Our tech team pulled off another cool port, they can port iPhone applications to any social network. You can play the game inside the social network and drive traffic back to your iPhone application. Check out our Attack of the Zombie Politicians inside Facebook or you can visit our Youtube page to see screen captures of our games.
Check it out at http://www.211me.com/apps/zombie/default.aspx
Like the Olympics, 211(me) selected 08.08.08 to launch something big. It’s the Pay My Rent! Comedy Contest! Presented alongside Showcase Live and WBCN, we’re looking for the funniest comedians in the land to enter to win a chance to open up for Dave Attell when he performs at the brand new Showcase Live at Patriot Place in Foxboro, MA on Saturday, August 23rd. Not only will the grand prize winner get this great opportunity - we’ll event pay them for it - $1500 to help with this month’s rent.
Know a great comedian, or are you one yourself? Enter now at 211me.com/comedy. Entries are accepted through August 11th. Voting begins on August 12th and runs through August 19th.
The grand prize winner will be chosen by popular vote. The text to vote format allows anyone to text in the comedy vote code provided on the site for their favorite comedian into 555211 to vote. Additionally, comedians can campaign for more votes by placing a widget provided to them by 211me on their website, Facebook, Myspace, blog, or wherever they may be on the web. From the widget, a vote can be placed by placing in the voters mobile phone and email directly into the widget and hitting vote.
Looking for a few good laughs? Check out the site now and see who is the funniest in the land! 211me.com/comedy
211(me) had a wonderful time at the Web Innovators Group event last night. Robert, Steve, Jeff and myself want to say thank you to everyone that attended and took a moment to stop by and find out more about what 211(me) is all about.
We received some great feedback, met some really innovative and insightful people and made some great connections. Thanks to Suzi Edwards from WallFly Marketing for a nice review this morning on her blog as well. And to Amanda from Shift PR for coming by and sharing details of 211(me) on her own personal blog.
While we were not given a moment to make an announcement to the whole group, we did want to take this chance to invite everyone to join the 211me mob! Just text Get 211me to 555211 to join our mob. (Or, click on the card above and then click Join Mob if you have lost your phone in the cushion of your couch momentarily.) Receive weekly updates with what’s new on 211(me) to your mobile phone, and start creating on our new mobile page - m.211me.com. Did I fail to mention that? Yeah - we think it’s pretty cool too. Check it out. Create mashups now anytime the mood strikes.
I thought I was alone in feeling like a stranger at a party full of friends whenever I ventured into Twitter-land. But apparently, unless you get a guided tour, this fairly simple, fun and effective platform can feel overwhelming and daunting for others as well. In walks the Tweet Sheet - a handy guide to getting all of your thoughts out to your vast (or growing) list of follwers on Twitter.
When Jason Theodor crafted the sheet, his idea was for those indebted to him for this gift, to print it out and tape it to the back of their cell phones. Well, we here at 211(me) figured we had an even better way - a 211(me) Tweet Sheet mashup.
Grab the sheet. Save it or bookmark it on your phone. Share it with your Twitter-bitter pals you have been trying to convert to followers. Keep it on the your PC, post it to Facebook, get it on your blog, and on and on… How fabulous.
Apparently we weren’t the only ones who thought it was fabulous… Here is some of the word on and off Twitter…
This weekend I saw a great sign posted outside a local suburban family-owned restaurant. “Run Matt Run” was posted where you would usually see the daily specials. They must know someone running in the Boston Marathon. I thought it was great for them to dedicate their weekend signage to support a local runner trying to see if he can make it from Hopkinton to Boston on the heartbreakingly long run.
For those who do not know, today is Patriot’s Day here in Massachusetts. It is also marathon day. With the first participants starting off at 925AM this morning, the 112th annual Boston Marathon brings out more than 25,000 runners from across the world. The number of lazy, cheering (and often drinking) souls dotting the sidelines of 25 miles course is significantly more.
With that in mind, I thought quite a number of people must know someone running, cheering, celebrating, or just using today as an excuse to skip work (present company excluded, I’m sure). Why not share a little of your time to support the dreams or once a year foolish revelry of your friends or family with a 211me card.
Above you see what I would send out if I had run. And I truly would run, if I hadn’t once heard that your toenails could fall off from the friction of running the course. Really, that’s why I stay home. Honest.
Declare yourself victorious for having crossed the finish line, or for having found your way home after partying at the finish line waiting for people to run by. Those silver capes they hand out at the finish line are quite fashionable - capture the rapture of the moment with a 211me card. Or, just share the fact that you were at the Red Sox game today while your buddy was still stuck in his cubicle at work. For support, admiration or just to taunt - take a minute to share your spirit with a 211me card today.
People still pay for ringtones? Seems crazy to me when you are paying $0.99 for a full song on iTunes that you would pay $2.99 for a ringtone. One service that eliminates the need to give the carriers more money is PhoneZoo. I have used it many times and it is quick and easy to use. The search function is a little clumzy and will improve, but having the ability to make your own is slick.
Stop paying and go to the Zoo.
Quick Links
R2D2 and Roy Batty, both created as androids but with wildly divergent results. One a trusted side-kick, with all the answers. The other the intelligent psycho android played by Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner, who kills his maker. Which one will Google’s Android be?After speaking with some folks, lets clear up some confusion, the G-Phone is not a phone like iPhone, but rather an operating system. Google at this point will not be making the phone, they are partnering with manufacturers to use their operating system. It appears that Google has and continues to benefit from this confusion which it helped create.
Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer called the Android platform “a mere press release,” which is correct. Understanding the impact on the mobile industry, be it a benevolent “open” platform that helps the consumer or not, is not possible at this point.
Only time will tell. But the new $10 million Android developer competition should help Google’s cause.
Quick Links:
At the recent Mocollywood event Danah Boyd, the self-proclaimed social networking PHD, inadvertently revealed to a shocked crowd that she was living in the past. Despite all of the current data available on mobile social network adoption rates, Ms. Boyd inexplicably laid out four reasons why social networks would not translate well to mobile:
1) Fragmented Conversations
2) Asynchronicity vs. Synchronous
3) Standardization
4) Anononymity
Although the points were valid in 1993, each one of them appeared to not have any bearing in the present. The whole matter was cleared up when it was revealed that Ms. Boyd was still using a Motorola MicroTac. An audience member quickly handed her a new phone and Ms. Boyd exclaimed “mobile will be huge in 2007,” firmly establishing herself in the present.
Quick Links:
I am Widget, you’re Widget.
It’s all about the widget these days. Everyone using Facebook knows what they are and how they are transforming small companies into overnight success, but if you try explaining it to your grandmother or your boss, forget it.
The article The Facebook Economy in latest issue of Business 2.0 does a pretty good job of detailing the players(Slide, Rockyou, SocialMedia, etc.), the revenue model and the landscape for widgets. Point anyone looking for a deeper explanation of why they are important to this article and the The Next Small Thing in BusinessWeek.
If you are looking for a good quick answer to the widget question, I fumbled on one the other day; “Facebook is like Microsoft, they are the operating system that sits on the computer, and third party companies create the software that runs on top of it.” That comparison seemed to do it, until the person said “What the hell is an operating system?”
Would you trust this guy with your widget?
You better. He is Facebook’s Dave Morin, Senior Platform Manager in charge of keeping track of the 2,500+ widgets in Facebook.
Quick Links:
Facebook Developer Site, Everything you need to build a Facebook Applicaiton
The Facebook Economy, Business 2.0
Fotolog, the photo sharing company was snapped up by France’s Hi-Media for $90 million in a combination of cash and stock. Hi-Media must have significant plans for the site if they were willing to pay a $9/user acquisition price. Compared to the Photobucket purchase by Fox for $250 million for 40 million users ($6.25), it represents as a significant increase of $2.75 per user.
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