In its attempt to redress the imbalance created by the latest Verizon ads, AT&T has hurriedly cobbled together not just one Luke Wilson ad, but several.
Curiously, one ad features precisely the same strategy as that of the latest iPhone advertising: reminding those who might still be on the fence, on the phone, or even on the lam that you can't simultaneously enjoy voice and Web surfing on the Verizon 3G network--and hence on the Motorola Droid.
So here we have Luke Wilson, still looking a little peaky and dressed in a difficult brown. Behind Luke, we have a man trying to use two phones (by implication, Verizon phones) to perform a task the iPhone will manage alone.
Some might find it entertaining that as his friend attempts to download something on one of his Verizon phones, he complains that it's all going rather slowly. Others might find this both true and funny.
AT&T hasn't merely paid Wilson a little more than 3G to make this comparison. Someone, somewhere, has, perhaps even wisely, said, "We need a map to counter Verizon's map."
So the writers hit upon the idea of a two-part extravaganza (this already aired during Tuesday's "Dancing with the Stars" finale), in which Wilson produces postcards from all the different American towns that really do--no, really--have AT&T 3G coverage.
Wilson says his job is to set the record straight, with respect to Verizon's vicious besmirching of the AT&T network. He tries his best. He tells us that AT&T covers 97 percent of all Americans--yes, 300 million people.
The AT&T map also seems far more filled-in and far more colorful than it appears in Verizon spots, though one suspects that local word of mouth might be rather stronger, in this instance, than national advertising. If you live in Spokane, Wash., for example, and you know someone there who has spotty 3G service on a particular network, that is far more powerful an influencer than any number of Wilson's postcards or Verizon's barbs.
It's enlightening, however, to discover that Wilson once dated someone in Tulsa, Okla., and it didn't work out. Did she catch him simultaneously calling and Web surfing? Perhaps we will never know.
eBay is playing virtual Santa this holiday season with a free "Deals" app for the iPhone that leads consumers to the better buys on the auction site.
Launched Tuesday, eBay Deals is designed to deliver a stream of the best deals on the site from across hundreds of millions of listings. Like eBay Mobile, the company's regular iPhone app, Deals lets you search, shop, and pay for your items from your iPhone or iPod Touch.
All featured deals spotlight items with no bids, no reserve price, free or fixed-rate shipping, and less than four hours remaining to bid.
You can browse deals across eight categories, including apparel, computers, electronics, and collectibles. If you spot a deal you like, just tap on it, and its listing pops up where you can watch it or bid on it. Not crazy about the current deals? Just shake your iPhone or iPod Touch, and a new set of deals appears.
If you spot a deal that may be better for someone else, you can e-mail it or share it via your Facebook or Twitter account.
Besides browsing eBay's virtual aisles, you can search for your own deals by entering a product name, category, and price range. You can save your customized search results to return to them later.
Starting Friday, eBay will also be unveiling a "12 Days of Deals" feature promoting a new promotion each day until December 8. Friday's deal will offer Samsung's N120 Netbook.
"As the world's leading online marketplace we have insights into how people really want to shop...and they clearly want to shop on their phones," eBay Marketplaces President Lorrie Norrington said in a statement.
Though designed for the mobile crowd, eBay's daily deals can also be found online at the auction site's Deals page.
eBay has been busy lately sprucing up its mobile auction site for the holidays. The vendor recently added social networking to its eBay Mobile app, letting you share a listing through e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter.
Since its launch in 2008, eBay's mobile app has been downloaded more than 5 million times, said the company. With a purchase made every two seconds, the company said, more than $500 million worth of items are likely to be traded through eBay mobile this year.
Popular tech news aggregator Techmeme has launched a new mobile version of the site built for the Apple iPhone, Palm Pre, and Motorola Droid. The new version, which can be found at http://techmeme.com/m, is a lot easier to read on your phone than the regular site. It even includes individual pages for each Techmeme headline, which show all of the relevant discussion links. Separate pages for each story is something that even the full Techmeme site doesn't currently provide.
New mobile versions are also available for Gabe Rivera's other sites, Memeorandum, Ballbug, and WeSmirch. Techmeme has been ramping up its efforts lately, hiring three additional editors for the site. That brings its headcount to six employees.
I tend to check Techmeme throughout the day as I'm sure many of you do. A lot of the time, I am looking at the site from my phone. This new mobile update makes browsing Techmeme on the go a far more pleasant experience. Since this is not a native app for any platform, the new mobile site is viewable from a variety of phones, widening the potential audience. I can say with almost certainty that the release of Techmeme Mobile will increase the site's mobile readership.
While it's waiting to be gobbled up by Google, AdMob isn't sitting still.
The mobile ad company announced Tuesday that it will deliver interactive video ads to the iPhone and iPod Touch devices. The ads, set to run this week, will let iPhone users surf the Web and check out other videos while the video ad is playing. AdMob believes advertisers and developers will take advantage of the video format by serving up interactive ads designed to pull in consumers.
"AdMob's new Interactive Video Ad Unit brings together consumers' love of watching videos on their mobile device with advertisers' goal of providing an interactive, social experience for consumers," said AdMob Founder and CEO Omar Hamoui in a statement. "We are excited to create new ways for advertisers to engage with consumers on their mobile devices and for the developers behind the most popular and engaging iPhone applications to effectively monetize."
The video ads will automatically pop up as iPhone users access certain content and applications. The ads will also offer a video player so that people can control and interact with them. To make sure the ads run at a decent clip, AdMob uses a network of distributed servers to push them out. Each video is saved in different file sizes, with the most appropriate one streamed based on the connection type, such as 3G or Wi-Fi.
AdMob is one of the top advertising providers for the handheld and portable device market, a position that convinced Google to cough up $750 million in stock to buy out the company. With its multimedia capabilities and huge market share, the iPhone has proven a fertile ground for video ads, with the first ones popping up in early 2008 and growing since then.
Early on Monday, we learned that the new Verizon Droid does, indeed, swap "semi-functional, giggling-brat-vanity for a bare knuckle bucket of does."
Now, we have the visual evidence. It's evidence a defense attorney would rather enjoy.
The Droid is, apparently, not a smartphone at all. It is a robotphone, according to Verizon's latest TV ad. Yes, it punches its way through steel walls and crushes rocks. Which, I believe, is known in English classes as poetry.
The lyrical content is only heightened when the giggling-brat-vanity words are uttered by an announcer who sounds like he had a previous career as an enforcer with one of the Gambino bambinos.
As the contempt drips from his lips, we see various iPhone-like devices all blinged out in pinks and purples and sequins. They look like purses.
And the subtext, which is about as covert as a right cross from an inebriated wedding crasher, is that the Droid is for boys and the iPhone is for fans of "Project Runway" and "The Real Housewives of Orange County."
Yes, your Droid is your Mixed Martial Arts-lovin', bone-crushin' robot that's going to turn you into a man. And that's what all boys want, right?
Video game developer Electronic Arts announced on Monday that it has acquired social-gaming company Playfish, paying $275 million in cash and $25 million in "equity-retention arrangements." Playfish also is entitled to up to $100 million if it meets performance milestones by December 31, 2011.
EA also announced later Monday that it planned to eliminate 1,500 jobs, or about 17 percent of its workforce, as part of a plan to reduce annual costs by about $100 million.
The acquisition of Playfish falls in line with EA's desire to be more than just a developer for traditional gaming platforms, like consoles and the PC. The company said in a statement that the acquisition "strengthens its focus on the transition to digital and social gaming."
Thanks to the explosive growth of social networks and games made for those platforms, Playfish is enjoying strong performance in the social-gaming space. The company has more than 150 million games installed on several platforms, including Facebook, MySpace, the iPhone, and Android-based devices. According to Playfish, more than 60 million active players per month are playing titles. Its Facebook titles include Pet Society, Restaurant City, and Country Story--all three are among the most-popular games on the social network.
The EA Interactive division, which Playfish will join, has done a fine job of capitalizing on the trend of online and mobile gaming. That division includes Pogo, one of the top casual-gaming sites on the Web. The Mobile side of EA Interactive has captured 34 percent market share in the U.S. with the help of Madden NFL 10, The Sims, and Tetris.
Updated at 10:20 p.m. with details of job cuts.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
I had a quick conversation with Lala co-founder Bill Nguyen this afternoon, and he filled me in on some of the company's plans to expand its presence in Google's new music search feature. Today, when you search for an artist's name, Google uses mathematical algorithms to determine which songs to display--no editor is involved. But eventually, artists will be able to use Lala's platform to ensure that specific content, such as a new song, shows up in the music search results at Google.
An example of Google's embedded Lala player, which appears on a search for "Joy Division."
Artists and labels will also be able to work with Lala to sell products other than MP3 downloads through Google's search results. For example, Lala is working on a deal with Rhino Records where users will be able to buy vinyl Joy Division records directly from Lala. Eventually, the offer will appear within Google search results on queries like "Joy Division" as well.
For Rhino, this kind of deal is a no-brainer: they're suddenly getting free placement for a relatively high-priced physical product in Google's search results. But it's also beneficial to users: if they buy through Lala, not only will they get the records, but they'll also get all the digital tracks on the LP immediately added to their Lala locker, which lets them listen to those tracks from any PC with an Internet connection. (I've been using Lala's excellent locker service for about a year. Basically, it uploads your entire music collection to the Web, then lets you add additional songs for only $0.10 apiece.) And if users like the deal, then they're more likely to use Google for future music searches. Wins all around.
And that gets me to the most exciting Lala announcement of all: The company has submitted its iPhone app to Apple and hopes to have it approved some time in November. The app will allow users to stream any song in their online Lala locker to their iPhone, over both 3G and Wi-Fi connections. Conceptually, it's similar to iPhone apps from Spotify (in Europe) and Rhapsody, but without the subscription fee; any song you've uploaded to your music locker will be available on your iPhone. And of course, you'll still be able to buy streaming-only versions of new songs for $0.10 a piece. (Lala might charge something like $5 for the app itself, but the company hasn't decided.) I'm getting an early look some time in the next few days. I'll try it and report back on how it works.
Say Tweetie, and most folks think: "I tawt I taw a puddy tat."
But as a social-networking kinda guy, Tweetie is the name of my favorite iPhone Twitter app.
Tweetie lets you access all the standard Twitter features on your iPhone. You can see and respond to the tweets you follow, post your own tweets, and search for tweets by keyword.
Tweetie has always offered a clean, simple interface. But with its newly-redesigned version 2.0, the app is even friendlier. The buttons to tweet, check mentions of your name, send a direct mail (DM), and search for tweets are now within easy access at the bottom of the screen.
Checking your own profile is also smoother. A single Profile screen displays your bio, location, and URL, as well as the number of your followers, those you're following, tweets, and favorites. Tapping on a category like Followers displays the names and photos of all the people tracking your tweets.
Tweetie 2.0 also sports a neat, new feature to let you update the list of tweets that you follow--simply drag your finger down the screen, and the newest tweets appear at the top with a pop.
Tweetie provides its own interface for viewing Web pages and other linked content in a tweet. Courtesy of the iPhone 3.0 update, the interface works in both portrait and landscape mode and offers options to view the page in Safari, e-mail a link to the page, or repost the link in your own tweet.
Options are plentiful when creating your own tweets. Like Twitter, Tweetie keeps track of every character you type, so you know when you're approaching that 140-character limit. You can attach photos or videos to your tweets, either by snapping them with the iPhone camera or grabbing them from your library. Your followers can then view them on yFrog, a site that lets you share images and video via Twitter.
Geotagging is another hot trend that Tweetie offers. You can add a Google Maps link to your current location in a tweet and search for other Twitter users in your area.
Like several other iPhone apps, Tweetie ran into trouble earlier this year with the Apple police, who initially denied approval of its 1.3 version over alleged naughty words in its Twitter Trends feed. Of course, Tweetie is just a conduit that displays whatever appears on Twitter, so it's ridiculous to ding the app for the content. Fortunately, Apple eventually OK'd the update, and it's been smooth sailing for Tweetie since then.
The Apple's App Store is loaded with other Twitter apps, and I've tried a variety of them--both free and paid, including Twitterrific and TweetDeck.
Twitter fans all have their own preferences. You can even vote for your favorite Twitter app.
But Tweetie is the app I've stuck with the longest, and the one I heartily recommend.
Tweetie 2.0 will set you back $2.99--even those of us who migrated from Tweetie 1.0 have to pay for the new edition. But the upgrade is well worth it. Tweetie 2.0 requires iPhone OS 3.0 or higher and is compatible with both the iPhone and iPod Touch.
The free ConcertVault iPhone app gives you streaming access to hundreds of live recordings.
Wolfgang's Vault is an online archive containing hundreds of high-quality concert recordings, mostly from big classic-rock artists like The Who and U2, but with a few newer artists, such as The Walkmen, thrown in as well. (Here's a complete list of performers whose recordings are available on the service.)
Last month, Wolfgang released an updated version of its much-lauded free iPhone application, Concert Vault, which gives you access to these amazing shows directly from your iPhone or iPod Touch.
The update adds a couple minor features, including a list of featured concerts--helpful for keeping track of shows that have been recently added to the vault--and fixes some reported problems with stuttering and stalling.
I've been listening to the Who's 1973 performances of "Quadrophenia" over a 3G connection for the last half hour, and so far, the app--and the band--are both performing flawlessly. This is a worthy update to a must-have download for live music fans.
Amp Up Before You Score iPhone app.
(Credit: Pepsi)PepsiCo has tweeted an apology on its Amp Energy Twitter account, as well as its Pepsi account, to those who may be offended by its new iPhone application, Amp Up Before You Score, which some have complained is insensitive to women.
"Our app tried 2 (sic) show the humorous lengths guys go 2 pick up women," a tweet read on Amp Energy's Twitter page. "We apologize if it's in bad taste & appreciate your feedback." The message was retweeted on Pepsi's official Twitter page.
The soft-drink maker stopped short of removing the free application from Apple's App Store.
Amp Up Before You Score is described by Pepsi as a "road map to success for your favorite kinds of women--24 in all." According to the company, the app first helps men "identify her type." To do so, the app shows a listing of "types of women" and features a "cheat sheet on the stuff she's into, with lists, links, and some surefire opening lines."
Perhaps the most suspect part of the app is the "Keep a List" function. The company describes that feature as such: "Get lucky? Add her to your brag list. You can include a name, date, and whatever details you remember."
After Pepsi released the app, people immediately took offense. Not only did Pepsi and its Amp Energy division hear it from Twitter users, the company also took shots from blogs that found the app particularly offensive. An overwhelming number of reviewers gave the app one star on its App Store page.
So far, Amp Up Before You Score is still available as a free download in Apple's App Store. If you want to see the app in action without downloading it, you can view a video from Pepsi here.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
