July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. — The new San Francisco 49ers football stadium might prompt people to rename the team the “Silicon Valley 49ers.”

That’s partly because it’s located in Santa Clara, in the heart of Silicon Valley and about 40 miles south of the NFL team’s nominal hometown. But it’s also because the stadium will be loaded to the uppermost seats with a vast quantity of electronics and networking gear provided by Sony.

“We want to be a software-driven stadium, not a hardware-driven stadium,” said 49ers owner Jed York while speaking onstage today at D11, a tech conference organized by All Things D. He was joined onstage by Kazuo Hirai, the president and chief executive of Sony.

“We want to build out the infrastructure so you can plug into the stadium any way you want,” York said.

Source: http://www.newsantaclarastadium.com/

A rendering of the new 49ers stadium in Santa Clara. Via  the stadium‘s website.

For example, while you’re in the stadium, you can connect to its wireless network using your smartphone or tablet to watch the game via any of the many 4K (high-resolution) video cameras installed throughout the facility. You could pick a point of view that offers a better vantage point than your seat, you could watch closeups of the plays, or you could conceivably tune in to players’ helmet cams.

Or if getting background info is more your thing, you might choose to look up stats or background info on various players.

All of these activities will be done with the fans’ own hardware, so Sony isn’t building tablet interfaces into the seats. Or you can just leave your phone in your pocket and watch the game the old-fashioned way.

“You create your own experience when you’re in the game,” said York.

The 49ers are also promising that the stadium infrastructure will help fans find food choices within the stadium or potentially connect with other fans via social media. It plans to offer people the option of getting digital tickets or paper ones, and it will even provide routing assistance to help you find the best travel route to the game before you even leave home.

Hirai said that Sony has done similar installations with other stadiums, but not to the same level. He said that the technology would work with many different manufacturers’ phones and tablets, not just Sony’s. And he emphasized that it wasn’t just about blinging out the stadium with as much tech as possible.

“It’s not about putting in physical cameras and screens, it’s about the experience,” Hirai said.

“We want you to bring your own smartphone, your own tablet into the game, and have the back end that just works,” York said.

The stadium will be open for the 2014 season and will host Super Bowl L in February 2015.

Despite Sony’s large involvement, the stadium won’t bear its name. Instead, it will be called Levi’s Stadium — the clothing company bought the naming rights earlier this year.

Check out more views of the new stadium.

Photo: Jed York, CEO of the San Francisco 49ers, appearing on a Sony display at D11. Credit: Dylan Tweney/VentureBeat.

GoDaddy posted more new customers and more new sales than any other campaign in the company’s long Super Bowl history, the company said today in a statement. According to Mashable, that translates to the company’s biggest sales day in history, with hosting sales jumping 45 percent, domain sales up 40 percent, and new mobile customers up 35 percent.

“Attracting new customers is what advertising is all about,” GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving said. “We wanted our Super Bowl commercials to generate new customers and overall sales, and that’s precisely what happened. We set all-time Super Bowl Sunday records for mobile sales, website builders, website hosting and new customers.”

GoDaddy’s sexy-meets-smart kiss-mercial prompted the most tweets of any Super Bowl ad, with almost 300,000, but it also had the least positive sentiment. In other words, a lot of people hated it — or at least thought it was inappropriate. After all, if the dude was smart and Refaeli was sexy, does that mean beautiful women can’t also be smart? Broadcaster CBS had rejected two earlier versions of the commercial, according to Irving, but GoDaddy wanted the controversy and craved even the negative attention.

“Inappropriate?” Irving said in a statement, referencing the negative perceptions. “Hearing that word, I absolutely knew we were in for a record Super Bowl ad campaign. And by the way, I think both of our ads were the funniest in the game, by far.”

Whether the ad was inappropriate or not, it clearly worked. Especially for the dude who got kissed.

Apparently Jesse Heiman, a character actor who played the smart side of GoDaddy in the commercial, says, “This might be one of the best jobs I’ve ever had.” Well, duh. Heiman — who said that it took about 45 takes to get the commercial shot – is now landing appearances on the Today Show and other talk shows.

Which I guess shows once again there’s no such thing as negative publicity.

In case you haven’t seen it, but absolutely must, here’s the ad in question:

Image credit: Go Daddy

But who won? New York-based Whispr Group, a social media intelligence agency, crunched the numbers.

GoDaddy’s sexy-meets-smart kissmercial had the most tweets — 290,000 — but the least positive sentiment at only 14 percent. In other words, lots of people thought that Bar Rafaeli kissing a pudgy, bespectacled not-quite-Greek-god for 20 long seconds was gross, inappropriate, or just plain awkward.

(Apparently character actor Jesse Haiman, who was the recipient of the kiss, thought that he won the “championship of men” in getting to do the ad — it took 45 takes. Now you know why it was shot from the waist up.)

Interestingly, Calvin Klein, which spent half as much as Taco Bell and Budweiser, scored 161,000 tweets, almost as much as the two other brands. Unfortunately, something came between the audience and their Calvins, however, as positive sentiment was only 60 percent, compared to Budweiser’s 70 percent and Taco Bell’s 80 percent.

Taco Bell scored the highest number of new Twitter followers, at 10,000, while @chrysler persuaded only a tenth that number to follow its Twitter feed — the same number as @godaddy.

For every seven tweets about the game, two were about the ads, revealing once and for all that the Super Bowl is as much spectacle as football. And revealing a winner in the brand retweet contest, with 397 retweets and 137 favorites.

The winner? Taco Bell:

Taco Bell hands down has the best commercial so far.

— Takeo Spikes (@TakeoSpikes51) February 4, 2013

Here’s the infographic:

Image credit: Go Daddy

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

This year’s Super Bowl ad landscape featured babies in space, a crazy goat, and another gross GoDaddy commercial. But a touching story about a Budweiser Clydesdale and the man who raised it beat all other ads, according to USA Today’s Ad Meter.

USA Today’s Ad Meter has been in use for 25 years to measure Super Bowl ad sentiment and measured it across 7,619 preregistered panelists this year. Panelists had to log in before the Super Bowl and give every ad a 1-10 measure. The scores were then averaged and ranked.

While USA Today’s Ad Meter is more storied, other firms tried to pick the most popular ads based on social media discussions about those commercials. Networked Insights, for example, used 24 million conversations on Twitter, Facebook, and other networks to determine that GoDaddy’s “Perfect Match” and Taco Bell’s “Viva Young” ads were the most talked about on the social web. Notably, GoDaddy’s ad was the most talked about, but it had more negative sentiment than positive.

Check out the top 10 commercials according to USA Today below and let us know your favorite in the comments:

1. Budweiser: Brotherhood

2. Tide: Miracle Stain

3. Dodge Ram: God Made a Farmer

4. Doritos: Fashionista Daddy

5. Jeep: Whole Again

6. Kia: Space Babies

7. Doritos: Goat 4 Sale

8. NFL: Leon Sandcastle

9. Hyundai: Team

10. Audi: Prom

Bonus: Oreo’s social media ad during the blackout

On a final note, the brand that scored the most points for a social advertisement was Oreo. The cookie from Nabisco used the Super Bowl’s strange electricity blackout as an opportunity to run a clever ad on Twitter and Facebook. As of this morning, Oreo’s blackout ad has been retweeted more than 14,800 times and reshared on Facebook 6,820 times.

Check out the ad below:

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Cameron Yuill is the Founder and CEO of AdGent Digital, a global digital and media technology company.

First up, kudos to CBS for “getting it.” Steaming live video to tablets is an absolute no-brainer. There were almost 50 million tablets sold worldwide last quarter alone. That is a lot of consumers.

So, let me say “thank you” to CBS on behalf of the millions (I’m betting that there were millions) of consumers who took advantage of the live stream. It provided consumers the flexibility and choice we deserve when it comes to watching the biggest sporting event in the country.

Now, if you were only watching the big game on your tablet that would be fine. However, I made the mistake of having the television on at the same time as having the live stream on my iPad on my lap (I am sure many others did this as well).

The issue — and I don’t know if it was my connection or the WiFi I was on, or if it is a technical limitation of live stream — was that the stream to the tablet lagged the television coverage. It was not a short lag, it was considerable. At one stage in the first quarter, I got out the stop watch and timed it. The lag was 21.7 seconds. This was essentially streaming one play behind the live coverage on the television.

This made it impossible to have both the tablet and television on at the same time. And you guessed it, the big screen eventually won.

That said, I did like the fact that you had access to a curated Twitter feed and the commercials that you could play on demand on the tablet.

Perhaps the most exciting innovation was the ability to switch between camera angles at will. It made me feel like I was in control of what I wanted to watch. There was a second or so between the camera angles switching but nothing that marred the experience.

At the risk of looking stupid, the only other thing that I had an issue with was that I could not watch the game on the full screen. Try as I might, I could not find a way of expanding the picture to the full screen. It might be able to be done, but for the life of me I could not figure it out. I am sure someone from CBS will call me out on this.

Overall, I must say I was excited to watch the game on my tablet. We should be able to watch everything on live on tablet. Unfortunately, there are still plenty of live sporting events that are not available. At least there is one network that gets it. Congratulations CBS. Great game!

Cameron founded AdGent Digital in 2008 as a company that develops tablet and video advertising technology for many of the world’s leading digital publishers, and buys and sells media on behalf of premium international brands. AdGent Digital’s technology platforms include AdTouch for tablets and D:30, a video ad platform.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

Twitter handily beat Facebook and Google+ during the Super Bowl in social media mentions, according to an informal analysis by Marketing Land.

During the Super Bowl, brands are fighting almost as hard as the players to out-perform the competition. They use whatever marketing tricks they can to score points, including mentioning social networks and other sites where fans could connect with the brand during or after the game.

Marking Land’s Matt McGee counted the number of mentions Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ got during the ads that aired during the Super Bowl. He only counted the 59 national commercials that aired after kickoff and before the game clock hit 0:00.

In order of mentions, here’s his breakdown:

• Twitter or hashtags were mentioned in 50 percent of ads
• Facebook was mentioned in 8 percent of ads
• Google+ was mentioned in 0 ads
• Instagram was mentioned in 1 ad
• YouTube was mentioned in 1 ad

For Twitter, he counted a hashtag, a logo, or a URL. Other mentions required a logo or URL.

Now, to be fair, hashtags are most commonly associated with Twitter, but they are sometimes used in Facebook and Google+ posts. So brands are showing a preference to Twitter, but it’s not like those marketing messages can’t leak out elsewhere.

Twitter also racked up some impressive stats during the game itself. These moments sent the most tweets flying:

- Power outage: 231,500 tweets per minute (TPM)
- 108-yard kickoff return for Ravens TD by Jones: 185,000 TPM
- Clock expires; Ravens win: 183,000 TPM
- Jones catches 56 yard pass for Ravens TD (end of 2nd quarter): 168,000 TPM
- Gore TD for 49ers: 131,000 TPM

Facebook’s wrap-up of Super Bowl activity doesn’t mention number of posts but does identify the biggest moments of the game shared on the platform:

1. Ravens win the Super Bowl
2. Beyonce’s halftime performance
3. Blackout in the Superdome
4. Jacoby Jones’ 108-yard kickoff return for a Ravens touchdown (and Justin Tucker’s field goal kick)
5. Joe Flacco’s 56-yard pass to Jacoby Jones for a Ravens touchdown (and Justin Tucker’s field goal kick)
6. Joe Flacco’s 13-yard pass to Anquan Boldin for a Ravens touchdown (and Justin Tucker’s field goal kick)
7. Frank Gore’s six-yard run for a 49ers touchdown (and David Akers’ field goal kick)
8. Destiny’s Child surprise appearance with Beyonce during the halftime show
9. Ray Lewis’ retirement
10. David Akers’ field goal kick from 27-yard line

Looking over these charts, there’s a clear difference in the type of content shared. Twitter prioritizes big and small events happening in real-time, like the power outage and the 108-yard kickoff return. Facebook’s users clearly focus on big, flashy moments, with the Ravens’ win and Beyonce’s performance in the top two slots.

As for which brands made the most impact using social media, Oreo was the clear winner. The brand used the Super Bowl’s blackout as an opportunity to run a clever ad on Twitter and Facebook that was shared an enormous amount of times. Oreo’s executive team pulled the trigger on the spontaneous ad just after the blackout happened, according to Buzzfeed.

As of this morning, Oreo’s clever blackout ad was retweeted more than 14,500 times and re-shared on Facebook 6,740 times.

Take a look at the witty Oreo ad below:

The 2013 Super Bowl will be known for having a record-breaking kick return, a half-hour game delay, an almost epic comeback, some quick-thinking social media users.

For those of you who didn’t watch the game, half the lights in the New Orleans Superdome went out just after halftime, and officials had to pause the game while waiting for the lights to return.

In that time, Nabisco cookie brand Oreo took to Twitter with a witty advertising image, telling people they could still “dunk” their cookies into milk in the dark. It was a smart move, one that probably netted it lots of attention during a period of dead air. Washing detergent maker Tide was also on its A-game during the delay, producing its own quick social ad about the blackout that proclaimed “We can’t get your blackout, but we can get your stains out.”

And at least one person had the foresight to create a Twitter account for @SuperbowlLights and began tweeting things like “No power, but still tweeting. Ya’ll mad?” (More below.)

No power but I'm still tweeting. Ya'll mad.—
Superbowl Lights (@SuperbowlLights) February 04, 2013

If Beyonce twerks for me I'll be turned on.—
Superbowl Lights (@SuperbowlLights) February 04, 2013

Let Ray Lewis have a 5min dance solo and I'll consider turning on.—
Superbowl Lights (@SuperbowlLights) February 04, 2013

Image via Oreo

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

What kind of commercial do you run if you’re constantly locked up in legal battles with your major competitor? If you’re Samsung, you fork over a dumpster full of cash and avoid alluding to Apple devices like you’ve done in the past.

The 120-second commercial was intended to have its global premiere during the fourth quarter of this year’s Super Bowl. However, Samsung decided to post the entire video on YouTube earlier today.

Just like we saw in earlier teaser videos, the commercial features celebrity funny men Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen being interviewed by Bob Odenkirk about doing a “Next Big Thing” endorsement ad for Samsung. NBA star athlete Lebron James makes a cameo on a tablet at the end, but not before lots of banter and ridiculous ideas for what to do in the commercial.

In addition to the estimated $15 million cost of airing the ad during the big game, Samsung also had to pay four celebrities and the commercial’s director, Jon Favreau (of Iron Man 1 & 2 fame). That’s a ton of cash for a commercial that, while funny, isn’t nearly as piercing as its ads teasing Apple about its customers being clueless old people.

We’ve embedded the video above. Let us know your thoughts on it in the comment section below.

The Super Bowl is the biggest football game of the year, an event that’s watched the world over — and now, even beyond.

NASA’s Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston will beam the game to the six astronauts aboard the International Space Station, the space agency revealed to Space.com Friday.

The space station, which itself is the size of a football field, may not have the luxury of offering the crew regular Super Bowl snacks and a huge TV, but at least they’ll get a chance to watch the game.

This won’t be the first time the space station crew has had the privilege of watching a huge sporting event while orbiting the planet, either. Last year, NASA also provided the space station with broadcasts of the 2012 Olympic games.

Via The Verge

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

At first glance, it may seem odd that Netflix chose to premiere its first huge original show House of Cards today, leading into Super Bowl weekend.

Not only is the Super Bowl championship game one of the most watched live events in the entire world, but it also gobbles up attention for most of the day with pre- and post-game analysis programming. Most of the major networks treat Super Bowl Sunday as if it were a holiday, delaying new episodes of their scripted and broadcast shows to avoid an audience ratings decline.

But clearly Netflix isn’t scared the big game will prevent people from watching House of Cards. And that’s despite reports from Sandvine showing a 40 percent drop in Netflix streaming usage compared to an average Sunday evening/night during last year’s Super Bowl. Part of its lack of fear might have to do with all the other TV networks playing reruns or deferring regular content until next week — meaning House of Cards might be the only great piece of TV worth watching on Sunday for those not watching the game.

Related stories:
Punt your TV: The Super Bowl is better online (guide)
Ahead of House of Cards premiere, Netflix asks investors to fund new original content

House of Cards has been getting glowing reviews from critics as well as tons of positive comments from Netflix subscribers via social media today. The show, which comes from the minds of director David Fincher and actor/producer Kevin Spacey, is a Washington D.C. political drama about corrupt congressman Francis Underwood (Spacey), who will stop at nothing to become President of the United States.

Netflix, which has promoted the show’s trailer on its streaming service for weeks, is releasing the full 13-episode season today. That’s a sharp difference in strategy from the cable networks, which make their audience wait 13 weeks to finish a story, one hour at a time.

And if the allure of a hot new show isn’t enough to bait people into checking out the new show between now and Sunday, the company is streaming the first episode for free on its website. Also, Netflix has partnered up with Microsoft to provide free access to its app on Xbox Live all weekend long (meaning access to all the episodes, son!). This is interesting because the “free weekend” is a promotional tactic commonly used by premium cable channels like HBO and Showtime to gain new customers.

It’s likely that Netflix subscribers (and those participating in the Xbox Live free weekend) won’t have time to finish the entire 13-episode run between now and Super Bowl kickoff. But, if House of Cards lives up to the buzz from critics (and it should), Netflix may end up seeing a nice usage boost beginning Monday — and a crop of new subscribers.

Theoretically, any boost in subscribers that can be attributed to House of Cards should play well with investors — especially since the company isn’t expecting the show’s debut to have an immediate impact on growth, Netflix chief exec Reed Hastings told analysts during last week’s Q4 earnings call.

We’ve reached out to Netflix for comment about the Super Bowl’s impact on streaming usage. And as always, we’ll updated this post with any new information when and if we hear back.

Will you be watching House of Cards this weekend? Let us know in the comments.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

This year’s Super Bowl is the first time that the NFL is offering free, advertising-supported Wi-Fi to its fans. But in order to protect the precious (and enormous) Wi-Fi network they’ve set up to handle nearly 30,000 people, officials are checking your wireless devices at the door, according to Ars Technica.

In partnership with Verizon and Cisco, the NFL created a beefed-up Wi-Fi system intended to sustain the entire crowd of Super Bowl spectators Sunday. It’s equipped with directional signals to make sure the Wi-Fi isn’t wasted on the empty space in the dome part of the Superdome, and it’s designed to withstand the thousands of streaming videos, stat checks, and blog posts viewers will undoubtedly interact with during the game.

But some of your devices could interfere with that signal — namely, any Wi-Fi connected cameras and laptops that are being used for private Wi-Fi networks. The NFL is checking all these devices, keeping in mind that some people — like the press — need their devices. If you’re found with what the NFL calls a “rogue” Wi-Fi device, the league is quarantining that puppy. Or staffers might change the channel on your Wi-Fi to ensure it doesn’t interfere.

Furthermore, the NFL is monitoring the network like a hawk. If it sees any funny business, such as a connection that’s throwing off part of the Wi-Fi, you could be asked to shut down that device.

If you’re headed to the Super Bowl, I wouldn’t worry about your phones. Surfing the Internet on your mobile devices is the whole reason the NFL set this up. But you should be wary of the Internet itself. The Wi-Fi is an open, free, password-less network, begging to be tapped into by some actual “rogues.”

Don’t use any financial or sensitive apps or send any private messages if you’re connected to the Wi-Fi. It might not just be the NFL watching your every move.

New Orleans Superdome photo: Infrogmation/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

The Super Bowl is the most watched event in the nation. And thanks to the almighty power of the blessed Internet, this year’s gameday is easier to follow and participate in than ever before.

We’ve devised a comprehensive gameday strategy for football fans and all their friends and family members.

1) Watching the big game online

Desktop: If you can’t get to a television screen, CBS Sports is doing you a solid by streaming the entire broadcast on its website for free. Pregame programming begins at 8 a.m. PT (11 a.m. ET), with the game itself kicking off at 3:30 p.m. PT (6:30 p.m. ET). The CBS Sports website may actually provide a better experience than the traditional TV screen, as you can view the game from many different angles, check out a livestream of social activity, and play with several interactive features. But if, for whatever reason, you’re not a fan of CBS, then head over to the official NFL Network website to catch a free livestream of the game. If you live outside the country, though, you’ll be forced to purchase an NFL Game Pass to watch the Super Bowl.

Mobile: Can’t get to a television or desktop computer? If you’re Verizon customer, don’t worry. The wireless carrier/FiOS broadband Internet company is providing a Super Bowl livestream via its free NFL apps for iOS and Android to anyone with an NFL Mobile subscription ($5/mo.).

2) Watching the commercials online

You have a few options for keeping track of all the seemingly memorable Super Bowl commercials online, with many shortened or rejected versions of them already available for viewing online. I prefer to use the Hulu AdZone to watch the commercials, but YouTube’s AdBlitz is also a good option. Either way, watching the commercials online means you can skip the annual offering from GoDaddy, which is usually tasteless and degrading to women.

3) Second screen apps & services

Team Apps: Because most of you will be constantly glancing at your smartphone or tablet throughout the game anyway, this year’s Super Bowl comes with a handful of official mobile apps intended to enhance the viewing experience. Both the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers have applications available on iOS, Android, and BlackBerry that will give you game news, short replay videos, photo galleries, player interviews, statistics, and other goodies.

Super Bowl event app: This year the NFL is providing those attending the game with a mobile app to make the most of their undoubtedly expensive experience. It has a map feature showing nearby restaurants, music, ticketing information, etc. And if it’s anything like the 2012 version, it will include some useful features for people who aren’t at the game too.

4) What to watch at halftime: Beyoncé or puppies?

Musical Performance: This year, CBS Sports will be providing a livestream of the Super Bowl’s halftime show, something that wasn’t available to online viewers in the past. That means you now have the option of watching Beyoncé try to entertain rambunctious football fans. If that doesn’t appeal to you, here’s another option:

Puppy Bowl: I’m not sure who at cable network Animal Planet was responsible for making an entire halftime show devoted to puppies playing with balls in an adorable dog-sized football field. But it’s back again this year, and with a new partnership that will vastly improve your viewing experience. Animal Planet has teamed up with Yahoo’s IntoNow application to give you an easy way to share and caption a large volume of adorable puppy screenshots via its CapIt feature (a meme generator). You may remember that I thoroughly praised IntoNow for its ability to make the 2012 presidential debates far more enjoyable. This will be more of the same, except this time you’ll actually stand a chance of getting everyone in the room to agree that your tweets are indeed awesome. For now, check out some game predictions using puppies, courtesy of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon:

5) Gameday Grub ideas

Foodily: Sure, you can definitely get away with ordering a few extra-large pizzas and opening a bag of chips, but why not go all out? I did a quick scan of some of the food startup blogs and was shocked to find that many of them had a pretty meager selection of Super Bowl food posts. Foodily, however, comes through, offering up not one, but three different posts that cover snacks, cocktails, and overall food. If you don’t like any of those selections, you can always search the site for more.

Yummly and Allrecipe: If you want a good recipe for regular game snack food, Allrecipe has collected a handy list of the most searched-for Super Bowl food. And if you have no idea what constitutes Super Bowl food or what the average football fan wants to eat, check out Yummly’s very extensive post on the subject using data from its own site.

Foodie iPad app: If you’re looking for a more directed crop of recipes, Glam Media’s cooking/food site Foodie has released a Foodie Recipes iPad app that highlights 40 game-day suggestions.

Seamless & GrubHub: If you hate cooking, or even leaving the confines of your house to pick up food for your guests, you can always use delivery services like Seamless or GrubHub to order from a ton of local restaurants.

6) Other miscellaneous Super Bowl-related apps, services, and content

Madden NFL 13: The EA Football game franchise is featuring a Ray Lewis pre-Super Bowl speech video on YouTube that’s available to watch now.

Xbox Live’s Sports Hub: A collection of Super Bowl-related content from a variety of Xbox media partners, including Hulu, Maxim, iHeartRadio, CrunchyRoll, and DailyMotion.

StatMilk: StatMilk has put together an interactive web infographic that compares statistical data of the Ravens and the 49ers. It’s actually pretty cool if you’re super into sports stats.

Swipper Bowl: Social startup Swipp has created a Swipper Bowl app that helps frame the discussion sports fans will likely be having via social media during the big game. To use it, you’ll need to connect with Facebook.

Football Party Game App: This is an iPad app/web app that lets you and a group of friends (wherever you are) to play a game of trivia during the Super Bowl. I’m not a fan of “pub quizzes” or trivia nights, but I have an exhausting list of friends who love it. It will, however, set you back $5.

TOK.tv iOS app: This app lets you chat with four other friends not in your general vicinity during the big game. It’s basically a Google Hangout that’s devoted to live sporting events. The TOK.tv iPad  app is free and available in the iTunes store.

7) Avoiding the heck out of the actual Super Bowl

Hey sports haters and hermits, did you think we’d forget about you? Nope. Here are a few cool things you may want to know going into Super Bowl Sunday weekend (the thing that will render your Twitter feeds useless for much of Sunday evening).

Netflix Free weekend: Did you know that Netflix is letting anyone with an Xbox 360 + Xbox Live membership access its vast library of streaming videos for the whole weekend? If you didn’t, and you don’t already subscribe to Netflix, you now can catch up on old episodes of Star Trek, classic Disney cartoons, and marathon through the first few seasons of Vampire Diaries. Hulu Plus is also enabling free access to its Xbox Live app for the weekend.

House of Cards: In addition to the Xbox Live weekend promo, Netflix is also debuting its first super huge original TV show, House of Cards, which is said to be on par with the quality of HBO’s original programming. The good thing about Netflix, as opposed to the cable networks, is that you won’t have to wait 13 weeks to finish the first season. Netflix is releasing the whole thing today.

HBO Go: Again, the Super Bowl is so powerful that HBO made the decision to release the latest episode of its hit series Girls one day early (Saturday, Feb. 2). I can’t imagine that anyone who’s a die-hard Lena Dunham fan would be upset about missing the Super Bowl, but regardless, we all benefit.

Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comment section, and we’ll be sure to add it.

So is Samsung, apparently.

The Korean consumer electronics giant’s tempestuous legal relationship with Apple is well known, as the two companies fight for global dominance of the smartphone and tablet markets. But it doesn’t mean that Samsung can’t have any fun with it.

Just like this:

Samsung is teasing their big Super Bowl ad, of course, but it’s also poking a pretty big finger at an unmentionable competitor with rounded corners and a design language that it fiercely protects against all comers.

I wonder if Apple is amused?

photo credit: elviskennedy via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

The next time a nefarious organization wants to keep people off the Internet, it would do well to engineer its own championship professional football game.

Web traffic dropped significantly during this past Sunday’s Super Bowl football match between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, according to a Sandvine report published today. But with this year’s game bringing in a record 111.3 million viewers, the Sandvine’s findings aren’t entirely surprising.

Overall internet traffic during the game was 20 percent lower compared to an average Sunday evening, as shown in the graph embedded below. And in this case, the biggest loser of the night was Netflix and not the Patriots (unless you’re a Pats fan). Compared to the average Sunday evening traffic, the popular streaming video service saw a whopping 40 percent decrease in activity during the game (see graph below).

Alternately, the NBC Sports official website, which legally streamed the live event for the first time, saw a noticeable bump in visitor activity. Sandvine reports that the site accounted for 6.2 percent of all downstream internet network traffic at 9 p.m. ET. However, the legal Super Bowl live stream didn’t have much of an impact on the the television viewership, which is exactly what NBC Sports digital head Rick Cordella predicted prior to the game.

In addition to NBC Sports, social media networks saw a large surge in visitor activity during the game. Microblogging site Twitter was at the forefront of that surge — with the Super Bowl breaking a new traffic record for the highest non-anime-related tweets per second (TPS) metric.

Loser movie poster image from Sony Pictures: Netflix; Graphs: Better Broadband Blog

A look at the escalation of tweets per second over the years tells us that Twitter has blossomed into the social network of record for current affairs.

The visual proof, as seen below, comes courtesy of statistics portal Statista, which gathered tweets per second milestones from 2009 to 2012. The graphic that captures the most culturally significant moments of the past three years.

Remarkably, just one year ago, the tweets per second record was just 6,939 (set four seconds after midnight in Japan on New Year’s Day), which highlights that Twitter activity growth is only accelerating.

Today, Twitter averages 250 million tweets per day and has 100 global active users across the world.

Photo credit: quirky/Flickr

The Super Bowl halftime show featuring Madonna inspired 10,245 tweets per second.

Just one month ago, the service had 9,420 tweets per second during a Sunday football game featuring Tim Tebow. For contrast, Twitter saw a peak of 8,868 tweets per second during Beyoncé’s MTV music video awards show pregnancy announcement and just 5,106 tweets per second as the news of Osama bin Laden’s death was announced.

However, the all-time record for most tweets per second goes to Castle in the Sky, a Japanese anime show that set the bar at 25,088 tweets per second during a broadcast in December 2011.

Twitter may or may not be a big hit with anime fans around the globe, but we do know that Twitter is huge in Japan — bigger than Facebook, in fact, with around 25 million Japanese users hitting the site each month.

Twitter is also getting into the Super Bowl ads game. “This year we’re introducing a Twitter twist,” the company announced on its blog.

“Immediately after the game, you can replay all of the ads that aired during the game and tweet votes for your favorites on adscrimmage.twitter.com.”

The company said it will tally the votes and announce the winners on February 12, 2011, a week after the Super Bowl.

Twitter reported that there were an average of 10,000 tweets per second in the final three minutes of the game. That beats the Royal Wedding at 3,966 tweets per second and Osama Bin Laden’s death at 5,106 tweets per second.

Social TV startup Bluefin Labs said it saw 11.5 million comments during the game, up six fold over last year.

The official Super Bowl Twitter account has just 37,871 followers. Some 50 employees and volunteers manned the Super Bowl Command Center for social media.

The NFL has about 2.8 million Twitter followers and 4.5 million Facebook NFL page likes. Verizon added 400 additional 3G and LTE antennae for 3G and LTE service. AT&T added 200 new cell sites in Indianapolis.

InMobi reported that 40 percent of respondents to its survey said they used mobile devices in response to TV ads and 45 percent estimated they would spend 30 minutes or more on their mobile devices during the game. About 39 percent said they would use their mobile devices in response to TV commercials. About 27 percent said they downloaded a Super Bowl mobile app; and 30 percent said they used mobile devices most during commercials.

During the 6:30 pm EST to 8 pm EST time block, H&M’s Super Bowl commercial site was the fastest with a response time of 1.7 seconds to load the whole page, while Honda’s was the worst with 40 seconds required to load the full page, according to the SmartBear AlertSite.

For the first time, the Super Bowl was shown online via legal streaming technology, giving home viewers the option of watching the game on the web or on the TV. In advance of the showing, federal authorities took control of a number of domains for unauthorized sports-related streaming sites, no doubt helping NBC and the NFL get more views. We don’t have numbers yet on how many people watched via the web.

[photo credit: Metrowest Daily News]

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Electronics retail company Best Buy decided to forgo the regular celebrity spokesperson for its annual Super Bowl commercial in favor of highlighting mobile technology innovators.

During this year’s Super Bowl game, the company aired a 30-second commercial titled “Phone Innovators. The commercial  featured a handful of heavy hitters, including camera phone inventor Philippe Kahn, text-to-speech inventor Ray Kurzweil, SMS message innovator Neil Papworth, Instagram founder Kevin Systrom, Square founder Jim McKelvey, and Shazam creators Chris Barton and Avery Wang.

However, the big highlight of the commercial was definitely the appearance of Words With Friends game creators Paul and David Bettner. A flight attendant hushes the two men during their introduction — poking fun at 30 Rock actor Alec Baldwin, who was removed from a plane months ago after refusing to turn off his phone while playing a rousing game of Words With Friends.

Best Buy said it decided to swap out its regular celebrity endorsement for this year’s commercial after noticing the outpouring admiration from people after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ death in October. Best Buy Marketing chief Drew Panayiotou previously told Reuters that “Silicon Valley inventors are today’s stars.”

We’ve taken the liberty of embedding both the 30-second Best Buy Super Bowl commercial (as well as the extended cut) below.

Here are a few suggestions on what marketers can learn from the success of sports engagement on social media.

Your fans have shifted to social…Refresh your playbook

Social media is changing how fans cheer on their teams. At the time of the 2006 World Cup, Facebook was still limited only to college and high school students. But then everything changed in 2010. At the South Africa World Cup, where viewing parties, mobile app badges, continual tweets from players, and live streams on social networks inspired a growing community of fans to share with socially-inspired sports fans around the world.

Games were watched worldwide in record numbers (19.4 million people watched the US vs. Ghana game). Twitter reported that the Women’s World Cup soccer final scored a new record with 7,196 “tweets per second,” the most tweeted moment in Twitter history. And number 2? Brazil’s elimination from Copa America! Social vuvuzelas were heard all over the world (and not only on those incredibly annoying vuvuzela mobile apps).

How are you going to adapt your media buying and social strategies to better engage your brand’s audience?

Facebook gives you the home field advantage

We know you remember the stat that if Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populated in the world. (That was initially shared when Facebook hit 500 million users. Now the site has more than 800 million users — as many users as the entire Internet in 2004!) Facebook has fostered a community of like-minded friends and fans. So, cultivate, engage and keep your fans (and their friends) where they already are. Don’t redirect them to your Web site.

There’s vastly greater value in having your fans share your message with their friends on Facebook, versus engaging them alone on your site. What’s your game plan for engaging with fans on Facebook and building new audiences on this important “hub” throughout the coming year?

Marketing needs to closely manage their “Xs and Os”

For the first time ever NBC and the NFL have agreed to live stream the Super Bowl online and on mobile phones. Marketers have a vast list of social and mobile tools or “plays” they can run, and they are tasked daily with the challenge of creating, managing, and maintaining these campaigns both offline and online. As a result, marketers have to think more broadly, and use social to connect online and offline more strategically.

For example, mobile campaigns are a perfect way to bridge online and offline — contextually relevant campaigns bring people in the real world to an online social world. And, using simple QR codes on billboards, product labels, and print ads connect people to communities on Facebook. I’m personally a fan of using a TV ad “jingle” recognition with apps like Shazam, Little Debbie’s Airstream, and the Volkswagen Peepster. Are you fully taking advantage of the uniqueness of social, mobile, etc. And, what steps will you be taking steps to better integrate your offline and online experiences?

Capturing Fans Before, During and After the Action

According to a 2011 study by Nielsen, roughly 40% of tablet and smartphone users in the US use their devices daily while watching TV. Technology offers brands a great opportunity to give fans something interesting to do before, during, and after the action. International soccer teams have totally figured this out.

FC Barcelona — with over 25 million fans on Facebook — runs quizzes that allow fans to predict when goals are scored and by whom, with prizes for winners. Manchester United, which has over 20 million fans, has a whole section of their Facebook page devoted to polls — each one regularly getting 20,000 – 40,000 votes each — creating a well of wall content that can be tapped. Real Madrid — with over 23 million fans — gets up to 100,000 comments on every post on their wall.

Major League Baseball is figuring it out too. They ran their “Home Run Derby” in 2011, with athletes tweeting from the field, generating 4,995 tweets per second#. And despite the fact that Super Bowl XLV was the second-most mentioned topic in Facebook in 2011 (after the death of Osama Bin Laden), the official 2012 Super Bowl page has no Facebook connection and no official Facebook community. What a missed opportunity for fan engagement!

What can marketers learn from these highly engaged sports fans?

Social media lets people express an important part of themselves to their friends. It’s not just sports teams that reflect a fan’s personality. It’s also the car they drive, the clothes they wear, the movies they go to, the places they travel, the recipes they love, and the list goes on. We see that fans are perfectly willing to share their love of a brand just as passionately as they do their love of a sports team — if the brand encourages them in just the right way.

After building thousands of campaigns for hundreds of leading international consumer brands, we’ve learned that socially successful brands don’t want another “me too” sweepstakes or contest. They want something unique, interesting, personal and individualized to their brand, with the context appropriate to social, and that allows fans to share their message.

So, take a page out of the sports fan playbook. Go where your fans are having fun. Engage them in what makes them passionate. Build campaigns that involve what they’re doing socially — on the sofa or on the sidewalk — with their friends. And that reflects favorably on their personalities. Let fans use your brand to “show off” their knowledge, beauty, and wit. And always, always make sure the campaign is inherently viral.

When you get a fan to tell friends about you, you’ll always win. It’s the best route to a Facebook page full of MVPs.

Roger Katz is CEO of Friend2Friend, which has hundreds of leading International consumer brands in its roster, including some iconic European soccer teams.

[Super Bowl image via Shutterstock]

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Updated: Official statement from the U.S. Immigration and Customs office has been added at the bottom of the post.

The U.S. Department of Justice has issued a new round of domain seizures today targeted at websites that provide access to illegal live sports streaming video.

The DOJ’s timing is likely related to this Sunday’s NFL Super Bowl championship football game, which has routinely become the most watched televised event of the year with over 100 million viewers. In December, television affiliate NBC and the NFL announced that the big game would stream for free online for the first time — meaning illegal sports streaming sites could hypothetically steal traffic away from NBC.

The seized domains, which aren’t limited to any particular sport, include Firstrowsports.tv, Firstrowsports.com, and Soccertvlive.net. However, more sites may be added over the course of the day. Visitors who navigate to any of the seized sites are met with the official takedown notice from the DOJ. The Justice Department has yet to issue a formal statement regarding the Super Bowl Sting operation.

This isn’t the first time the DOJ has seized domains on the basis of copyright violations. In November, the Justice Department shut down over 130 domains that were involved with streaming content illegally. Yet, this is the first time the government has managed to seize domains that feature the .tv extension. As TorrentFreak points out, the .tv extension belongs to the islands of Tuvalu, but it’s operated by U.S. security company Verisign. So apparently, the federal government has assumed the authority to not only shut down domains with extensions intended for the U.S. but also any domain extension that’s operated by a company within the U.S.

While I can appreciate the Justice Department’s desire to thwart websites that are making money illegally off of U.S. sports, I’m not sure this particular round of domain seizures will have any meaningful impact. First of all, NBC is streaming the Super Bowl live on its website for free, which easily makes it the most visible venue. Also, NBC is offering an experience that’s actually better than its television broadcast — by offering game highlights, multiple video angles, and more. None of the illegally streaming sites can compete with that.

It’s also worth mentioning that the head of digital for NBC Sports, Rick Cordella, has publicly commented that NBC isn’t worried that live streaming the Super Bowl will take viewership away from people who watch it on TV. So basically, streaming the game (anywhere) won’t even affect the regular business it’ll generate for the NFL and NBC.

We’ve contacted the DOJ about the domain seizures and will update this post with any new information.

Updated (2:13 p.m. PT): Below is the official statement from the U.S. Immigration and Customs office regarding “Operation Fake Sweep” — the oh so clever name given to the DOJ/ICE domain seizure initiative, which commenced Oct. 1, 2011 and will continue through Super Bowl weekend.

Furthering HSI efforts to combat counterfeiting and piracy online, special agents seized a total of 307 websites. Sixteen of the sites illegally streamed live sporting telecasts over the Internet, including NFL games. Two hundred ninety-one website domain names were illegally selling and distributing counterfeit merchandise…

The website seizures during Operation Fake Sweep represent the 10th phase of Operation In Our Sites, a sustained law enforcement initiative targeting counterfeiting and piracy on the Internet. The 307 websites are in the process of being seized by law enforcement, and will soon be in the custody of the federal government. Visitors to these websites will then find a seizure banner that notifies them that the domain name has been seized by federal authorities and educates them that willful copyright infringement is a federal crime.

American business is threatened by those who pirate copyrighted material and produce counterfeit trademarked goods. Criminals are attempting to steal American ideas and products and sell them over the Internet, in flea markets, in legitimate retail outlets and elsewhere. Intellectual property (IP) thieves undermine the U.S. economy and jeopardize public safety. American jobs are being lost, American innovation is being diluted and organized criminal enterprises are profiting from their increasing involvement in IP theft.

Since the launch of Operation In Our Sites in June 2010, the HSI-led National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) has seized a total of 669 domain names.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

For the first time ever, NBC and the National Football League have agreed to live stream the Super Bowl online and on mobile phones in February, the two organizations announced today.

The Super Bowl is the most-watched television program around the world each year, and commanded 111 million viewers for the last game, so it’s a huge deal to see its distribution move from analog to digital. With many users choosing to “cut the cord” and get rid of cable boxes in favor of computers, NBC and the NFL likely saw value in bringing the games online and to mobile devices to reach an even-bigger audience.

The two organizations also said they would live-stream NBC’s broadcasts of wild-card playoff games and the Pro Bowl, on top of the Super Bowl. The games will be streamed at NBCSports.com and NFL.com through the SNF Extra web app, which features “HD broadcast, DVR-style controls, additional camera angles, in-game highlights, live statistics and interactive elements.”

NBC and the NFL started live streaming select football games in 2008, but this is the first time the organizations have agreed to show playoff games online. NBC claims Sunday Night Football streams average between 200,000 and 300,000 viewers, while 21 million watch the games on TV, indicating that the TV ratings aren’t being affected significantly.

The phone presentation will be much more limited in scope than the traditional desktop streaming presentation. Only Verizon smartphones running the Verizon NFL Mobile app will be able to watch the Super Bowl and playoff games on their phones. NBC and the NFL did not specify which phones in the Verizon lineup include this application.

This year’s Super Bowl will take place in Indianapolis on Feb. 5.

Nissan admits to Leaf delays – VentureBeat first reported on expected delays of the all-electric Nissan Leaf last year. Now the automaker has formally acknowledged Leaf delivery delays due to bottlenecks in the quality assurance and distribution process, the Financial Times reports. The company delivered 19 cars to customers in December and 87 last month, and expects delivery issues to ease by April for the 20,000 customers on the Leaf waiting list.

A123 nabs energy storage deal in Chile – The battery maker has won a deal worth 20 megawatts of its advanced energy storage solutions from AES Gener, one of the top electricity generators in Chile. A123′s batteries will be used to store reserve energy at one of AES Gener’s plants. The two companies also have a reserve capacity project in New York, slated for completion this year.

LS9 inks Procter & Gamble partnership — The biofuels company announced today its second partnership with consumer goods giant Procter and Gamble, which will focus on expanding on renewable chemicals made by LS9 for use in P&G products. The project expands on the renewable chemicals partnership announced between the two companies in 2009.

Wind offset Super Bowl energy use – Energy consumed at yesterday’s Super Bowl was offset by the purchase of wind credits in Texas, which is the top producer of wind energy in the country. A Texas grid official also highlighted wind power contributing to the state’s peak electricity generation in last week’s statewide rolling blackouts, which were mandated by officials to reduce strain on the grid after several power plants unexpectedly shut down in the cold weather.

Control4 raises $15 million — The home energy management module-maker has raised the cash out of a planned $25 million round. Control4 recently teamed with smart grid company Silver Spring Networks to roll out several home smart grid applications.

McPhy grabs hydrogen storage deal – The company has signed a deal to supply a solid hydrogen storage solution to  Enel Group, Italy’s largest power company. The system can hold 2 kilograms of solid hydrogen, stored in the form of magnesium hydrides, and results in a reversible hydrogen storage system.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Tech companies have long glommed on to the Super Bowl to promote their services. Remember how TiVo touted the number of people who replayed Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction in 2004? Now Foursquare, the hot New York-based location service, has revealed an alluring offer you’ll want to check out — or rather, check in.

Normally, Foursquare lets you announce where you are to your friends. But it’s waiving that restriction with the launch of a new advertising format — a “promoted venue” for the event to which anyone can check in, even if they don’t have coveted tickets to the real thing, in partnership with the National Football League. Any user will be able to check in to the Super Bowl, wherever they are, and receive a special badge as well as a discount code for NFLShop.com.

According a Foursquare spokesperson, “Super Bowl Sunday” will appear in the mobile app’s “Trending Now” section, which normally shows popular locations near the user. Once checked in, the user will have to “shout” which team they are rooting for and then receive that team’s badge — either one for the Steelers or  the Packers. (If a user is actually at the Super Bowl in real life — something Foursquare’s app detects using a smartphone’s GPS data — they will receive their own badge.)

Users will also receive a code for a 20 percent discount on merchandise at NFLShop.com, the league’s online store. While Foursquare has allowed businesses like Starbucks to issue their own promotional badges and separately offer discounts, this is the first time it’s combined the two rewards. With 6 million users, up 3,400 percent in 2010, it’s not surprising that Foursquare is experimenting more aggressively with new advertising formats.

Foursquare, based in New York City and founded in 2009, has raised more than $21 million in funding to date, with reports of possible additional fundraising on the horizon. It currently has more than 40 employees in its hometown and an engineering office in San Francisco.

Update: ScanScout incorrectly stated that 3 times as many clips were watched a week after the game. The actual ratio is about 1.6 to 1, as seen in the chart above.

Video ad network ScanScout has concluded from analysis of Web video traffic that far more football videos were watched on Sunday, February 14th — one week after the Super Bowl — than on the day of the game. As seen in the chart above, the week-later audience was about 60 percent larger than the Super Sunday crowd online. Altogether, far less than half of all Bowl-related football-watching was done on the 7th.

Of course, the biggest audience was the live one. Super Sunday is effectively an American national holiday. But as a ScanScout spokesman emailed me, “The tried and true methods for TV don’t necessarily apply to online video. The smart move for advertisers coveting the Super Bowl audience is to spend TV ad dollars on game day. Then, switch to online video the following Sunday.”

ScanScout, founded in 2005, is part of the video ad industry based in Boston, although the company maintains offices in New York and Los Angeles. ScanScout has amassed $17.5 million in funding, most recently an $8.5 million round in October 2009 that included EDB Investments from Singapore, plus Time Warner, General Catalyst Partners, and First Round Capital.