Tag: Events

The End Of The World Is Now Scheduled On Facebook

We’re really going to have to hear about this whole Mayan calendar apocalypse all year, aren’t we?

Sigh.

Well, whether you’re of the can’t-beat’em-so-join’em group or if you actually expect/hope the world to end this year, some prophetic Facebook users have created an event page about the pending armageddon just for you. The concisely titled event, The End of the World, is currently accepting RSVPs for those planning to attend the annihilation of humanity or, if you’re still on the fence about attending, you can simply check yourself as a maybe. The event is slated to take place on “Planet Earth, Every Street” and the additional information provided on the event’s page is appropriately simple:

INVITE EVERYONE!!!!
This might, or might not, be the biggest thing since sliced bread so don’t let your friends miss this possibly life changing experience. I want to everyone on Facebook at this here shindig so don’t disappoint.

It’s become commonplace for people to create farcical event pages for disasters. Some of you may recall the Post-Rapture Looting event from last year before the apocalypse decided to call in sick. If the comments on the event’s page are any indication on the quality of party animals you can expect to encounter on the ubiquitous Every Street – and, more importantly, be stuck in the company of post-armageddon – you might wanna take a pass on this global catastrophe and wait around till the next cataclysm:

The End of the WorldI can’t wait!! OH WAIT, YES I CAN! *heh* *heh* 20 minutes ago · Like · 0 comments

The End of the WorldI’ll bring the pot. Lol 24 minutes ago · Like · 0 comments

The End of the WorldThere with Apocalyptic Bells on! 🙂 5 minutes ago · 1 like · 0 comments

The End of the WorldEven the end of the world couldn’t keep me away! 9 minutes ago · 1 like · 0 comments

The End of the WorldPARTY IN THE STREETS. 22 minutes ago · Like · 1 comment

Yes, I agree with what you are likely already thinking: the apocalypse will be attended by no one above the age of sixteen. Great party, guys. Really. So in the absence of any competing apocalypse get-togethers that might actually sound like a bit of fun, I suggest everybody roll over and hit the snooze button on this Facebook anti-party and get your nap on until the world burps up another armageddon worthy of your attendance.

January 10, 2012
CES: A Historical Timeline [Infographic]

The Consumer Electronics Show is getting ready to start (January 10). Get ready for a whole lot of news about gadgets. Some will probably blow our minds (at least some of the concept presentations), and some will be lackluster. That’s how it goes.

Either way, you can expect a whole lot of tech news in the coming week. In the meantime, here’s an infographic from Sortable, providing a brief glimpse of the history of the event, which began in the 60s.

Sortable The Consumer Electronics Show Infographic

January 8, 2012
Apple’s January Event To Deal With Textbooks, Self-Publishing

We’re getting more information about Apple’s rumored media event, set to take place later this month. Various sources are saying that the company’s January event will focus on publishing, like previously speculated. But what exactly in the world of publishing? There’s where we are getting a little more specific.

All Things D first reported the event, and Tech Crunch later added their own confirmation, saying that the announcement would take place in New York City and would revolve around the iBooks platform. The announcement was also said to be “minor” in scale.

Fox News’ Clayton Morris is now reporting that his sources have revealed that the announcement will be “small in size but large in scope; a big announcement in a demure space.” He says that he expects two fairly large announcements to occur that deal with Apple’s role in the education space.

MacRumors has received some information that might corroborate reports that Apple is planning on throwing their weight behind digital textbooks.

Adding to the speculation about textbooks perhaps playing a role in the upcoming announcement is information we’ve received from a source indicating that Apple last month filmed a series of short interviews with textbook industry executives. The interviews are said to have been of the type that would be used in one of Apple’s promotional overview videos for a new product or service.

Our source cautions us that there is no direct evidence tying the interviews to the upcoming media event and that Apple frequently films promotional video segments and commercials that never see the light of the day, but the timing of the filming seems to be in line with possible preparations for the media event.

Of course, Steve Jobs biographer and bestselling author Walter Isaacson has said on multiple occasions that Jobs wanted to do something about textbooks – to make them an important feature of the iPad.

The second part of the media event could focus on self-publishing, according to ereader site goodereader.

Apple is going to be holding an exclusive event in New York city later this month to possibly launch a new program for their iBooks and Publishing platform. Sources close to the matter have told us that they intend on launching a new digital self-publishing platform to get peoples content into the iBookstore. This is a huge step forward for Apple to compete with Amazon (DTP) and Barnes and Noble (Pubit).

This program would utilize EPUB 3, the IDPF’s open standard for e-books.

So, part one: Textbooks, and part two: self-publishing. Certainly two announcements that could be seen as small in size but large in scope.

Together, all of these reports give us a look into what Apple could be planning for the end of the month. While this is all still a bunch of speculations from various sources, one thing everyone can agree on is that the event will probably have nothing to do with any new hardware.

January 3, 2012
eBay and StubHub Acquire Zvents

eBay acquired StubHub back in early 2007. Now StubHub has acquired Zvents. So, essentially, eBay has acquired Zvents.

Zvents has over 3 million events, generated from 140,000 local marketers in its catalog. It gets 14 million monthly unique visitors.

eBay’s Richard Brewer-Hay writes on the eBay Ink blog, “StubHub currently offers around 30,000 events for discovery whereas Zvents users have access to 600,000 events on any given day and over 3 million during the course of a calendar year. Essentially, with this new acquisition (and after integration), StubHub users will eventually have access to 100x more events than the present.”

That’s a lot of events.

The Zvents Team says on its own blog:

Joining StubHub is an exciting next phase in our evolution to be the world’s premier provider of event and entertainment content. Since launching Zvents in 2005, our team has worked tirelessly to build a strong product line for our users, advertisers and partner network. Zvents boasts over 14 million users via its various channels – Zvents.com and its media partner network of over 300 major sites, including Microsoft, AT&T and over 280 major newspapers.

StubHub’s industry-leading service and platforms provide the ideal launching pad for us to accelerate our growth and expand our mission. We are dedicated to enabling our users to find fun and interesting things to do in their lives by providing the best events and entertainment information across our products and network. StubHub shares our passion and we will work together to drive a new vision for live entertainment.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

If you’ll notice the images in this article, StubHub is displaying results for Louisville. That’s because it doesn’t have Lexington as a market. Zvents does. Presumably, this means StubHub will feature a significant amount of new markets.

December 16, 2011
Nexus Prime, Ice Cream Sandwich Launch Rescheduled

It looks like we have another official date set for the big Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS release. Invitations have been seen out for the rescheduled Google / Samsung event, now taking place in Hong Kong on October 19th.

For those in the West, that’s 10 pm Eastern on October 18th. There will be a live stream of the event available on Android’s YouTube Channel.

This unveiling was supposed to take place on October 11th at the Unpacked event in San Diego. But just 4 days before the event was set to take place, Google and Samsung postponed it, saying that they agreed “it is just not the right time to announce a new product. Of course, it was widely believed that the two companies delayed their big event out of respect for the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

Here’s the invitation, which confirms that Android’s brand new OS Ice Cream Sandwich is going to be the star of the show:

Also expected to make an appearance at the event is the first device launching with Ice Cream Sandwich – the Nexus Prime (Galaxy Nexus), the new Google phone. This phone has a huge amount of buzz surrounding it, as Android fans are looking for the next great phone to compete with Apple’s just-launched iPhone 4S.

According to Ars Technica, PR photos from the cancelled October 11th event in San Diego suggest that the Nexus Prime was definitely a part of the big launch. However, we have yet to hear any official word on the phone

Are you excited about the new offerings in the world of Android? Let us know in the comments.

October 14, 2011
Colorado State Party, Fueled By Facebook, Attracts Thousands

The public nature (and lack of privacy considerations) of Facebook is sometimes problematic when it comes to parties. The good thing about Facebook is that it’s a wonderfully easy way to advertise and spread the word about your events.

The bad thing about Facebook is that it’s a ridiculously easy way the advertise and spread the word about your events.

And events that aren’t set to private can wind up attracting more attention than the creator ever imagined. Numerous reports have emerged in the past couple of years about public events gaining thousands of confirmed attendees. Many of these event are shut down before they happen but some, like the birthday party of a German girl earlier this year, wind up getting out of hand.

It appears that the power of Facebook was at work again this weekend at a Colorado State University party got a tad out of control.

Police estimate that somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 people attended the annual back-to school party being held at an off-campus apartment complex. Over 3,000 guests were confirmed on the Facebook event page.

Videos have surfaced on YouTube of the party –

Although it looks like the majority of the students had a good time at the giant bash, police say that 10 people were hospitalized and four people were arrested as a result. apparently, some students suffered from alcohol poisoning while others were involved in fights.

“When I got in there it was total chaos,” said one student. “One woman was hit in the face with a bottle and she was gushing blood.”

The police said it was one of the biggest parties they had ever seen.

Although some students got out of hand, I’m sure many students at CSU see the party as a success. In one regard, I guess, Facebook helped them throw one hell of a party while it lasted. But you’ve gotta admit, 4,000 people is a little much, isn’t it?

August 30, 2011
Facebook f8 Developer Conference Announced for 2011
It’s so late in the year, we almost forgot that Facebook hadn’t held its annual F8 developer conference yet. Today, the company announced that it will take place on September 22.

Facebook says the event will be spent exploring topics including:
- New Products: We have some exciting product announcements that enable a new class of social apps
- Building Social Apps: Engineers and entrepreneurs share their best practices and strategies for building great social apps
- Open Q&A: Facebook’s engineering and product teams answer your questions
The event is being held at the Concourse Exhibition Center at the San Francisco Design Center. The capacity is limited, the company warns, and it’s expected to sell out quickly.

Attending costs $400 if you’re able to do so, but it will also be broadcast live on the web at f8.facebook.com.

The last f8 took place in Spring 2010, and unleashed Facebook’s Open Graph and social plug-ins across the web. It was a pretty big deal.

So what’s in store this time around? Facebook isn’t saying yet, but there is plenty of speculation.

As we’ve heard before, the company is expected to announce some new music-related features. InsideFacebook also speculates that we may see the launch of an iPad app and/or HTML5 mobile gaming details, as well as mobile photo enhancements.
August 25, 2011
Twilight at Comic Con Has Fans Camping Out All Week

Comic Con just kicked off in the Gas Light District of San Diego, as people have been camped out waiting to get into see the Twilight Panel. WebProNews happened to be in the neighborhood and thought we’d snap a few pictures.

Below you can see some of the campers.

In this video, anxious fans talk about how they have been camping out since Monday. One says she tried to start Sunday but they wouldn’t let her. One guy says he just wants to “smell Jacob.” (Presumably actor Taylor Lautner).

Cast and Crew of the upcoming entry to the Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 1 appeared for a press conference where they discussed their experience so far at Comic Con, whether or not Breaking Dawn will end the franchise (they don’t know), and various experiences about working on the set and character commentary. Cinema Blend has a live blogged account of the panel.

It will be interesting to see if the next installment of Twilight can give the last record-breaking Harry Potter film a run for its money.

Fans who were first to the convention center hall where the panel was held were treated to breakfast.

No word yet on if that guy got to smell Jacob. The event just kicked off though. It’s still early.

July 21, 2011
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 Red Carpet Live on YouTube

I know, I know. This is the 4th of July, a celebration of our declaration of independence from the tyranny of Britain. And Harry Potter is decidedly quite British. But it’s been centuries – we can talk about this today, right? Besides, the event is only 3 days away.

YouTube has announced via official blog that they will be ground zero for Harry Potter mania in the upcoming weeks. The final installment of the saga, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, won’t be released to the general public until July 15th – but its official premiere will happen a week earlier.

And YouTube will be broadcasting the red carpet event live from Trafalgar Square in London on July 7th. The live stream will begin at 11 a.m. EDT. YouTube says that the red carpet will feature the entire cast, author J.K. Rowling and “surprise celebrity appearances.” YouTube will re-broadcast the entire event if you miss it live.

The live stream will appear on YouTube’s Harry Potter channel. If you go there now, you can see a opening day countdown clock as well as photos, posters, and trailers for the upcoming film.

There is also a sweepstakes link to Harry Potter: The Quest, a game that offers the chance to win a trip to the London premiere.

J.K. Rowling recently made a splash with the unveiling of Pottermore, her new Harry Potter themed website. It mysteriously appeared a couple weeks ago through an online scavenger hunt. The site merely said “coming soon” and linked to a YouTube account with a announcement countdown.

Flash forward a week and Rowling released a video detailing in brief what fans could expect from the new site. Pottermore will be the exclusive place for fans to purchase Harry Potter eBooks as well as a hub for new content written by Rowling. We shouldn’t expect new Harry Potter adventures, but most likely supplementary materials. In the video, Rowling hints at some sort of social network layer to the whole experience as well.

Pottermore will open to the entire public in October, but a select few are being chosen to join early to give the site a test run. Rowling said that this is so fans could “help shape” the experience.

The end is near, Potter fans. With Deathly Hallows Part 2 only 2 weeks away, are you ready to jump back in to Potter-mania?

July 4, 2011
Record Store Day Releases Hit eBay Early

Record Store Day is on Saturday, April 16. This is a day when record stores and music artists come together to celebrate music and the continued existence of albums that you can hold in your hand, in the digital age.

For a more official description:

This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, djs spinning records and on and on. Metallica officially kicked off Record Store Day at Rasputin Music in San Francisco on April 19, 2008 and Record Store Day is now celebrated the third Saturday every April.

The spirit of the day, however, seems to be being undermined by those looking to cash in on the releases prior to the event. Items are turning up all over eBay before Record Store Day even gets here.

Here’s the entire list of Record Store Day releases.

The people behind Record Store Day have responded to the situation on Facebook:

Record Store DayThanks to everyone who has pointed out ebay auctions to us. We really DO understand and share your frustration over how much this sucks. And we do take action where we can, especially if we find a store doing it: Time Traveler was doing it, we forced a take-down, and are putting them on public notice. 21 hours ago · 252 likes · 83 comments

One fan commented, “To do this prior to release day belittles the whole ethic…”

Another said, “People should just boycott them and not buy them on eBay. That’s just wrong of them. That just ruins the fun of Record store day. I say ban them for life!”

@recordstoreday
Record Store Day@BrianHastie Record Store Day is a celebration of the STORES. 2 days ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Also happening this weekend is Coachella, which is sure to draw interest from a lot of the same people who are interested in Record Store Day. The event is being streamed live on YouTube starting today.

April 15, 2011
Google I/O Content Will Stream Live On Web
Google announced it will be providing a great deal of Google I/O content live, streaming on the web this year. They will provide keynotes, sessions, and Developer Sandbox content. You can find this stuff at Google I/O Live.

Here’s exactly what will be offered, according to Google’s blog:
- Watch livestream video feeds from our two largest session rooms from 9:00 a.m PST to 6:00 p.m. PST during both days of the conference. This will include streaming of the keynotes, as in years past, as well as—new for 2011—the addition of sessions from Android and Chrome. We’ll also aim to post HD video recordings from sessions that are not livestreamed within 24 hours.
- Read captions from the livestreamed sessions in real-time. Plus, to make sure all our content is accessible, all remaining videos will also be captioned. For international developers, captions will be machine translated to all languages that are supported byGoogle Translate.
- Be one of the first to know by getting your news direct from the source. The latest announcements and news will be added to our I/O Live dashboard in real-time.
- Submit your questions to our Sandbox developers. We’ll post answers for the questions with the most votes.
The event, which sold out in an hour, takes places May 10-11. Early bird tickets went for $450 each. Google sold student and faculty tickets for $150 each.

Last year at Google I/O, Google unveiled Google TV, among other things. What will they have in store this year?
April 7, 2011
SXSW Interactive About to Start in Austin

SXSW Interactive starts tomorrow. WebProNews reporters Abby Johnson and Chris Crum, along with videographer Cara Worick will be in Austin providing coverage from the event. Stay tuned for that in the coming days. Look for a mixture of exclusive videos and articles from the event. In the meantime, we thought we’d look at just a few of the things going on, related to SXSW.

Google has over 12 people speaking on various panels, including a talk with Marissa Mayer, VP of Consumer Products. Google will also be talking about Doodles, privacy, marketing, recommendation engines, and more.

Bing will also be on a variety of panels and involved with various events. Google’s Matt Cutts and Bing’s Duane Forrester will both be on a Q&A with Danny Sullivan on Monday. This is sure to be interesting.

As you know, Apple’s iPad 2 hits stores tomorrow, and the company is even reported to be opening a temporary popup store in Austin to sell the device to a crowd, which is a pretty obvious target market for early adoption of the device.

Groupon is participating in a number of events, including a panel discussion on digital engagement for social change, a talk about how Groupon intentionally wastes staff time and marketing budget dollars on “baffling initiatives”, and a “free hangover brunch for the freely hungover”.

Foursquare, which was born at SXSW, has a lot going on. The company already made big announcements this week, ahead of the event. The company also partnered with American Express. Attendees of SXSW can go to a special site to link their Fousquare and AmEx accounts, and get “spend $5, Get $5” specials at over 50 local merchants in Austin.

These are really just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. This event is huge, and just about every Internet company and startup you can think of will have a presence there – and we’ll be talking to many of them.

To get a feeling for who all is there and just how big this thing is, check out the SXSW schedule here. You can see our videos from last year’s event here.

March 10, 2011
Demand Media Acquires CoveritLive, A Real-Time Event Coverage Platform

Demand Media has acquired real-time event coverage provider CoverItLive, which is used by brands like Yahoo, ESPN, Ford, Time, News Corp, EA, FOX News, and BBC. Demand Media is positioning the acquisition as a way for the company to expand its social reach.

CoveritLive lets audiences of events engage in real-time, provides instant reader polling, and contains Q&A capabilities (which could be helpful in itself for Demand, considering the the company’s Q&A site AnswerBag was recently hit by Google’s algorithm update).

"CoveritLive really reflects our mission as a company – publishing what the world wants to know and share," says Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt. "Consumers around the world are tuning in by the millions to participate in live events powered by CoveritLive, collectively spending over a billion minutes on the platform each month. CoveritLive’s live event platform helps us continue to work towards that mission, building on both our social publishing model and our social media product offering with a platform that offers proven value to both brands and consumers."

Some noteworthy tweets from Rosenblatt about CoveritLive:

As an example, yesterday’s coverage of the Apple iPad 2 announcement drew 2.4MM readers in CoveritLiveless than a minute ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®Richard Rosenblatt
demandrichard

Some of the current events on CoveritLive are at http://www.coveritlive.com/index.php?option=com_altcaster&task=listliveevents&Itemid=223less than a minute ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®Richard Rosenblatt
demandrichard

Try it: Key customers include BBC, Ford, ESPN, CNET, EA. Case studies are here <http://bit.ly/eqXJcC>less than a minute ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®Richard Rosenblatt
demandrichard

It looks like the CoveritLive team will be sticking around, and a big product upgrade is apparently on the way:

Answers to common q’s today: all very happy, team staying, more resources, biggest product upgrade in 2 years comes next Wednesday.less than a minute ago via Twitter for Maccoveritlive
coveritlive

Demand Media and CoveritLive were already strategic partners. The two companies have worked together since 2009, with Demand Media even having a minority stake in CoveritLive. The product will become part of Pluck, Demand Media’s social platform. Pluck itself is already used by a lot of major brands:

"Like Demand Media, we started CoveritLive to help fill the gaps in online content. We saw an opportunity to cover live events in a way that no one had before by combining talented writers, multimedia and two way engagement via comments and polls," said CoveritLive President and Founder Keith McSpurren. "As a Demand Media partner, our joint customers have seen the value of combining our service with Pluck’s integrated community platform. It’s a powerful combination that helps marketers engage consumers before, during and after an event."

According to Demand Media, events hosted on CoveritLive attract an audience of over 60 million people every month, 60% of which comes from outside the United States. The company has been talking about expanding more internationally, so this acquisition should help with that too.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not revealed.

Earlier this week, Demand Media announced a partnership with Rachael Ray on creating food content for eHow.

March 3, 2011
Apple Event Invitations Sent, iPad 2 Basically Confirmed

Apple event invitations have been sent out for March 2nd. News of the event leaked out yesterday, but now it’s official, as reporters have started receiving their invitations.

It will take place at 10am Pacific on March 2nd in San Francisco at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

"Come see what 2011 will be the year of," the invitation teases, with a big picture of an iPad hiding behind a calendar page displaying a big number 2.

The difference between the release of the iPad2 and the release of the original iPad is that there is much more competition now. It will be very interesting to see what exactly Apple brings to the table.

Recent reports have indicated that the next iPad will be available through both AT&T and Verizon, and will be thinner, lighter, and will have at least one camera on the front, as well as more memory, and a more powerful graphics processor.

Since its release, the company has reportedly sold about 15 million iPads.

February 23, 2011
Super Bowl Advertising On the Web

As the Super Bowl approaches, so do the time-honored ads that will accompany it. Advertisers aren’t just turning to the game itself to capitalize, however. Many are turning to the web to get some mileage out of the event. The History Channel, for example, has turned to Yahoo, and will be running ads for a new Larry the Cable Guy show on Yahoo Sports to capitalize on the inevitable Super Bowl fan traffic.

We conducted a Q&A on the subject with Mitch Spolan, Yahoo VP of North American Field Sales. "The Super Bowl is such a unique situation," he tells WebProNews. "It’s the one time a year where consumers plan to watch the commercials as much as they watch the game. As consumers, we expect great advertising during the Super Bowl, and companies are rewarded and penalized based on their creativity."

"Online allows advertisers to compliment their broadcast investment with campaigns that continue to live on well beyond the 30 seconds," he adds. "While the Super Bowl is powerful for its tremendous audience reach, advertisers have the ability to reach the SAME super-sized audience every day online with marquee creative. There no longer is the need to wait for one day a year to have massive audience. Advertisers control when and how they interact with their Super Bowl audience everyday online."

Super Bowl commercials have something of a following on their own. I know people who don’t even care about the game, but like to see the new ads. How can a brand capture this kind of enthusiasm for advertising online?

"At Yahoo!, we’re constantly innovating new advertising formats that open up the creative canvas to our advertising partners’ imaginations," Spolan tells us. "For example, when you come to one of the Yahoo! Sports properties during the Super Bowl, you’re going to find an ad that captures your attention with a narrative that’s as or even more compelling and engaging than those on TV. Online advertising also opens up other possibilities such as interactive and social sharing capabilities that can extend the brand’s message even further than a TV spot. Brands that combine creativity with smart use of the Web’s inherent advantages are the ones that enhance their storytelling ability and build experiences that stay with the consumer."

If you’re wondering what your own starting point should be if you’re considering your own Super Bowl-related advertising, Spolan has some thoughts on that.

"First, anytime a brand is looking to capitalize on the excitement of big event like the Super Bowl, it should choose to work with a site that will be a destination for consumers well before and even after the event," he says. "The campaign that HISTORY channel is running for "Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy" on Yahoo! Sports is a good model for this. The network’s campaign begins to run on February 3, when excitement for all things Super Bowl will be at a fever pitch, and runs through February 11.

"The Super Bowl, like other culturally significant events on the calendar, is among Yahoo!’s biggest traffic drivers, and accordingly, consumers will be eager for post-game analysis from all angles," he says. "There’s great value to reaching the significant audience that will visit Yahoo! Sports, which is still the #1 sports destination online, for that coverage."

The example would appear to illustrate a useful tactic for capitalizing on physical world events by reaching those interested online in the places they are likely to go. It doesn’t have to be on the scale of the Super Bowl or have the reach of Yahoo Sports to be a potentially successful strategy.

February 2, 2011
Super Bowl Pre-Game Will Reportedly Feature Groupon Ads

If Groupon’s not already a household name, it may be soon. According to AdAge, the company is getting ready for some big time TV advertising, starting with spots during the Super Bowl pre-game show (the Super Bowl itself was already sold out).

Groupon has already been growing like a weed, based mainly on web-based word-of-mouth. A big television campaign could be just what the company needs to truly get the masses interested, and it will be interesting to see the approach they take with the ads. AdAge reports:

Groupon has been ramping up by quietly tapping a variety of agencies to handle various marketing duties. It’s expected to partner with MDC Partners’ Crispin Porter & Bogusky for traditional advertising, and, considering that shop’s reel of creepy (Burger) Kings, talking mannequins and Volkswagen Beetles, Groupon appears to have no intention of playing it safe.

It has also added a media agency of record in Publicis Groupe’s Starcom. Over the Christmas holidays Groupon CEO Andrew Mason sent a note to cable networks alerting them to the new relationship. And last month, Groupon tapped Havas-owned Euro RSCG, Chicago, for help with customer-relationship marketing strategies, a move that Groupon Director of Marketing John Becvar last month said was part of an effort to "test different programs with our growing base of Groupon subscribers."

As you may know, Groupon recently rejected a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google, but as Google’s Marissa Mayer recently pointed out, Google already has some weapons in its arsenal that compete directly with companies like Groupon.

Last year, Google ran its first TV commercial during the Super Bowl.

Groupon continues to grow, both in terms of funding and geography. Groupon most recently expanded into Australia, though it has been forced to operate under a different name in that country, due to a Groupon-clone owning the name there. Groupon is currently fighting this.

Groupon is likely to become more attractive for small businesses as it boosts brand name recognition through TV advertising. More consumer interest in Groupon means more potential customers for businesses who offer deals. Groupon CEO Andrew Mason recently said his company is the savior for small businesses and that he wants it to do for local businesses what Amazon did for buying products.

January 10, 2011
Keep it Here for Live Coverage of PubCon This Week

More WebProNews Videos

PubCon Las Vegas gets started tomorrow (at least content-wise), and promises to deliver tons of great information about social media marketing, search engine marketing, etc. WebProNews will be covering the event with many exclusive interviews with speakers at the show (see PubCon’s full speaker list here).

At BlogWorld last month, WebProNews sat down with Brett Tabke, CEO of WebmasterWorld, which hosts the event. "We have a huge kick off keynote this year from New York Times’ Mr. David Pogue, lead tech editor…very well known in our space. We’re really excited about having him out," says Tabke. "We also have a huge social media panel the second day with Brian Clark, Scott Stratten, Chris Brogan, PR Sarah Evans…"

Tim Mayer, former head of search product and business at Yahoo, will also keynote the third day.

"We’re really looking forward to it. We have a huge presence this year in social media…kind of turned the corner on search this year…obviously that’s our core interested – SEO, SEM of course, but social media, just a huge set of tracks this year on social media," says Tabke.

"Coming up to about two years ago, we had done traditional marketing, offline marketing, PPC marketing…buying ads here and there. We had limited success with it," he says. We know it was working to a degree. People used coupon codes, took us up on offers, and then we decided…well, with the advent of Twitter and how huge the impact it had on events, such as SXSW…all the conference space, we decided to move exclusively to Twitter and Facebook marketing. It completely changed the nature of our business and the nature of the attendee that comes to PubCon."

It’s not only PubCon’s content that focuses on social media. Tabke and his team take full advantage of social media to organize the event as well. "We found quite a few great speakers via Twitter and through a service called Klout that rates tweets and their influence, and we tracked everybody through Klout and we came up with some very interesting speakers, such as Scott Stratten (we discovered him through Twitter 2 years ago), Chris Brogan (a couple years ago as well)."

Topics to be addressed at the event include: reputation management, PPC tactics, in-house SEO, affiliate programs, modern CSS and HTML coding, social media marketing, retweets and influence, Twitter apps, keyword research, large scale search programs, hiring SEOs, optimizing for universal and personal search, WordPress SEO, multimedia SEO, SEO tools, geo-location marketing, content creation and marketing, backlinks, monetizing social media channels, PR, link-buying, community administration, information architecture, e-commerce, optimizing for contextual ads, analytics, local search, and much more.

We’ll be providing continuous live video coverage throughout the event. Stay tuned to WebProNews.com and live.dev.webpronews.com throughout the week.

November 8, 2010
What’s Going on in Search and eBusiness

At SMX East in New York, Bing announced new Webmaster Tools features including a link report. Google also added percent change data to its own Webmaster Tools query reports. More on these here.

Search Engine Land’s Matt McGee liveblogged a keynote with Yelp COO Geoff Donaker, who shared some interesting stats about Yelp. He says they got about 38 million unique visitors last month on the web site, they have about 13 million reviews, and they have about three million users per month using Yelp apps. He also commented on Yelp’s algorithm, saying, on a business page, recency is one of the primary factors. To quote Matt’s notes, "They want the most recent, trusted reviews showing up top."

As you may know WebProNews attends a fair amount of industry events to cover in both video and article format. While, we can’t make it to all of them (we couldn’t make it to SMX this time), that doesn’t mean we ignore all the ones we don’t attend.

We have a new Events page available here (you will also see an Events tab at the top of WPN that goes there). This page shows upcoming industry events that we’re keeping our eye on, and which ones we’re actually attending.

WebProNews reporter Abby Johnson also keeps a blog on the page. As time goes on, she will offer insights beyond her video interviews as she attends various events.

The Inbound Marketing Summit starts tomorrow in Boston. WebProNews is a media partner of this event and WPN’s Mike McDonald will be reporting. Then late next week, Abby and WPN’s Chris Crum (and the rest of our video crew) will be heading to Vegas for BlogWorld (where WPN is an official video provider). Shortly after that, WPN’s Mike Sachoff will be hitting Search Engine Strategies Chicago.

Check back often to see what events are on our radar, and stay tuned to WebProNews and WebProNews Videos for coverage.

October 6, 2010
Watch: Google-Sponsored Internet at Liberty 2010 Event

Google, along with Central European University, is sponsoring a conference in Budapest called Internet at Liberty 2010. The conference, Google says, "brings together grassroots global activists alongside representatives of NGOs, academic centers, governments and corporations in order to explore the many issues at hand."

"The conference will explore creative ways to address the boundaries of online free expression; the complex relationship among technology, economic growth and human rights; ways in which dissidents and governments are using the internet; the role of internet intermediaries; as well as pressing policy and legal issues such as privacy and cybersecurity," says Google’s Director of Public Policy, Bob Boorstin.

The conference has been so kind as to provide an embeddable live stream, so we’ve embedded it below if you wish to tune in anytime while it’s going on.

The event begins today and runs through tomorrow. It is conducted in English.

There is also a live blog of the event here, and you can follow the event on Twitter by searching for #IAL2010.

September 21, 2010
Apple to Update Apple TV (with Netflix), iTunes, iPod Touch

Apple announced that it will be streaming an event online today at Apple.com, at 10:00 AM Pacific/1:00 PM Eastern.

"Apple will broadcast its September 1 event online using Apple’s industry-leading HTTP Live Streaming, which is based on open standards," the company says.

The whole thing is so open, you have to use a Mac running Safari on Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard, an iPhone or iPod Touch running iOS 3.0 or higher or an iPad. In other words you have to have bought an Apple device to view it.

It is also so open that the announcement makes it a point to say, "This broadcast is the property of Apple and is protected by US copyright law and international treaties. Any reproduction or distribution is strictly prohibited without prior written approval from Apple."

The event itself is expected to center around updates to iTunes, iPods and possibly TV. According to the Wall Street Journal, FOX and ABC will announce 99 cent rentals of TV shows through iTunes. "People familiar with the matter" are cited.

According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Apple will announce a set-top box for video that will include Netflix programming and a revamped version of Apple TV that will cost $99. The publication also says that Apple will release a revamped version of iTunes and an upgraded iPod Touch with higher screen resolution.

The whole thing should be a big win for Netflix.

September 1, 2010
Ask BP Oil Spill Questions Via YouTube at 3:30 Eastern

YouTube has partnered with PBS NewsHour on an interview with Bob Dudley, President and CEO of BP’s Gulf Coast Restoration Organization. This is a chance for people and organizations to ask questions related to the oil spill and get responses from BP.

"If your organization is interested in being part of the discussion, we welcome questions from you and your members," says Kristie Mun with the Google Grants Team. "You can ask BP questions about accountability, the clean-up plan, recovery efforts in the Gulf region, environmental impact, the status of the relief well drilling, the role of the U.S. government, the future of offshore drilling and of BP as a company, or any other topic on your mind."

You can submit questions via Google Moderator on the CitizenTube YouTube channel. The top questions will be asked in the interview.

It starts at 3:30 Eastern, and portions will be showing tonight on PBS (and will be available on YouTube). PBS’ Ray Suarez will moderate.

July 1, 2010