Watch The Big Lebowski with your Facebook friends
I have to admit, I’d never have thought of something like this myself - but it makes so much sense! Am I the only one who’s ever been watching a tv show or a movie, while tweeting about it or sharing scenes with a friend on FB chat? Probably not. FB is simply cashing in on this.
I can’t wait till Pulp Fiction is available!
The cult classic The Big Lebowski is now available to rent on Facebook.
Coinciding with the film’s Blu-ray release, fans of the Coen brothers comedy can rent the film directly from The Big Lebowski Facebook fan page.
Facebook continues to gain ground as a movie rental platform. Last month, Paramount Pictures brought the Jackass film series to Facebook and Warner Bros. continues to make more titles available on the social network.
For this release, Universal Pictures is doing something more unique with its rental offering by giving fans a way to interact and share their favorite parts of the film online.
Users that rent the film can “like” and make comments on memorable scenes and quotes throughout the film. They can also see what other Facebook fans and friends have said while watching the movie. Plus, users can reward up to five friends with a $1 discount on the Facebook rental. A 48-hour rental is 30 Facebook Credits ($3), which is the same amount other studios are charging for similar titles.
Google buys Motorola Mobility
As a colleague put it so eloquently, just another step in Google’s plan to take over the world.
Google just announced that it is acquiring Motorola Mobility. The search and online advertising company is buying the company for approximately $12.5 billion (or $40 per share), in cash. The price represents a premium of 63 percent to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares last Friday. Google had about $39 billion in cash at last count.
Here’s the other important part of the PR (the why, and what happens to Android now):
The acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a dedicated Android partner, will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing. Motorola Mobility will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. Google will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business.
Social media helps London cleanup
Yes, BBM was used by the rioters - this is a much nicer story to focus on!
While rioters took to the underground paths of BlackBerry Messenger to organize, the highly spreadable mediums of Twitter and Facebook have shown to be the perfect platforms for mobilizing cleanup organizers and followers in the early aftermath of the rioting.
For the most part, organization has been very smooth, with a few key hubs across social platforms taking root. The @RiotCleanup Twitter page has amassed more than 50,000 followers in fewer than 10 hours and is consistently broadcasting cleanup locations and times, along with other pertinent information regarding the initiative.
And for a more static look at where the action is, riotcleanup.co.uk is being constantly updated with cleanup location information. In an email interview with Ian, the creator of the website and resident of rural Shropshire, England, he explained:
Beyond the riot cleanup, another effort to catch and prosecute looters has taken root, with the Tumblr account “Catch A Looter” accepting and posting images of looters for identification.
Clean up after Tottenham riotspressassociation, August 8, 2011 at 10:02
RT @daveharte: #riotcleanup in Birmingham. People have brooms. Good on ‘em. http://twitpic.com/63cdfg courtladyAugust 9, 2011 at 10:21
Virgin to create London wifi network
I can’t remember when I enjoyed reading a news article more than this.
Virgin Media to ‘take a punt’ on free London WiFi network
Virgin Media is close to launching a free public WiFi scheme in London that will challenge BT’s Openzone network, which charges for access.
The firm’s chief executive Neil Berkett told investors that it was in “quite advanced negotiations” with London councils over the plans and said he was optimistic the rollout would begin “in the not too distant future”.
Virgin Media’s WiFi network will be freely available to anyone at 0.5Mbps, and to its home broadband subscribers at up to 10Mbps.
The approach contrasts with BT’s extensive Openzone network, which although free to BT broadband customers, is charged at as much as £5.99 for 90 minutes’ browsing.
Mr Berkett described the plans as “a punt” that will cost Virgin Media “a few million pounds” and will “keep them [BT] honest”.
The firm’s interest in public WiFi was first revealed in Novemeber, when its director of advanced technology said virgin media had been “inspired” by a scheme launched by the United States cable network Cablevision. It covered New York with WiFi at a time when American 3G networks were struggling to cope with the smartphone boom.
Google+: One million shares “per day”!
The stats coming out of this whole Google+ thing are simply astounding.
Google+ already has 10 million users who share 1 billion items every day, and Google’s +1 button is being hit 2.3 billion times per day, Google CEO Larry Page said Thursday.
Page, speaking to analysts during Google’s second-quarter earnings conference call, also said that 550,000 Android-enabled phones are activated every day and 160 million people use Google’s Chrome web browser.
Google+ Cheat Sheet
Interesting, thought kind of limited at this stage!
Are you addicted to Google+ like millions of others early adopters? Do you spend your Saturday nights hanging out in Google+ Hangouts?
That’s why we were excited when we stumbled across a Google+ cheat sheet, whose origin we’ve traced to Google+ user Simon Laustsen. The cheat sheet includes most of the common syntax, hotkeys and tips you need to know to use Google+ like a pro.
Now that’s innovation!
Yes, we’ve been hearing about QR codes a lot recently, but this is just a fantastic use of it - albeit a slightly grim example.
When Yoav Medan’s mother Judith passed away in June, the Israel-based medical technology executive couldn’t decide what he wanted to write on her tombstone. After deliberating with his family, Medan decided to turn to technology for the answer and attach a QR code to the grave in Haifa, Israel.
Over time, Medan hopes the QR code and memorial site will help create a lasting history of his mother that will live on for generations. “I was most concerned about 20 or 40 years from now, how will she be remembered … [I wanted to put] what’s in our memory into a place that doesn’t forget,” he said.
The QR code itself is a laser engraving, filled with a black paste, and sits behind a piece of glass on the tombstone. “The guy who built the tombstone, he wants to make a business out of it,” said Medan.
Google+ is an online sausagefest
To quote a line from a popular hit - Where dem girls at? Is it just because all the geeks (who happen to be mostly guys) have jumped on the bandwagon so fast?
Here’s an interesting tidbit from the Google+ stats trackers: Three quarters (or more) of Google+ users are male.
SocialStatistics, a third-party site that gathers data from select profiles, pegs the percentage of male users at 86.8%, while FindPeopleOnPlus, which curates information from about a million users, says men constitute 73.7% of Google+.
FindPeopleOnPlus also discovered that 95% of the Google+ users who say they are “looking for love” on the site are male. Some 25,000 users in their sample identify themselves as single, versus 19,000 married and 12,000 in a relationship. The vast majority of the million users sampled don’t say what they are.
Founded by Richard Branson - nice site to help you put things into perspective if you like that kind of thing. The site describes itself thusly: “Harnessing the power of entrepreneurs to implement market-driven solutions to climate change.”
