Category: News

Despite some rather important launch titles being delayed further into the year, the Wii U still loves you. That’s at least what Nintendo may be trying to get across tomorrow with a special Valentine’s Day Nintendo Direct.

Nintendo announced that its latest Nintendo Direct for North America will go live tomorrow at 9 a.m. EST/6 a.m. PST. The company isn’t saying what exactly will be shown, but says that the event will cover “upcoming Nintendo 3DS and Wii U games.”

Whatever it is, it’s going to be hard for Nintendo to top January’s Nintendo Direct that announced a number of new titles including a remake of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. This event sounds like the company will be sharing details on upcoming games of the near future like LEGO City Undercover and The Wonderful 101.

Of course, we can’t forget the Nintendo 3DS getting some love this time around as well. Nintendo’s release schedule for its handheld is looking far more populated than that of the Wii U for the next few months so expect a few more details on titles like Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon and Castlevania Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate.

Whatever happens though, Nintendo fans will want to keep their expectations in check. It’s doubtful that the company will announce any new games. It might not even be that long of an event, but we just might get to see Reggie exiling more Nintendo employees to Japan.

Bing launched a new Politics site with “Bing Pulse” ahead of the State of the Union address, and is now sharing some insights from the endeavor.

“Last night, millions of Americans tuned into President Obama’s State of the Union address – and Bing stood alone in giving people a rare opportunity to give real-time feedback and access live social data at Bing.com/Politics,” says Mark Penn, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft. “Powered by Bing search technology and its unique social search experience, Bing’s State of the Union experience featured the breakthrough Bing Pulse – what turned out to be the largest live online poll in history.”

Bing partnered with FOX News on the site, offering what Bing described as a “non-partisan online destination designed to meet” the “growing need for up-to-the-minute political information and second-screen experiences”.

The Bing Pulse receieved 12.9 million votes, according to Bing, allowing people to join the conversation by “voting” every five seconds on their reactions to President Obama’s speech. Live results from the feature were shown on FOX News.

The search engine released the following infographic looking at real-time reactions to the speech:

Here’s a look at some findings from Twitter.

John McDonnell, COO of Patrón Spirits International, on how his company grew beyond the domestic market.

You need help scoping out a new architecture for an application? Or maybe some for-real 24 X 7 support for that application once it’s built? Now Heroku is offering a premium tier of paid services you can tap into, provided you build and host that application on Heroku’s Platform as a Service.

An eagle-eyed colleague (thanks Derrick) spotted the Heroku business critical applications page on Tuesday and sure enough, it’s a new offering that goes beyond the all-in-one Heroku services that developers get when they put up their credit card for basic PaaS services. The new services include one-on-one consulting, problem support escalation all based on a custom pricing model.

An exec with a rival PaaS vendor said these new paid options are “right out of the Salesforce handbook for how to monetize cloud.” Salesforce.com bought Heroku, which was then a Ruby-oriented PaaS, three years ago. Since then Heroku has added support for several more languages.

PaaSes like Heroku, AppFog, Google App Engine, and Microsoft Azure, target developers who want to build applications without sweating all the underlying infrastructure stuff. But, to date, the category has struggled for acceptance beyond that demographic. Classic IT types are usually not wild about running company applications on someone else’s platform so they often push to move the finished application back inside the firewall. Higher level services like these might appeal to  corporate developers and their IT counterparts.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• Platform as a Service in 2012
• PaaS market accelerators, 2012–2013
• Cloud computing infrastructure: 2012 and beyond

Editor's note: This post was originally published on the official blog of the U.S. Department of Education.

“… My administration will release a new “College Scorecard” that parents and students can use to compare schools based on a simple criteria — where you can get the most bang for your educational buck.” – President Obama, 2013 State of the Union

The interactive College Scorecard gives students and families five key pieces of data about a college: costs, graduation rate, loan default rate, average amount borrowed, and employment.

Too often, students and their families don’t have the right tools to help them sort through the information they need to decide which college or university is right for them. The search can be overwhelming, and the information from different colleges can be hard to compare.

That’s why, today, our Administration released a “College Scorecard” that empowers families to make smart investments in higher education. As the President said last night, we want to help families get the most bang for their educational buck.

The College Scorecard – as part of President Obama’s continued efforts to hold colleges accountable for cost, value and quality – highlights key indicators about the cost and value of institutions across the country to help students choose a school that is well-suited to meet their needs, priced affordably, and is consistent with their educational and career goals.

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If you’re looking for marketing jargon in 2013, look no further than “native advertising.” Brands, media companies and marketing agencies are jumping on the native advertising bandwagon faster than you can say, “what ever happened to Pinterest being the next big thing?”

But there’s a debate about just what, exactly, the advertising industry means by “native advertising.” Many believe that native advertising is just a digital euphemism for the classic advertorial that would frequently fill a page in your local newspaper or national magazine — only with less of a wall between the traditional church-and-state structure of editorial and advertising (like when The Atlantic ran a subtly flagged advertorial for The Church of Scientology). Others will say that “native advertising’ is advertising that is unique to a specific channel (like when BuzzFeed works with an advertiser to create a piece of content that will only run on BuzzFeed) or it could even be platform-wide (let’s say AOL runs sponsored content across many of their channels, from Huffington Post and TechCrunch to Patch). No wonder flailing publishers like “native advertising” — they can make it mean whatever they want it to mean!

In 1996, the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) was founded with a core belief that if media and advertising standards were not put in place, the online advertising medium could never mature and capture a brand’s advertising spend. Unlike traditional media (which had established formats and specifications across the multiple channels), every web page could be a media company unto itself with different advertising specifications and measurements in place. The Wild West that was the web back in the nineties would be equally wild for advertising. Beyond best practices, research, education and advocacy, the IAB managed to achieve a common ground in the area of creative standards and measurement guidelines, but this could all go away if marketing professionals can’t agree on a clear definition for “native advertising.”

Not to sound alarmist, but if there is not a consistent definition (that includes both the technical format along with the content that is embedded within in), the confusion will cause challenges in the growth of online advertising. The industry will revert back to a time and place when publishers could create complex and chaotic environments for advertisers. If every piece of digital creative must now become unique (from the technical to the content), brands are going to struggle with everything from ideation and production to comparable measurement models.

So let’s try to define it. The divergent definitions above all confuse the unique format (size and technical specifications) of the ad placement with the content (the creative that is placed within that format). I define native advertising as an ad format that must be created specifically for one media channel in terms of the technical format and the content (both must be native to the channel on which they appear and unable to be used in another context). For example, you can’t place a Google AdWords campaign on The New York Times’ website and you can’t run a promoted tweet on The Huffington Post’s Twitter feed. The advertising that you buy from Google to run on their search engine (or network) is unique (or, native, if you will) to their platform, much in the same way that promoted tweets on Twitter were created and can only be run on Twitter. The advertising formats and the content within them are native to the environment.

So does this mean than any ad is a native ad? If you ran a Super Bowl ad, wasn’t that native to the Super Bowl… or native to TV? Not really. Television ads are traditionally shot the same way. An ad on the Super Bowl could be shown on Storage Wars and nothing would need to be changed. The formats are consistent. The advertising content just happens to be tailored for the big football game, but the format is ubiquitous across the entire television medium.

For example, The Atlantic also ran an editorial piece titled “Where Design Meets Technology” that was sponsored by Porsche. That was lauded in the media as an attempt to drive native advertising. According to Digiday, the 155-year-old-publication feels that advertising which has the “look and feel of The Atlantic’s content… help[s] brands create and distribute engaging content by making the ads linkable, sharable and discoverable.” Does this sponsored post truly feel like native advertising? What makes this native to The Atlantic? Is it simply the fact that The Atlantic’s editorial team created and curated the content with Porsche’s approval? Could Porsche and their media company not ask to sponsor content on any number of other online publishing platforms? Ultimately, I would argue that this was not native advertising, but simply good content marketing or sponsored content that didn’t smell like pure advertorial.

The current state of online advertising is about to hit a tipping point. Last month’s MediaPost headline says it all: “Online Poised To Break 25% Budget Milestone, Mobile Fueling Half Its Growth.” With this growth, interest in and confusion over native advertising is likely to grow. Advertising, as we have traditionally defined it, continues to morph as traditional publishers attempt to figure out their digital monetization models. The complexity is only enhanced as the traditional advertising formats in the online channel (namely banner ads or display advertising) continue to provide weaker results to advertisers.

Until we get a better handle on the definition of native advertising and the standardized formats digital ads can take, brands and publishers will continue to go through the standard growing pains when new opportunities and nomenclature enters the fray. (Just look to that much-ridiculed Scientology piece on the Atlantic as an example.)

The charm of traditional advertising was in cost and efficacy. One ad could be produced and — with minor adaptation — pumped into a handful of media channels with enough repetition to create awareness and interest to buy. If advertisers are going to have to create unique formats mixed with unique content for each and every different channel and platform, it’s going to massively affect not only budgets and timelines, but also a brand’s ability to get their message out to a larger audience in the same way that they used to. The somewhat ironic irritant here is that marketers know and understand that the best kind of advertising is when the message feels unique and highly personalized to both the consumer and how the ad is placed within the context of the media channels.

The industry is talking about native advertising as if it is something new. Google AdWords is native advertising. Promoted tweets on Twitter is native advertising. Buying reach on Facebook’s newsfeed/timeline is native advertising. Everything else just feels like sponsored content or an advertorial in sheep’s clothing.

Native advertising can’t just be about the creative that fills an advertising space. Native advertising must be intrinsically connected to the format that fits the user’s unique experience. There’s something philosophically beautiful about that in terms of what great advertising should (and could) be.

But first, we need to all speak the same language around “native advertising.” The future of paid advertising depends on it.

The Future of Advertising
An HBR Insight Center

• Welcome to the Future of Advertising Insight Center
• When Advertising Meets the Meme
• Stop Selling Ads and Do Something Useful
• The Power of Real-Time Advertising

An Australian woman says that after getting out of a cab in New York early Sunday morning, a man came up behind her and dragged her into an alley, where he raped her.

The 20-year old woman was on her way home after partying at the popular club Lavo, located at East 58th Street between Park and Madison avenues. After hailing a cab, however, she had a disagreement with the driver and quickly got out (one report says the young woman decided to wait because the traffic was so bad). That’s when the rapist allegedly struck.

There is currently an artist’s rendering of the man’s face being passed around the web, but police are also checking surveillance videos and are working on tracking down the cab driver for questioning. The man is described as a black man, 35 to 40 years old. He is about 6 feet, 2 inches tall, 190 pounds and was wearing a skull cap and dark clothing at the time of the attack.

Anyone with information is encouraged to call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS.

On Thursday, February 14th at 4:50 p.m. EST, President Obama will sit down with Americans from all across the country for a “Fireside Hangout” – our 21st century take on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats. The President will join a live, completely virtual interview from nowhere other than the Roosevelt Room in the White House’s West Wing.

This online event comes just days after the State of the Union address, where the President laid out his plan to create jobs and strengthen the middle class. During the hangout, which is hosted and moderated by Google, the President will connect with people who are active online to discuss the policies and proposals in the speech.

Do you have a question that you’d like President Obama to answer? Right now, you can submit a text or video question for the President, and also vote on your favorites. Then, be sure to tune in for the hangout live on Thursday, February 14th at 4:50 p.m. EST. Watch it live on the White House YouTube Channel, Google+ page and at WhiteHouse.gov/live.

Thursday’s event with the President is the latest in a series of Fireside Hangouts and White House engagement programs on Google+. Last month, Vice President Biden kicked off the series with a virtual conversation about reducing gun violence. And after President Obama presented his plan to fix our broken immigration system, Cecilia Muñoz, Director of the Domestic Policy Council, joined a Fireside Hangout on the issue.

The White House uses Google+, and other social media networks and online tools, to directly connect President Obama and his Administration directly with the American people. Since our inaugural White House hangout with President Obama after the State of the Union in January 2012, the White House has hosted hangouts about everything from healthy families to small business and mortgage refinancing to human trafficking.

More than 1.4 million people have followed the White House since we joined Google+ a little over a year ago — and we've invited those followers to join hangouts with senior staff and Cabinet members and come to the White House for special events, like our State of the Union Social and a Google+ photowalk. Follow us on Google+ to stay connected to the White House and get the latest updates on how you can engage. You can also check out the White House on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. Learn more about all the ways you can engage with the White House at WhiteHouse.gov/engage.

In the past, Jimmy Kimmel has asked people to prank their friends and family around certain holidays, upload the video to YouTube, and let all of us enjoy the lulz. He’s done this for Halloween, by asking parents to tell their children that they ate all of the candy. Hilarious.

He’s asked people to give their kids terrible Christmas presents and their mothers terrible Mother’s Day presents. Both hilarious. He asked people to unplug the Super Bowl at a pivotal moment in the game and capture everyone’s reaction on video. Priceless.

But this time…I dunno Jimmy. You’re playing with fire.

In a study released last week, Dr. Joseph Mason of LSU demonstrated the vast economic benefits of opening up federal lands to oil and gas development: 500,000 new jobs a year and more than $30 billion a year in federal, state, and local tax revenue over the next seven years alone. That’s just for starters. The study also shows that opening new federal lands to oil and gas production will create a cumulative $14.4 trillion in economic activity.  But instead of seizing the opportunity to unlock the benefits of expanding oil and natural gas exploration, the Interior Department on Feb. 6 identified 23 renewable energy projects for priority permitting.

If all 14 wind, 6 solar, and 3 geothermal projects are approved and built, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) estimates the completed projects would total 5,300 megawatts of electricity generating capacity. That’s enough energy to power 1.6 million homes when the wind is blowing hard enough, the sun is shining, and the geothermal plant is operating at full capacity.

While 5,300 megawatts of electricity is a lot, how does that compare to the energy produced from oil and gas production? In the table below, we calculate the total British thermal units (Btu) these projects would produce if their capacity factors equal EIA’s estimates in its Annual Energy Outlook.[i]

As the table below indicates, BLM’s priority projects would be capable of producing about 44 trillion Btu of energy annually. To put that in perspective, oil wells in North Dakota produced more than 127 trillion Btu in Nov. 2012 alone.[ii] That’s almost three times more energy in one month than BLM expects all of its priority wind, solar, and geothermal projects to produce in an entire year. Not only that, but in the last 14 months for which there is data, North Dakota’s energy production, increased by 46 trillion Btus a month.[iii] In other words, the increase in North Dakota’s monthly production over the last fourteen months was greater than what the Department of Interior’s pet projects will produce over the course on an entire year. Plus, unlike solar or wind, oil can be used when and where it is needed.

BLM’s Priority Renewable Energy Projects on Federal Land 

As another example, IER calculated the energy production potential of the Manteo Prospect, a potential natural gas project off the shore of North Carolina. IER estimated the natural gas project could generate 320 trillion Btu of energy per year—more than 7 times as much energy per year as the Department of Interior’s expedited renewable projects.

But prospects like Manteo continue to be stopped by the federal government.  For example,  the federal government controls vast swaths of land and water which could be used for more exploration, but the Interior Department has leased just 2 percent of federal offshore areas and less than 6 percent of federal onshore lands for oil and gas development. Since the 2010 drilling moratorium, the Obama administration has pursued a policy of slow-walking offshore drilling permits.  Onshore leasing is treated in a similar fashion, with leases falling to approximately 50% of those issued by the Bush administration, which leased fewer lands than the Clinton Administration before it.  While production of energy from such lands lags far behind those on private and state lands, delays, red tape and uncertainty has grown exponentially. For example, it takes 307 days for the federal government to process a permit to drill on its lands, but only 10 days for North Dakota and 27 days Colorado to process a similar permit.   The government process makes no attempt to be user friendly for those willing to pay money to explore for energy, hire employees and make investments here in the U.S.

As Dr. Mason pointed out, opening federal lands to oil and gas development would result in enormous economic benefits, yet Interior obviously thinks renewable energy projects are more deserving of streamlined permitting. In the face of basic math, Interior continues to lease a pittance of federal land for oil and gas production, while prioritizing renewable energy projects with more limited potential.

The smart car is the next big revenue driver for app developers. These cars may not be everywhere just yet, but app developers would be smart to jump on in its early stages before it takes off. Amazon is doing just that by bringing Cloud Player to Ford’s line of smart cars.

Amazon announced today that Android devices with Amazon MP3 can now wirelessly connect with Ford SYNC Applink-equipped vehicles. Beyond being able to play your MP3 collection through your car’s speakers, the Ford SYNC version of Amazon MP3 also supports voice commands to keep drivers safe.

“We want customers to be able enjoy their entire music library wherever they want, from whatever device they choose. And we know that cars and music go hand-in-hand. That’s why we’re excited to bring Cloud Player to the car,” said Steve Boom, Vice President of Digital Music for Amazon.

The following features of Amazon MP3 are making their way to smart cars: