Can you sing, dance, breathe fire, swallow swords, walk a tightrope, burp musicals, or any other interesting and impressive feat? For the third year in a row, you have the chance to get discovered and appear on America’s Got Talent, just by uploading a video to YouTube.
YouTube has just announced the beginning of the submission stage for America’s Got Talent‘s online portion of the competition.
You have until June 1 at 11:59pm ET to show what you can do, and the folks from NBC will post the top 20 finalists to America’s Got Talent’s YouTube Channel. Like before, everyone around the world can then vote from June 25 to July 7 to select The YouTube People’s Choice Winner—earning a guaranteed spot on the show that’s sponsored by Snapple.
Last year, America’s Got Talent devoted an enitre show to YouTube hopefuls, and it appears that they will do the same this year. Those “AGT YouTube Special” episodes are set to tape August 14th and 15th.
During the first year that AGT partnered with YouTube to provide some of the talent for the show, YouTube audition winner Jackie Evancho went on to a runner-up finish.
This year you’re going to have to impress Howard Stern, so if you have some sort of breast-related talent, make sure you submit a video for your chance to make it on the show.
Google kicked off their annual Code Jam last week that sees programmers from all over the world competing to solve various algorithms. Our own Micael Marr participated in the qualification round and even live blogged his attempts to answer the questions. It seems that Google is upping the stakes for the Code Jam by offering Google I/O tickets to developers who can solve a challenge tomorrow.
You heard that right, folks. The Google I/O tickets that sold out in 20 minutes this year and made countless developers all riled up that they couldn’t get one. Google is offering you a second chance to get your hands on some of those tickets. The only thing you have to do is be at Google Developer’s Google+ page tomorrow at 7:00 a.m PDT. Google will post a two-part challenge with the first 100 developers who solve it given a chance to buy Google I/O tickets.
If the excitement made you skip that last sentence, let me repeat that for you. Google is only offering you the chance to buy Google I/O tickets. This is a contest where the award is spending $900 to attend a conference that sold out within minutes this year.
Of course, there are some people who have the money and are willing to do anything to get a hold of those tickets. For those who want to participate, Google has some advice for you. First, you’ll want to register in advance. Considering how crazy people are for those Google I/O tickets, registering right now would be the best option. If you need a warm up or some help, Google also has the usual guide and questions to get you started on your quest to spend money on Google I/O tickets.
As an aside, if this is Google’s way of getting back into developer’s good books, I’m not buying it. I’m sure plenty of people are going to take part in this tournament, but making developers buy the prize is a pretty rotten move. It’s like if Charlie found the Golden Ticket, but then Wonka forced him to pay a fee to actually take the tour of the Chocolate Factory. Sure, the rich kids who found their tickets will be able to go in, but the real dreamers, in this case developers, are being locked out of attending something that would be beneficial to them.
Do you think Google should charge the winners for the I/O tickets? Or at least give them a discount? Let us know in the comments.
Some lucky moviegoers will have the chance to see The Avengers a little bit early, as Marvel is running a couple of contests via Facebook.
The first contest comes to you from Marvel and Harley-Davidson, who are giving away two tickets to the official world premiere event in Hollywood. The prize doesn’t included accommodations or travel, but will receive “goodwill” if they make it to Hollywood on a Harley-Davidson. The contest was announced on Facebook, and fans can enter here.
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While this contest is merely being promoted on Facebook, another contest announced on Monday involves actual Facebook likes. Disney’s Marvel Studios say that a few lucky cities will be getting advance screenings of the film, about three weeks before the nationwide release on May 4th.
Cities like L.A., NYC, Chicago, Miami, and Houston are already getting advance screenings, but there will be another five U.S. cities that will get the film early. That’s where Facebook comes into play. The amount of Facebook fans from participating cities will be the determining factor in where the advance screenings land.
The Avengers is set to be one of (if not the) biggest blockbuster of the summer (The Dark Knight Rises may argue). Check out the trailer below:
The action in The Dark Knight Rises takes place eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, and to fans of the films it probably feels like they have been waiting longer than that for the next chapter in the Batman saga. The film is set to hit screens worldwide on July 20th, so we all still have a ways to go to see the most-anticipated film of 2012. But artists can pass the time with a new The Dark Knight Rises T-shirt contest.
And not just any T-shirt contest – but one that’s actually going to be judged by the man behind the film, Christopher Nolan.
The contest comes to us courtesy of DesginByHumans, an “ongoing T-shirt design competition and community where artists and t-shirt lovers create, buy, and talk about art and t-shirts.”
Contest entrants are to submit their T-shirt designs through DesignByHumans, and all entries will be reviewed by them as well as Warner Bros. Ten finalists will be selected out of the best entires. From that batch, the best three designs will be chosen by none other than Christopher Nolan himself (and producer Emma Thomas). DesignByHumans will pay out to 5 places, with the 1st place winner receiving $3,500 plus 12 shirts of their choice.
There are a couple of other more specific rules involving submissions. IF you’re going to use the Batman emblem in your design, it has to be the official Bat Emblem from The Dark Knight Rises. They also want this contest to be about the upcoming film, not any past films. That means your design shouldn’t incorporate past villians like Two-Face, Joker, and Scarecrow – only ones appearing in TDKR (Bane, Catwoman).
The contest began on Monday and submissions end on April 11th. There will be an online voting period until April 22nd and the 5th place winner will be announced on April 30th.
Apple has a special prize for whoever downloads the 25 billionth app from the App Store: a big, fat $10,000 iTunes gift card (which you can spend on apps, music, and books, or course).
There are two ways in which you can enter the contest. The first is simple – you download an app. The second is a way to enter without downloading anything. If you’ve got all the apps you need, you can enter with the alternate entry form.
The winner will be whoever downloads that 25 billionth app, or whoever submits the entry form as soon as the 24,999,999,999th app is downloaded. Apple explains it like this:
Sponsor is the sole judging organization whose decisions as to the operation of the Promotion and the selection of the potential winner are final and binding in all matters related to the Promotion. The prize will be awarded for the entry (either through an app download or through the non-purchase online entry) sent immediately following the download of the 24,999,999,999th app. Any download counter displayed by Sponsor is for illustrative purposes only. The potential winner will be determined by the order of the entries received. In the event that more than one entrant would be a winner based on the simultaneous timing of entries, one entrant will be randomly selected from those entrants as the winner. Each entrant’s chances of winning are dependent upon the number of eligible entries received.
Whether you are downloading apps or submitting forms, you can only do it 25 times per day, per iTunes account.
Apple says they will announce the winner in about 10 days after the 25 billionth download occurs. Somebody’s gonna win, might as well be you, right?
Do you have a gripe about the current state of filmmaking? Do you long for the golden age where (most) ideas were original and the world had never even heard of Michael Bay? If so, you can voice your critiques of modern cinema while possibly winning free Redbox rentals for a year.
Sunday night is Oscar night, and it’s also the kickoff of Bing’s “Movies Were Best When” sweepstakes. Bing wants you to tweet you best responses on February 26th for the chance to win the free Redbox rentals. all you have to do is tweet your response @ the Bing Twitter account and use the hashtag #MoviesWereBestWhen.
Bing will then choose 25 winners from all the tweets they receive on that day.
Some of the details:
During the Entry Period, a question will be posted, prompting you to reply with your answer, @-mention Bing within the post, and the hashtag #MoviesWereBestWhen. You have until the end of the Entry Period to submit a response to the Sweepstakes question.
Your Tweet must include an answer to our question, the “hashtag” #MoviesWereBestWhen, and tag @Bing.
By posting a tweet that answers the question posed by @Bing, you will automatically receive one (1) entry to the Sweepstakes. You can post only one answer and are limited to one (1) entry per person/twitter ID during the Entry Period. You must remain a follower until March 26, 2012 to be contacted if you win.
So, you have to follow Bing and stay a follower of Bin on Twitter to claim your prize. The prize will be given out as 7,800 Bing Rewards Credits. If you aren’t familiar with Bing Rewards Credits, it’s an initiative launched back in 2010 that allows Bing users to earn points by using Bing services. These points can then be redeemed for prizes like gift cards and such.
According to Bing, a year’s worth of rentals equals 52 movies – or one a week. Some of us might blow through more than 1 movie a week, but hey, 52 free movies for a single tweet isn’t a bad deal.
Valentine’s Day is tomorrow and at this point in our hyper-consumer age it’s no longer novel or ideal to decry how this is a prefab holiday devised by Hallmark and chocolate confectioners in order to sponge up money from all-to-eager sweethearts ready to fork it over in the name of love. Instead, this year, stop worrying and learn to love the Valentine’s bomb.
Dunkin’ Donuts certainly wants you to do that, and that’s why they’re promoting a new contest on Twitter that promises to shower coffee and sweet baked goods all over three lucky winners. Because nothing says “I love you” like a romantic trip to your local Dunkin’ Donuts, winners will receive $25 gift cards for themselves and their Valentine – that’s $50 in Dunkinbucks! – with which they can lovingly encourage their dates to supersize those crullers and custard-filleds. All anybody needs to do in order to enter is tweet @dunkindonuts about who they want to share a heart-shaped donut with and then use the hashtag #CupiDD.
Who knows, maybe this is an awesome date in the minds of some people. I love coffee and simplicity and lord knows I have an insatiable sweet tooth, so this would probably work for me. Then again, any contest that features a double-D cupid will probably have interesting results however you approach it (yes, Dunkin’ Donuts, I saw what you did there).
Science fairs have come a long way from the days of those white cardboard tri-fold displays you had to decorate with construction paper letters and very messy Elmer’s glue. In my youth, we were tasked with menial experiments like investigating which object has the most buoyancy when placed in orange juice or how to make a baking soda volcano. We were hardly doing anything meaningful, like curing cancer.
Because they like to be involved in literally everything there is, Google has partnered with CERN, The LEGO Group, National Geographic and Scientific American to launch their second annual Google Science Fair. As Google says, it’s the “largest online science competition in the world, open globally to students ages 13-18.” Check out their accompanying video that introduces this year’s competition and, while you’re at it, note how much more compelling the competition’s mission is because of the British accented voiceover:
An update on Google’s official blog goes on to explain more about the competition:
This year’s fair will be even more global than the last: We’re now accepting submissions in 13 languages (Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Spanish and Russia). We will also be recognizing 90 regional finalists (30 from the Americas, 30 from the Asia Pacific and 30 from Europe/Middle East/Africa). From these 90, to be announced in May, our judges will select the top 15 finalists, who will be flown to Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. for our live Google Science Fair final event on July 23, 2012. At the finals, a panel of distinguished international judges (like Vint Cerf, Sylvia Earle and Nobel Laureates David Gross and Ada Yonath) will select top winners in each age category (13-14, 15-16, 17-18).
We’re also introducing a new category for this year’s competition—the Scientific American Science in Action award. We were so inspired by 2011 finalist Harine Ravichandran’s project, which attempted to solve energy surges in rural villages, that we decided to recognize an outstanding project that addresses a social, environmental or health need to make a difference in the lives of a group or community, as Harine’s project did for her grandparents’ village in India. The winner will also be flown to Mountain View for the finalist event in July.
Good lord. When I was a sixteen-year-old girl, I wasn’t doing anything nearly as meaningful as solving energy surges in rural village in India. It’s humbling what these kids are capable of these days. And here all anybody wants to worry about is the scourge of sexting among adolescent and how our culture is slowly eroding any sense of morality in today’s youth. Bullfeathers. These Google Science Fair kids are future human supreme.
Today is the ribbon-cutting moment of the 2012 edition of Google Science Fair and submissions will be accepted until Sunday, April 1 at 11:59 GMT (I’m presuming that’s the PM version of 11:59 but the Google post didn’t specify so maybe it’d be better for all involved parties to not wait till the last minute to get your submission in, eh kids?). To get your appetite for science growling, Google is offering prizes such as a $50,000 college scholarship and a 10-day trip to Galapagos (go get yer Darwin on, young brainiacs!).
Additional information was included in Google’s email announcement that highlight changes to this year’s competition in order to “make it even more global”:
Submissions will be accepted in 13 languages (compared to English-only last year)
There will be 90 regional finalists: 30 each from the Americas, Europe/Middle East/Africa, and Asia Pacific
A “Science in Action” award, sponsored by Scientific American — for a project that addresses a social, environmental or health issue to make a practical difference in the lives of a group or community
Do any of you readers know of any teenagers that participated in last year’s Google Science Fair? If so, tell us a bit more about them in the comments.
The idyllic college experience: meeting new people with shared eccentricities and fun hair, figuring out how to work a pick-up line at the School of Americas protest, making yourself shower at least four times a week, developing strategic ways to covertly gratify yourself when you share a cramped dorm room with another human being. Those lovely days, unfortunately, are long gone (well, people probably still do that last one). Now, paying for college goes way, way beyond the simple price tag of the tuition. The astronomical cost of actually staying alive while in college is absurdly high. Even a steady diet of instant ramen noodles and drinking water out of puddles in your driveway isn’t really enough frugality to offset the crippling financial demand of attending college.
To help calculate the lifetime of unpayable debt students can look forward to, the U.S. Department of Education implemented a new policy for all college and universities to include a “net price calculator” on their websites so prospective students can get an idea of how many lifetimes they’ll spend paying off their debt loans. Perhaps realizing that this wasn’t quite enough to really get that message to sink in, the Department of Ed has created a challenge for high school and college students to help spread the word about how terribly expensive college is.
Oddly named the “College Net Price Calculator Student Video Challenge” (seriously, guys, you couldn’t name it in such a way that it’d have a cute acronymic name?), the contest is an effort to use students’ first-hand misery to help spread the word about just how costly it is to go to college these days. From the contest’s website:
Net price provides very important consumer information to prospective students and their families, but few students and families know to ask colleges and universities about their net prices or to look for a net price calculator on an institution’s website. The Department of Education is announcing a prize challenge for the creation of a short (approximately 60-180 second) creative and informational video that tells viewers about what net price calculators are, why they are important, and where viewers will find them – both on college and university websites and also on the Department’s college search website, College Navigator (http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/).
Students have until January 31, 2012 submit their video that explains the deathly cost of enrolling in college. A panel of five independent judges will be selecting three winners, each of whom will be awarded a prize of $1,500. Wow, way to break the bank for kids, Department of Education. That sum wouldn’t even cover 6 hours of credit at my state-funded alma mater.
In all honesty, they should reconfigure the marketing of this video contest and just use it as a platform to discourage people from going to college. How is a bachelor’s degree even worth it anymore?
This week, we looked at comments from Nokia’s director of portfolio, product management and sales, Niels Munksgaard. He is quoted as saying:
“What we see is that youth are pretty much fed up with iPhones. Everyone has the iPhone,” he said. “Also, many are not happy with the complexity of Android and the lack of security. So we do increasing see that the youth that wants to be on the cutting edge and try something new are turning to the Windows phone platform.”
@MrGelgel Gelgel#droidrage ihave virus in my android phone and try to install new software but it is very complicated and now i use my old nokia 110012 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto
@pdedecker Pieter De DeckerWhile Microsoft tries to cater to disgruntled Android users with the #droidrage giveaway, Windows Phone is dealing with an SMS exploit.2 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto
While some lucky Android fans have already gotten their hands on the brand new Samsung Galaxy Nexus with all that yummy Ice Cream Sandwichy goodness, folks here in the States are still waiting for an official release date. While you wait on that announcement, you might as well try to win a free one.
The Google Nexus Twitter account (@googlenexus) is on day 7 of a series of challenges, run entirely through twitter, that give winners a free Galaxy Nexus (whenever they end up arriving).
The Galaxy Nexus Challenge (the “Contest”) is a skill contest where participants must submit via Twitter solutions to puzzles, photo challenges and essay questions (“Solutions”) to win prizes. The Solutions will be evaluated by judges, who will choose the daily winning entries in accordance with these Official Rules. The prize(s) will be awarded to participant(s) whose Solution is evaluated as having the highest score in the judging criteria.
There has so far been a contest every day since November 12th, each asking Twitter followers to submit answers to questions, or solve some sort of puzzle. Evey response is limited to the 140 characters that Twitter allows.
Today’s contest, the 7th, is particularly fun – it’s a poetry contest. If you want a free Galaxy Nexus, you must submit the most creative, original, and humorous reverse Cinquain poem of the lot. Here are the rules, via Twitter:
@googlenexus Google NexusChal. 7 Write a reverse Cinquain on why you should win a #GalaxyNexus. Form: 5 lines w/ # syllables 2 / 8 / 6 / 4 / 2. Use / for line breaks4 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
With the way folks are feeling about the U.S. release of the phone, maybe a more accurate poem would be –
Hey guys
Don’t make me buy a damn iPhone
Or this new Droid RAZR
I’m impatient
No joke
All kidding aside, you should put on your thinking caps and try to win a free Galaxy Nexus. The official rules peg the value on that to be $500 (activation and service plan not included of course). Make sure to mention @googlenexus in your poem tweets and use the hashtag #nexuspoetsociety.
As a promotional contest designed to push Bing Shopping, Bing has launched a one-day sweepstakes that will give $100 Amazon gift cards to five lucky participants. And it’s all taking place on Twitter.
The contest involves tweeting your all-time best costume to Bing, and if Bing selects your idea and retweets it, you win the money.
With Halloween right around the corner, people are racking their brains to come up with creative costume ideas.
Well, we want to help those folks find some inspiration so we’re inviting you to share your best Halloween costumes with @Bing. Simply tell us your all-time best costume and we will give five lucky respondents a $100 Amazon gift card for sharing.
In order to enter, you must follow @Bing on Twitter. Then, you tweet your all-time best costume @Bing with the hashtag #BingHalloween. If yours is picked, you win.
The contest is running today, October 25th, from 10 am to 8 pm EST. The five winners will be selected throughout the day. Each Twitter handle only gets one entry.
What was the best Halloween costume you ever designed? Tell Bing and tell us in the comments.
Sunday night was the big premiere of season 2 of AMC’s hit zombie survival show The Walking Dead, based on the brilliant graphic series created by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore.
Although season 2 is already a wrap, it looks like you might have a chance to play a small role in season 3 – as a zombie.
AMC has teamed up with Bing for the Walking Dead Sweepstakes, a contest to give one lucky person a chance to test out their limb-dragging, entrails-eating, vacant-expression skills with a walk-on role. The prize includes a trip for two to the set of The Walking Dead season 3, roundtrip airfare, hotel accommodations, and $500 cash.
Only the winner (not the guest) will win the part on the show. He/she will be “transformed into the flesh-eating dead by Greg Nicotero’s creature team,” and if you’ve seen the show, you know what awesome zombie-creators those guys are.
Did you guys watch the season 3 premiere? What did you think? Personally, I thought that it was great, and definitely sets up the possibility for an incredible season (and this is coming from a guy who was disappointed by season 1). Will it fill the Breaking Bad-sized void in my life? That remains to be seen, but I’m undoubtedly impressed.
If you want to relive the key highlights from the season 2 premiere, check out this video below –
Do you follow @NASA on Twitter? If you don’t, you should, because followers of NASA are about to get the chance to hang around Kennedy Space Center and hobnob with all the awesome NASA people on November 23rd-25th.
Oh, and at the end of that you’ll get a front row seat at the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover. That rover will be investigating a certain area of Mars to check whether or not it ever offered “conditions favorable for microbial life” and if so, whether or not the area could have preserved evidence of that life.
NASA is selecting 150 lucky people to come to Florida for a “tweetup,” a meetup organized via Twitter. To register, you have to be a registered Twitter user and you also have to follow @NASA or @NASATweetup (or other NASA Twitter accounts).
NASA is no stranger to Tweetups, having organized many in the past. Previous tweetups have brought people to see shuttle launches, The World Science Festival as well as the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Registration for this experience will open at noon on Wednesday, October 5th and run until noon on Friday, October 7th. NASA will select the 150 people randomly from all the signups. Everyone else gets put on a waiting list. You can register even if you aren’t a U.S. citizen, but spots are for you and you alone. No plus 1’s and they are non-transferable.
You can follow the contest on the @NASA or @NASATweetup accounts and with the hashtag #NASATweeup. NASA says they hope to announce the winners by October 12th.
If selected, you’re going to have to find your own way there, however. But the VIP 3-day NASA experience should be enough motivation for that. If all goes according to plan, the Curiosity rover will launch at 10:21 am EST on November 25th.
Last weekend, Foursquare held their annual global hackathon, where they challenged developers all over the world to create new apps using the Foursquare API.
The hackathon lasted for 48 hours straight, over 6 continents. Over 500 developers hacked with Foursquare’s API at 30 different global locations. Foursquare set up four official hackathon locations in New York City, San Francisco, Tokyo and Paris. And out of all of that, 90 different “hacks” were submitted to be voted on by both Foursquare and Foursquare users.
Plan Your Next Trip simply does what it says it does – plans your next trip. It uses the Foursquare Explore API to plan out a 2-day trip to whatever location you are planning on going. It was developed by Benjamin Netter in Paris.
The Explore API allows Plan Your Next Trip to make a suggested itinerary based on recommendations from your friends (tips) as well as their past check-ins. Plan Your Next Trip also looks at what is popular all across Foursquare as well and suggests places to eat, drink, shop, and just tour.
I’m heading to Chicago for a few days next week, so I decided to give the app a spin. The app suggested that I eat breakfast at a popular cafe, visit the Art Institute of Chicago, “get some fresh air” at Millennium Park as well as try Heaven on Seven for a good creole dinner.
I especially liked the suggestion for 10 pm – “Get Drunk at ROOF on TheWit.” All in all, the app planned my day from 9 am to 10 pm and beyond with around 9 different locations to visit.
For the complete list of grand prize finalists and the people’s choice winners, check out the official Foursquare blog post.
It might be one of the most recognizable melodies of our modern age: the default Nokia ringtone. The tune, which has stayed nearly the same for the last 15 years or so, has left its stamp on our culture. And now, Nokia wants to change it up a little bit.
The mobile powerhouse has launched the Nokia Tune Remake contest. Contestants began submitting their compositions yesterday, and people will be able to submit as many compositions as they wish until October 5th.
On October 5th, ten finalists will be selected. Five of those finalists will be chosen by an official panel of judges, comprised of “some of the most respected names in the audio branding industry.” The other five finalists will be selected based on “likes” and “shares.” The winner from those 10 entries will be selected by the judges.
According to Nokia, they are “looking for a tune that is fresh, expressive, original, and creative yet distinctively a Nokia Tune.” Contestants are asked to use “elements of the popular original,” but warns that this is “not simply a remix contest.” This is a reworking of the famous melody, but it must show quite a bit of creative character. Entries are limited to 30 seconds each.
The winner of the contest will receive $10,000 and five runner-ups will get $1,000 each. The winning ringtone will come standard on Nokia devices and the runner-up tones will be available for download.
Right now, a sort of futuristic take on the tone called “Progressive Nokia” is in the lead with 1409 likes and 572 shares – but of course this is only day 2 of the competition.
Here’s the original tune, just for reference –
And here’s the original tune as played by an ensemble, just for fun –
Move over Rick Perry, there’s a new controversial leader in Texas and she’s a giant Justin Bieber fan.
The small town of Forney, Texas recently held a Facebook contest to elect one child, aged 8 to 13, “Mayor for a Day.” Adults were asked to nominate children by sending an email to the current Mayor of Forney, Darren Rozell, explaining why the kid would make a good chief executive.
On Monday, the town announced the winner via Facebook. 11-year-old Caroline Gonzalez received the honor – which came with responsibilities like leading City Council Meetings. Given all that power, free executive reign over an entire town, what did young Caroline do for her first Mayoral act?
She renamed a street in the town “Justin Bieber Way.” And not just any street, but Main Street.
The City of Forney’s Facebook page posted the entry the secured Caroline the win. It came from her father, and praised Caroline for being part of the Gifted and Talented Program, for playing softball, basketball and cheerleading, and for volunteering to help the poor through outreach programs. The nomination said nothing about her being a rabid Justin Bieber fan.
“I can’t really say that I know a lot of Justin Bieber’s music, but I know that he’s really popular these days, and if she wanted to name it Bieber Way, we were going to make that happen”
Luckily, Caroline’s regin of terror is over as she was only Mayor for one day. And Justin Bieber Way will be changed back to Main St. But the damage has been done. Anyone that drove through downtown Forney, Texas saw, for a split second, a street named Bieber.
Check out the video below, which is worth it simply for the female news anchor referring to “Justin Beaver” a couple of times.
It’s certainly an interesting time to be a music fan. The rise of social media, along with that of user-generated content and smartphones have come together to not only enhance communication and journalism, but also creativity. The latest example of this comes from a new contest from the band Junip (a personal favorite of mine), which has taken to YouTube to find the vision for its next music video.
The band is looking for someone to shoot the video for its song “Without You,” which can be heard below:
“We live in a world where music fans are the next journalist, musician and video director,” the band says on its YouTube page. “If you have a phone–you have a camera. Junip wants your videos, your ideas, the inspiration you feel when you listen to ‘Without You.’”
5.. PRIZING! Selected winner will not only be credited with creating the official video for Without You but MOOG has stepped in to give away an original MOOGERFOOGER MF-102 RING MODULATOR!!!! Be excited!
6. All videos must be submitted by Tuesday, July 5, 2011 to be considered for selection.
The band explains that prize a bit further: “The MF-102 Ring Modulator is a direct descendant of the original Moog modular synthesizers. It contains three complete modular functions: a ring modulator, a voltage-controlled carrier oscillator, and voltage-contolled dual-waveform LFO. It can be used to process any instrument-level to line-level signal. Housed in a rugged steel and hardwood enclosure, the Moogerfooger’s timeless good looks, versatility, and exceptional sound quality is designed to be equally at home on stage or in the studio. Their expansive functionality combined with warm, analog sound come from their state-of-the-art all-analog circuitry, designed and built under Bob Moog’s personal direction. Musical, flexible, playable, and durable Moogerfoogers are the secret weapons of top players and producers everywhere.”
Whether you’re a fan of Junip or not, the concept employed by this contest is something we can expect to see more and more of as musicians find more ways to utilize the Internet to engage with fans, and get encourage participation. Another brilliant part of this from the marketing perspective, is that while only one video will win the contest and go on to become the official video, most participants will no doubt be eager to share their own versions, which should only enhance the exposure of the song.
This is something any brand – music-related or not – can learn from.
By the way, if you have an opportunity to see Junip live, take it. They put in on a great show.
NASA’s latest Tweetup contest is set to begin today at 3pm EST. It will run for 24 hours, closing Wednesday at 3pm.
NASA’s integration with the social media service began in 2009, when the first Tweetup allowed winners to visit the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Later that year, NASA headquarters held its first Tweetup. Since then, Kennedy Space Center and Johnson Space Center have also hosted Tweetup winners for shuttle launches and the World Science Festival.
For this latest Tweetup, NASA will choose 120 Twitter followers at random to visit the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Monday, June 6th. From NASA:
With four space missions launching this year and an asteroid belt encounter nearly underway, 2011 will be one of the busiest ever in planetary exploration. Tweetup participants will interact with JPL scientists and engineers about these upcoming missions: Aquarius, to study ocean salinity; Grail, to study the moon’s gravity field; Juno to Jupiter; and the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity rover. Participants also will learn about the Dawn mission and its upcoming encounter with the asteroid Vesta.
The Tweetup will include a tour of JPL, robotics demonstrations and a last chance to see the Curiosity rover before it ships to Florida to prepare for a November launch. Tour stops will include the Spacecraft Assembly Facility where Curiosity is under construction, the mission control center of NASA’s Deep Space Network, and JPL’s new Earth Science Visitor Center.
Tweetup participants also will mingle with fellow attendees and the staff behind the tweets on @NASA and @NASAJPL, @MarsRovers, @AsteroidWatch and more.
The official Twitter account for this Tweetup is @JPLTweetup, but updates on registration and information can be found on the main NASA account. The event is using #NASATweetup.
After registrations are complete, winners will receive email notifications no later than May 4th.
The last Tweetup registered on March 15th, and 150 lucky space nerds were selected to attend Friday’s final launch of Endeavor in Cape Canaveral, FL.
Any programmers who would enjoy winning $10,000, the title “Code Jam Champion,” and – maybe – a job offer from Google should get moving. Today, the registration window for Google Code Jam 2011 opened.
To go ahead and provide interested parties with the complete schedule: registration starts today, a 24-hour qualification round will take place starting May 6th, and successive online rounds are scheduled for May 21st, May 22nd, June 4th, and June 11th.
Then Google will hold the onsite finals for 25 finalists at its office in Tokyo on July 29th, which is arguably an interesting choice given all that Japan is going through right now.
As for some more general information, a post on the Official Google Blog explained that Google Code Jam is “our annual coding contest in which some of the best coders from around the world write programs to solve tough algorithmic problems. We believe that one of the best ways to sharpen your coding skills and stretch them creatively is through healthy competition.”
Later, the post suggested, “If you’re a killer coder and you’re ready to compete, sign up on our website; while you’re there, make sure to check out the puzzles of the past few years to get a sense of what’s to come, and to hone your skills.”
Good luck to all of the participants. And the quip about a Google job offer was only speculation, by the way, but it makes sense that the search giant wouldn’t want to recognize a great programmer and then set him (or her) free.
Developers with any amount of ability when it comes to creating Android apps may want to start thinking about how to bring PayPal into the equation. Today, the third PayPal X Developer Challenge kicked off, and PayPal’s established some significant cash prizes for the top three participants.
To cut to the chase: the first place prize is $25,000, second place is $15,000, and third place is $10,000. Also, this is a high-profile contest, so all three winners stand to receive some attention and publicity in addition to the marketing and PR support PayPal’s promised.
Now for some more information about the competition itself. Naveed Anwar, the senior director of PayPal’s Developer Network, wrote on the PayPal Blog, "We’re looking for developers across the globe to build the most innovative Android mobile apps that leverage PayPal’s technologies (Mobile Payments Library, Mobile Express Checkout) for mobile payments."
Otherwise, restrictions are almost nonexistent; would-be participants just need to keep their apps legal, clean, and user agreement-abiding. Plus mind the cut-off dates.
The first deadline to be aware of will hit on May 14th, when all submissions must be in. Next, June 3rd is the deadline for making changes, and June 7th is when applications will go live. Finally, winners will be announced on June 29th.
Depending on what comes out of this contest, it could help make both PayPal and Android more popular. Retailers and regular eBay users could benefit, too, if people start using their smartphones to shop more.
We’ll be sure to keep an eye on the competition and report any interesting achievements.
