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  • Bing Thinks Students Are Getting Scroogled In Search Results

    Bing Thinks Students Are Getting Scroogled In Search Results

    A new school year has just started, and students everywhere will soon be using Google to search for everything from history to math. Bing wants in on that student search action, and it’s not afraid to do a little mudslinging to promote its new Bing for Schools initiative.

    If you couldn’t already guess, we’ve been blessed with another Scroogled ad today that compares a student’s search experience across both Google and Bing. The key difference – students using Bing for Schools don’t see ads and that’s it. Well, there’s a rewards program in Bing to give away $900 million worth of unsold Surface RT tablets to schools; but the search experience is largely the same.

    Wait, so what’s the big idea with seeing ads in search results? In the below video, Bing argues that students will pick up on how to refinance a loan or get cheaper auto insurance instead of learning about ancient Mesopotamia. I would argue that the former is more important, especially in our education system that doesn’t equip children with the knowledge necessary to survive in the real world, but this is neither the time or the place for that discussion. In short, ads are bad for the learning experience, or so says Bing.

    To test this theory, let’s do a quick search on Google and Bing for Mesopotamia to see what happens. Searching for Mesopotamia on Google brings up the usual Knowledge Graph information alongside a number of relevant links pointing to the history of the region at Web sites belonging to The British Museum and the University of Chicago.

    Bing Thinks Students Are Getting Scroogled In Search Results

    As for Bing, I’m pretty sure a student’s report on Mesopotamia won’t include facts about Mesopotamia Township, Ohio.

    Bing Thinks Students Are Getting Scroogled In Search Results

    To be fair, Bing does include some relevant links and some excellent related searches on the side. I’m just baffled that a search for Mesopotamia on Bing would find an Amish town in Ohio more relevant than links to The British Museum, the Ancient History Encyclopedia or the Wikipedia entry on the history of Mesopotamia.

    Oh, and Bing’s argument that ads impact the learning experience? It doesn’t hold water in the case of this search, and probably many others, because advertiers aren’t buying ad words related to ancient civilizations. In fact, a link to the promotional Web site of the Mesopotamia Township is more of an ad than anything in Google’s search results.

    [Image: Bing/Bing Video]
    [h/t: TechCrunch]

  • Robert Downey, Jr. Stars in Weird HTC Commercial

    Earlier this week, smartphone manufacturer HTC revealed that Robert Downey, Jr. will be the star of a new ad campaign for the company. The star of the Iron Man movies will be the company’s spokesperson for two years, with HTC reportedly spending billions on the marketing plan. A short teaser revealed that the first ad to star Downey will re-introduce HTC as a force for “change” (their buzzword) in the mobile industry.

    Now, the first full-length HTC ad starring Downey has been released. It plays on the theme of HTC’s initials, showing that they could, hypothetically, stand for anything. What exactly that means isn’t quite clear, but here’s the ad, which ends with Downey holding a cat:

    The ad is, obviously, a bid to bring HTC’s brand name back from obscurity. Though the manufacturer this year released a well-reviewed phone in the HTC One, it has continued to lose ground in the high-end smartphone market to Samsung. Dropping Windows Phone 8 would be a good start for an HTC comeback, though dropping millions on a celebrity spokesperson could be a gamble.

  • Robert Downey Jr. Is Your New HTC Spokesperson

    HTC has an image problem. Sure, the handset manufacturer has put out what is arguably the best phone of the year with the HTC One, but people still automatically think of Samsung and its Galaxy S4 when it comes to Android devices. Now the company is trying to win over the American public with the man who made Tony Stark a household name.

    HTC confirmed an earlier report today by announcing that Robert Downey Jr. has signed a deal that will make him the face of HTC for the next two years. The new marketing strategy is called “The Change” and it’s meant to celebrate “HTC’s disruptive impact on the mobile industry over its 17-year history.” You’ll see the first ad with Robert Downey Jr. appear on YouTube on Wednesday, and then it will start making its way to TV and cinemas later.

    Ben Ho, CMO of HTC, says that the new ad campaign will give the company to really highlight just how different HTC is from the competition:

    “HTC’s innovation, authenticity and boldness have made us the change-makers in the mobile industry and led us to launch what influencers regard as the best phone in the world, the HTC One. Our original and playful Change platform is different to anything else out there and aligns our brand with the same qualities our phones are already known for. With this campaign, we are affirming what HTC’s role is in the mobile market which is to define change and to lead the industry in developing the newest and most innovative technologies.”

    We won’t be able to see the first full ad until Wednesday, but HTC shared a little sneak peak today:

    What makes this ad campaign more interesting is that Downey Jr. himself is reportedly closely involved in its creation. HTC says that he’s working with its ad agency to “shape [the ad campaign’s] creative direction” by “offering a variety of unique interpretations of the HTC acronym.”

    Can Iron Man convince people to buy the HTC One or the upcoming HTC One Max? Time will be the judge of that, but at least HTC will be able to do better than the incredibly low bar set by Samsung’s ads for the Galaxy S4.

    [h/t: DroidLife]

  • First Galaxy S4 Ads Focus On Features, Not Making Fun Of Apple Fans

    First Galaxy S4 Ads Focus On Features, Not Making Fun Of Apple Fans

    Samsung loves making fun of Apple and its fans with its ads. It’s kind of become a tradition now that every major Samsung product launch takes a dig at the people who wait in line outside Apple stores for the latest iDevice. That’s probably not going to change with the Galaxy S4, but Samsung isn’t poking fun just yet.

    Samsung released the first Galaxy S4 ads today with all three focusing on a specific feature that’s being introduced with Samsung’s latest flagship device. The first is for Sound Shot – a feature that lets users record sounds alongside their pictures.

    The second is for Group Play – a strange feature that has users syncing their phones to all play the same song. It seems a little unnecessary, but hey, somebody will probably get a kick out of it.

    The final ad is for S Translator – an app that is basically Samsung’s version of Google Translate.

    If you were expecting a bit more humor out of the Galaxy S4 ads, you’ll probably have to wait closer to launch. Speaking of which, the launch shouldn’t be that far away as AT&T will start taking pre-orders for the device on April 16 with a rumored launch sometime in early May.

    [h/t: Droid Life]

  • Make Your Kids (And Potential Employers) Think You’re Smarter Than You Are With The Google Search App

    Google has put out a couple new ads for its Search App. The last time they did that (in November), we saw a little girl and her mother figure out how to come up with a Martin Van buren costume and an umpire use Voice Search to look up the strike zone in a baseball game.

    In the new ones, we see a dad explaining Mars to his son, using info from Google to answer all questions without hesitation, and a guy getting ready for a job interview using search by image to figure out what his potential employer’s painting is, so he can start a conversation with him.

  • Don’t Want Ads On Your Kindle Fire? That’ll Be $15

    From the moment they were revealed, Amazon has been calling the new Kindle Fire models a service. The tablet is an impressive piece of hardware, for sure, but it’s more than that for Amazon. It’s a way for the retailer to personally connect with its user base. To that end, ads will be displayed on the Kindle Fire HD’s lock screen.

    It was those very same ads that had users up in arms last week after the news was revealed. Why should they have to view ads when they already spent $199 on a tablet? Amazon was quick to point out that the ads in question would only be for special promotions and sales through Amazon. It’s not like they’re interrupting the user experience like so many Web sites do today. So what’s the big deal?

    People feel entitled to an ad-free experience when they buy a piece of hardware. It’s understandable, and Amazon will be happy to oblige… for a price. The company told CNET on Saturday that users will be able to pay a small one-time fee of $15 to remove ads from the lock screen. They were, however, quick to point out that most users “love [their] special offers and very few people choose to opt out.”

    It should be noted that the ads you loathe so much are the real reason why Amazon is able to offer their tablets for such low prices. It goes back to Amazon saying the Kindle line is more of a service than hardware. You pay for a service, but it’s still loaded with ads to offset the cost of said service. At least Amazon is offering consumers a choice. Other services, like television, don’t offer much choice in this regard.

    Amazon has been pioneering the idea of placing ads on the sleep and lock screens of their devices for a while now. It’s still a huge area of untapped potential for advertisers. It will be interesting to see if Apple or Google start selling ad space on the iPad or Nexus 7 home screen. Advertisers would buy in to it, but would consumers be welcome to the idea?

  • Facebook Settles In Sponsored Stories Lawsuit

    Facebook has settled a lawsuit over their Sponsored Stories feature out of court today. The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed. A document filed yesterday (PDF) notified the court that the parties in the case had reached a settlement agreement which would be formalized in a second document to be filed today.

    According to Reuters, that document has been filed today and the settlement has officially been reached. The terms of the settlement are not clear at present, however, as the court documents do not disclose them.

    The class action suit was filed last year in U.S. District Court in California. The plaintiffs alleged that Facebook was publishing their activity without their consent through the use of its Sponsored Stories feature. Sponsored Stories is Facebook’s attempt to blend its advertising with basic social networking features. In a nutshell, companies with Facebook pages pay Facebook extra to ensure that when you like that company’s brand page, Facebook makes a point of letting all your friends know about it by publishing it to their newsfeeds with the heading “Sponsored Story.” Case in point:

    Sponsored Stories

    The big problem with all this is that Facebook doesn’t give you the chance to opt out. If a company has paid Facebook to use you to promote their brand, then Facebook is going to use you to promote their brand. As you might imagine, some people had a problem with this, and numerous lawsuits were filed, including this one and another in British Columbia.

  • Samsung Galaxy S III Gets An Emotional First Ad

    Today, Samsung announced the newest addition to the Galaxy line – the Galaxy S III. The much-anticipated smartphone will hit Europe on May 29th and North America after that, on an undisclosed date during the summer.

    As part of that announcement, Samsung has also unveiled the first commercial for the new device, and let’s just say they try to tug on the heartstrings. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering the announcement presentation in London was such a lavish affair (I mean, they had a symphony orchestra).

    The ad takes us through images of marriage, babies, beach play, and fathers snuggling with daughters. The point is, it’s rather dramatic. According to the ad, the Galaxy S III understands you, shares what’s in you heart, keeps track of loved ones, recognizes who you are, follows your every move, sees your best side, shares the warmth of nature, and waits till you’re asleep. These little taglines probably correspond to some of the new smartphone’s features like NFC file sharing, face-unlock technology, and the Siri-like S-voice feature.

    Check it out below:

    Other, more technical features of the Galaxy S III include:

    • 1.4 Ghz Exynos 4 quad-core CPU
    • 1 GB RAM
    • 4.8-inch Super AMOLED screen with 1280×720 resolution
    • 2100 mAh battery
    • 8 Megapixel rear camera
    • The device is 8.6 mm thick and weighs 133 g
    • The phone comes in either “pebble blue” or “marble white”

    For more on the unveiling of the device, check out our previous specs and features coverage.

    [h/t GottaBeMobile]

  • Tumblr Begins Selling Ads For Spotlight & Radar

    Tumblr today announced that ads can now be purchased for display in its Spotlight page or on Tumblr Radar. Business Insider is reporting that these ads start out costing $25,000 per ad. As you can see above, the ads will be accompanied by a dollar sign symbol next to the Follow button, indicating its placement has been paid for rather than earned.

    The Tumblr Spotlight page is curated by Tumblr editors to feature interesting and creative Tumblr blogs. Tumblr claims the site “drives tens of millions” of follows each week. The new advertisements will be placed “front-and-center,” right in the middle of these featured blogs.

    The Tumblr Radar is similar to Tumblr Spotlight, but is seen on the sidebar of Tumblr pages. Tumblr states that Radar gets more than 120 million daily impressions and that advertisers will get “a dedicated share” of those views.

    It’s always a sad day for a community when ads start appearing in places where users expect pure content. However, Tumblr does have monetize its business somehow. Though there was initial pushback against Twitter’s promoted tweets, users quickly adapted and the tweeted ads have now become very effective.

    In case you were wondering, the “Capitol Couture” ad seen in the above example is a blog set up by the Lionsgate movie studio to show off fashion designs based on the movie The Hunger Games.

    What do you think? Are you itching to plop down your 25K to be featured on Tumblr? Think the site just jumped the shark now that it allows these ads? Leave a comment below and let us know.

  • See Printers Destroyed In Slow Motion In This Viral Ad

    It’s Friday, which means a week’s worth of tensions, anger, resentment, and frustration has been building and is ready to burst. Not toward your actual job or your coworkers – the target of all of this is most likely your office equipment. You know, that damn stapler that gets jammed, or that damn copier that won’t copy. But most of all, the object that draws the most ire and can bring a grown man weeping to his knees is the printer.

    The loathsome printer.

    First, a primal scream breaks the trance induced by the furious beats. “I HATE PRINTERS,” yells Andy. What follows next is sweet catharsis – an ax bears down on our bulky villain, spilling its entrails. A beautiful note rises high above the madness, as our hero mercilessly strikes the printer in slow motion.

    Next comes Sally with the sledgehammer, and the destruction continues.

    “On March 29th 2012, at an undisclosed address in South London, several printers died while making this film.” Check out their glorious deaths below:

    The video you just watched is an part of an advertising campaign from Bytes Document Solutions. “Whatever the size of your fleet and whatever brands you use, we can take away your frustration and pain by providing you with a fully managed print service,” they say. We hope that their technique of taking away pain and frustration doesn’t actually involve smashing all of the office equipment.

    This is only part one of a three-part series, with parts two and three coming soon. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think it’s possible to get tired of watching people destroy office equipment with axes and hammers. So bring’em on.

    Before you say anything, I know what this reminds you of. Here it is, no need to ask (NSFW):

    [via The Register]

  • Facebook Shrinks Ads To Cram More Ads Onto Your Page

    As if it wasn’t enough for Facebook to start affixing ads in every nook possible, now it appears that the social networking site is changing the requirements for ads so as to push even more ads into the extant ad-laden areas. According to a new document laying out the policy, “Premium and Marketplace Product: Specifications and Best Use Cases,” ads will not only have a lower maximum character count but also smaller image specs. Anyone wanna take a guess as to why?

    Several types of Marketplace ads stand to be affected by the new size requirements, such as ads for Likes, Apps, Events, and Standard ads that drive traffic offsite. Formerly, Facebook required images in ads to be 110 x 80 pixels and restricted text to 135 characters. The new specifications, which will take effect on March 31, will limit ad images to be 99 x 72 pixels and text to 90 characters. Inside Facebook noticed that, although the new specifications aren’t technically in place until the end of March, Facebook has already started automatically resizing ad images to 99 x 72.

    The new specifications will reduce the size of ads enough that, instead of squeezing six ads into a sidebar, Facebook will be able to cram seven ads into that allotted space. See the scale of images below using the WPN logo. While there isn’t any text included next to these images, it should give you an idea of how the new specifications will affect the amount of ads that can be fit into a space.

    This recalibration of ad sizes in order to fit more ads onto a Facebook page accompanies the company’s decision to begin including ads into users’ feeds (so as to monetize the mobile Facebook experience), which was announced at fMC last month. Ahead of Facebook’s initial public offering, the company seems to be racing to make every single aspect of the site a potential source of profit. I don’t know why they’re trying to be subtle about it, though – why stop at seven when you could shave off a few more pixels and wallop users with eight?

    The thing is, Facebook was already wildly profitable but it acts like its still got a ton of convincing to do for investors to start throwing money into the company. Unfortunately, Facebook’s tactic for convincing those investors carries the consequence of turning your Facebook newsfeed, profile, and all your Facebook relationships into piñatas that they plan to beat to death until some money shakes out of it.

  • Covering The Three Little Pigs In a Social Media Era

    How would the modern world cover the conspiracy surrounding The Three Little Pigs? Would they blame the wolf? Would Twitter trends pop up in support of the Wolf’s plight? What about the Pigs? Would their hard scrabble life–having to move again and again because of unsound housing conditions, which were exacerbated by their natural predator–make them sympathetic figures while they were being arrested for murdering the Wolf?

    Would Facebook accounts pop up here, there and everywhere supporting either side of the coin?

    If The Guardian’s awesome commercial for open journalism is accurate, then yes, all of the above would happen in short order. Actually, you don’t need the commercial to confirm things we already know. Just ask the movements surrounding #Occupy, SOPA, and ACTA. Without the help of social media keeping these unsatisfied factions in the loop, how successful would the SOPA-protesting Internet blackout have been?

    It is, however, impressive to see such a succinct take on The Guardian’s part, because they absolutely nailed it. This is exactly how a connected public would react to such a story, even if they knew all the facts or not. Whether it’s the investigating blogger digging for facts or the random Facebook supporter joining the popular trend their friends are taking part in, the proliferation of electronic communication and the devices that allow us this luxury has made this kind of reality very, very real.

    And The Guardian captured this phenomenon perfectly.

  • Racist Super Bowl Commercial Lands Michigan Politician In Hot Water

    It appears that M.I.A.’s middle finger wasn’t the most offensive thing to happen during Sunday night’s Super Bowl. During a Super Bowl where the ads failed to impress (for the most part), one regional commercial is sparking claims of blatant racism.

    The political ad, put out by the campaign of Michigan’s Pete Hoekstra, aims to use the issue of government spending to swipe at his opponent – not an uncommon topic for a campaign ad in today’s political climate. But it’s the way in which he’s presenting the message that has spurred the controversy.

    Pete Hoekstra, a Republican, is a former Michigan Congressman who is running for the GOP Senate nomination. His would-be opponent is Democrat Debbie Stabenow, a two-term incumbent. Hoekstra’s Super Bowl ad, which only ran in Michigan, features an Asian woman, strings of broken English, rice fields, and the message that Senator Stabenow’s practices are helping China grow, while hurting Americans.

    Check it out below:

    Hoekstra labels Senator Stabenow “DebbieSpendItNow,” and you can see from the commercial why some folks find it a bit over the line: “Thank you, Michigan Senator Debbie SpendItNow. Debbie spends so much American money. You borrow more and more from us. Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs. Thank you, Debbie SpendItNow.”

    The backlash has been pretty severe. The LA Times quotes the Asian & Pacific Islander American Vote group as saying:

    [We’re} deeply disappointed. [It] plays on harmful stereotypes of Asians speaking broken English and has stereotypical Chinese music playing in the background. It is very disturbing that Mr. Hoekstra’s campaign chose to use harmful and negative stereotypes that intrinsically encourage anti-Asian sentiment.

    Michigan politicians have called the ad “shameful” and said that his tactics are “ignorant and bigoted.”

    And even some GOP colleagues are calling Hoekstra out for the ad. A Michigan GOP consultant said “Stabenow has got to go. But shame on Pete Hoekstra for that appalling new advertisement. Racism and xenophobia aren’t any way to get things done.”

    And Mike Murphy had this to say:

    (image)@murphymike
    mike murphy    Pete Hoekstra Superbowl TV ad in MI Senate race really, really dumb. I mean really.(image) 1 day ago via Twittelator ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    But Hoekstra isn’t backing down, in the slightest.

    We knew we were taking an aggressive approach on this. But this is a time where the people in Michigan and across the country are fed up with the spending, and we wanted to capture that frustration that they had with Washington, D.C.,” he said. “This ad … hits Debbie smack dab between the eyes on the issue where she is vulnerable with the voters of Michigan, and that is spending

    And on Twitter:

    (image)@petehoekstra
    Pete Hoekstra    Maddow promoting ad on her website. She doesn’t like it because it hits Ds where it hurts – spending!(image) 20 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    He’s also still standing behind this donation website (debbiespenditnow.com):

    (image)

    What do you guys think? Is the campaign ad fair play? Or is it racist and way over the line? Let us know in the comments.

  • Volkswagen’s Super Bowl Ad: Dogs Bark The Imperial March, Look To Out-Viral Little Vader

    Volkswagen is trying to use the never-ending popularity of both dogs and Star Wars to strike viral gold again, as they have released the teaser trailer for their upcoming Super Bowl advert.

    Check out a preview of “The Bark Side,” set to run during the big game between the 49ers and the Steelers. Oh, wait, the Steelers are out of it? I almost forgot about them losing to the Denver Tebows – my mistake. Carry on:

    Dogs, the Imperial March and an AT-AT cameo? What’s not to love? The video is well on its way to becoming a viral mega-hit with nearly 500K views as of the writing of this article.

    Of course, the legendary viral smash that this video looks to match is last year’s “The Force” ad. You remember that adorable little kid in the Vader costume, right? To refresh your memory:

    “The Bark Side” has a long way to go to match “The Force,” which has over 48.6 million views on YouTube. It might not be as good as this rejected Doritos ad, but I’d say it has a chance, what do you think?

  • Apple’s First iPhone 4S Ad Is All About Siri

    From the moment that Apple announced that the iPhone 4S would include the voice assistant program Siri, it has been one of the most talked-about features of the new phone. It’s certainly one of the biggest draws for those who purchase the device.

    It appears that Apple is well-aware of that fact, as they have based their first iPhone 4S commercial around Siri.

    The ad demonstrates the wide variety of ways in which Siri can assist iPhone 4S users. In the ad, Siri aids people in fixing a flat tire, tying a bowtie, finding the nearest hospital, checking the weather, setting reminders, scheduling meetings, setting alarms, playing some Coltrane, finding a locksmith and, of course, discovering what a weasel looks like. It’s an effective ad that shows all the real word uses of Siri.

    Check it out below:

    Of course, Siri can help you out with real-life problems, but people are finding out that Siri can be a pretty good source of entertainment as well. Users have been having a blast by asking Siri questions that you might call “off the beaten path,” like “Siri, open the pod bay doors.” In perfect reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Siri sometimes responds “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

    More on those little Easter Eggs here.

    It’s not all fun and games for Siri, however, as a couple of problems have already sprung up regarding its functionality. Various YouTube videos have confirmed that Siri isn’t that great at deciphering English spoken with certain accents – most notably Scottish and Japanese.

    And Siri also provides a slight security risk. We learned that by default, Siri can bypass your iPhone’s passcode to perform tasks like sending emails, texts and making calls. This can easily be remedied by turning off Siri functionality for locked devices, but the fact that it is able bypass the lock by default is troubling to some users.

    Have you had a chance to interact with Siri? What do you think? Let us know in the comments.