to five years.

The retailer is beefing up its mobile offerings, adding 150 Best Buy Mobile stand-alone stores in the fiscal year, and expects to have an estimated 600 to 800 stores within five years. The smaller mobile stores emphasize impartial advice, with 10 carriers and 14 manufacturers, as well as straightforward pricing and tech-savvy associates, and had revenue of about $2.5 billion in fiscal 2011. Currently, there are 1,099 store-within-a-store units, expanding to an additional 600 locations, and 191 stand-alones, with about 325 scheduled to be completed by the end of the current fiscal year.

And the retailer says it’s also exploring additional opportunities in mobile phones, tablets, gaming and appliances.

While Best Buy claims to generate the highest sales per square footage of any large format retailer in the U.S. and sells one out of every three U.S. televisions, it has struggled of late, with same-store sales falling 4.6% in its most recent quarter.

The category isn’t an easy one: Wal-Mart Stores this week reportedly says it will reduce space for electronics in its U.S. stores, saying that sales in that category have declined.

A company building a new nationwide wireless broadbandnetwork, says Best Buy will resell access to that network, starting with a trial early next year.

According to the LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja “Best Buy Co. is the biggest customer so far to sign up with LightSquared. The electronics chain will sell the service under its own Best Buy Connect brand”

April 23, 2011
Categories: News you can Use, Vendor News . Tags: , , . Author: MyMotorways . Comments: Leave a comment

Maytag Is Out To Warm Up Its Image

Maytag is introducing a new brand campaign that it hopes will warm up its old-reliable image, while at the same time building on its never-breaks-down brand equity.

The famed Maytag repairman gets a cameo in the TV spots, but the focus is now on the contents of the machine, themed “What’s Inside Matters.”  

Ads show a family quilt being dragged from picnic to campout to station wagon to laundry room, or a rag doll getting roughed up at a tea party. “We wanted to shift the focus to the mundane urgencies that people connect with dependability,” Jim Paul, VP/creative director for Arc Worldwide, the Leo Burnett agency that created the campaign for Maytag, tells Marketing Daily. “The ads emphasize not only the dependable parts Maytag puts in its machines, but the importance of the things people put inside as well.”

The brand, which is more than 100 years old, built its reputation on that dependability, he says, long characterized by its lonely repairman. “We felt it was time to expand on the parts and pieces story, which is essentially very male, and warm it up — to put a more relevant human spin on that dependability. It’s been a masculine brand in a feminine category. And while we’re not running away from the testosterone that comes from focusing on the reliability of the machine and its parts, we wanted to broaden it.”

April 22, 2011
Categories: News you can Use, Vendor News . Tags: , , . Author: MyMotorways . Comments: Leave a comment

NAB – Las Vegas – Report

Monday was surprisingly busy as normal this is setup day, but many international broadcasters made their appearances today.  Sony, Harris and Grass Valley along with Panasonic seem to be the heavy hitters this year.   Many vendor appear to be much more price conscience offering more value for the money.  

Sony Make.believe logo dominates the booth.  Find full report of technology findings here shortly.

April 13, 2011
Categories: News you can Use, Vendor News . Tags: . Author: MyMotorways . Comments: Leave a comment

Verizon to eliminate 1 year Contract Option

Verizon customers interested in signing a one-year contract (as opposed to the standard two) should lock in their selections now; the company has confirmed that it is eliminating the one-year contract option as of April 17.

Verizon claims the policy change is taking place because the “greater majority of customers sign up for a two-year contract.”

The nation’s largest wireless provider (at least until that AT&T/T-Mobile deal is approved) previously offered users the ability to sign one-year contracts or contract extensions in lieu of the standard two-year agreement. Customers who opted for the one-year contract were still able to purchase new equipment at a discount, albeit a lesser discount than the subsidized two-year agreements.

In an email to BGR, Verizon reiterated that its contract-free month-to-month plans would still be available to consumers.

Meanwhile, according to draft circulars obtained by DroidLife, Verizon may be introducing a new month-to-month prepaid plan that offers users unlimited voice and text for $50 a month. Data will cost extra (reportedly $30 a month for unlimited data).

AT&T recently increased the early-upgrade price on some of its smartphones and feature phones.

April 12, 2011
Categories: News you can Use, Technologies, Vendor News . . Author: MyMotorways . Comments: Leave a comment

Google Gets Green Light From Justice Department for Travel Acquisition

Google’s purchase of ITA Software, a travel and airline software company, has been given a thumbs-up by the U.S. Department of Justice — with a few important stipulations.

The DOJ had subjected the deal to some eight months of scrutiny to determine whether the search giant’s foray into travel and flight search might pose antitrust issues.

The sale was first made known to the public via media reports about a year ago, and Google confirmed the acquisition in July 2010

.

ITA‘s flight search technology powers the company’s public airfare search engine, Matrix. Its QPX airfare shopping system is used by airlines and travel distributors around the world, and the company is also offering a new airline passenger reservation system.

Since ITA’s software powers many other businesses, the DOJ is requiring Google to continue “to develop and license travel software, to establish internal firewall procedures and to continue software research and development.” QPX and ITA’s other travel search products will continue to be licensed to other companies, even companies that might be competing with whatever travel search app or apps Google might introduce.

In this way, the Department hopes to keep competition for travel search fair. Department reps said that the original deal terms “would have substantially lessened competition among providers of comparative flight search websites in the United States, resulting in reduced choice and less innovation for consumers.”

Looks like the Google juggernaut continues…

April 10, 2011
Categories: Technologies, Vendor News . . Author: MyMotorways . Comments: Leave a comment

Google Fiber Marketing Plan; free to schools, available to public in 2012

Google detailed on Wednesday its Google Fiber Internet service, which will launch first in Kansas City, Kan., promising free broadband Web access for schools and speeds 100 times faster than the current average.

“In about 1995, 15 years ago roughly, everyone was living on 56 kilobits, and it was awful,” said Patrick Pichette, Google’s chief financial officer. “And then somebody invented a 5-meg modem, and everybody was saying, what are you going to do with 5 megs. … Think what you’re going to do with a gigabit; 1,000 megabits.”

Pichette spoke before a packed auditorium at Kansas City’s Wyandotte High School about the possibilities for consumers with 1-gigabit, fiber-optic connection. Also on hand were Google’s vice president of access services, Milo Medin; Kansas City, Kan., Mayor Joe Reardon; and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback.

The anouncement was streamed live on Google’s YouTube channel.

Speaking before a crowd that looked to be made up mostly of adults despite taking place in a high school, Gov. Brownback envisioned doctors at the University of Kansas Medical Center using such high speeds to monitor patients over the Web, rather than having to bring people in for appointments.

Medin and Pichette said the “ultra-fast” connections could lead to technologies not yet developed or even imagined.

Mayor Reardon said his son was excited about the prospect of being able to play video games online with friends without interruption.

“He hugged me; he’s a PS3 gamer, and he said, ‘You mean it’s not going to freeze up on me anymore? You need to get that done tomorrow,’ ” Reardon said, eliciting laughs from the audience.

But although Kansas City, Kan., has been selected as Google Fiber’s launchpad, an exact launch date has not been set, Medin said.

“We’re not exactly sure until we get the engineering and planning done but [are] hoping to offer service in 2012,” he said, likely disappointing the mayor’s son.

One detail Google has yet to get into for its Google Fiber service is just how much it will cost consumers. But once Google does roll out its broadband service, the differences in speed will be impressive, Pichette said.

“Speed matters, speed matters immensely,” he said. “Speed is like oxygen; when you have it you take it for granted. Once you don’t have it, you realize it’s everything.”

Although Kansas City, Kan., is set to be the first to get Google Fiber service, the plan is to roll it out to more cities and get the nation up to broadband speed. Most U.S. homes currently paying for high-speed Internet connections are receiving data at less than 10 megabits a second.

April 8, 2011
Categories: News you can Use, Technologies, Vendor News . Tags: , . Author: MyMotorways . Comments: Leave a comment

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