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Twitter has announced the launch of keyword targeting in timelines as a new feature for its ad platform. It is rolling out today in all languages and markets (where Twitter Ads are supported).

The feature is available in the full Twitter Ads user interface, as well as through the Ads API. It lets advertisers reach users based on the keywords in recent tweets, as well as the tweets with which they have recently engaged.

“Advertising on Twitter works well because the experience is built into the fabric of the product: a Promoted Tweet, for instance, is simply a Tweet targeted using the interest graph formed from public user signals like follows,” writes Twitter Revenue product manager Nipoon Malhotra in a blog post. “Until today, the content of Tweets has only been one factor among many in shaping the interest graph. Today, it becomes a first-class citizen.”

“This is an important new capability – especially for those advertisers looking for signals of intent – because it lets marketers reach users at the right moment, in the right context,” says Malhotra. “For example: let’s say a user tweets about enjoying the latest album from their favorite band, and it so happens that band is due to play a concert at a local venue. That venue could now run a geotargeted campaign using keywords for that band with a Tweet containing a link to buy the tickets. That way, the user who tweeted about the new album may soon see that Promoted Tweet in their timeline letting them know tickets are for sale in their area.”

Twitter says users won’t notice any difference in their own Twitter experience. In other words, just because there’s a new targeting capability, users won’t start seeing more ads crammed into their timelines.

Following up this morning’s official announcement regarding availability of the Samsung Galaxy S 4, Samsung has also released details regarding several official accessories that will be available. These accessories should prove popular with new owners interested in protecting their new device, extending its usefulness, or just using the “Life Companion” to make life more interesting. U.S. Cellular is already using the accessories to entice buyers by throwing in a free S View flip cover with online pre-orders. The flip cover goes beyond the traditional smartphone cover by providing a small window to your screen that displays information like time, missed calls and text messages, and battery status.

The list of accessories, with suggested retail prices, includes:

• S View flip cover – available in seven colors including Black Mist, White Frost, Light Blue, Pink, Green, Orange and Yellow, the S View flop cover provides a clear window so users can access information without waking their phone up ($59.55)
• Flip cover – a thin profile cover that snaps on the back of the Galaxy S 4 in order to maintain the phones slim profile, available in the same seven colors as the S View version ($39.99)
• Protective Cover+ – for users interested in a little more protection that what the flip covers provide, the Protective Cover+ also covers the sides of the device and provides protection against bumps, drops, and scratches while providing some extra grip for those who don’t like the smooth plastic of the phone, the cover will be available in White, Navy, Green, Blue and Pink ($29.99)
• Spare Battery Charging System – a spare battery charger that users can easily transport to charge their battery up when away from their home ($49.99)
• HM3300 Bluetooth Headset – an NFC compatible headset that uses Bluetooth for streaming music or audio once paired, available in Titan Gray, Marble White and Pebble Blue ($49.99)

In addition to the Galaxy S 4 specific accessories, Samsung has several accessories for their devices that will work with the Galaxy S 4, like their AllShare Cast Wireless Hub, Smart Dock, Universal Multimedia Dock, Universal Vehicle Navigation Mount, MHL 2.0 HDTV Adapter, Universal Battery Pack, HS-330 Headphones, and Galaxy Muse.

More accessories are expected to eventually hit the market like a wireless charging pad/cover, S Band activity monitor to be worn on the wrist, a Body Scale, and a real-time heart rate monitor.

source: DroidLife

Come comment on this article: Samsung announces official accessories for Samsung Galaxy S 4

Medium, the current company of Blogger and Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, has acquired Kickstarter-backed journalism startup Matter.

For a better idea of what Medium itself is, read this.

Matter describes itself as a publication based around a new way to create really great long-form journalism about science, technology and the future. Apparently Williams himself was one of the earliest Kickstarter backers for the project.

Paid Content points to this blog post from Matter discussing the acquisition. In that, Matter says, “He [Williams] and his team want Medium to be the best place on the internet to read and create high-quality content, and they suggested that we become part of that project.”

“Working with the team at Medium gives Matter a greater chance of success,” the company says. “The biggest draw for us is that they believe in high-quality writing, just like us, and want to see the journalism we produce be as successful as possible.”

Of course it remains to be seen just how successful Medium itself will become. However, Williams has an indisputable track record so far.

The Atlantic Magazine has long resisted the idea of a paywall, but Atlantic Media President Justin Smith revealed at GigaOM’s paidContent Live 2013 conference in New York Wednesday that the company is about to launch a paid product within the next two or three weeks.

Smith didn’t go into many details about the nature of the offering, but he made it clear that the company had no choice but to try every kind of monetization. “To say the ad model is gonna win over the pay model is foolish,” Smith said. The key would be to unlock multiple revenue streams, not to just put all your eggs in one basket.

Smith got some support for that notion from fellow panelist Raju Narisetti, senior vice president and deputy head of strategy at News Corp. Narisetti’s company may be seen as one of the driving forces behind paywalls, but he stressed Wednesday that News Corp. actually has been experimenting with lots of different options, ranging from tight paywalls for the Times all the way to free sites like All Things Digital. But he also defended paywalls against criticism, saying that newspapers were “courageous” for taking the step to charge for their content. “We have a lot of faith in our journalism,” he argued, including in the notion that people would pay for this kind of content.

Bob Bowman, President and CEO, MLB Advanced Media, strongly voiced support for this perspective. “Any publication out there should have a paid content product,” he said, arguing that all publications have avid fans that are willing to pay for content He asked, “Who are you to say: ‘we don’t want your money?’”

Of course, asking for money doesn’t always need to involve paywalls. That was a point driven home by ProPublica President, Richard Tofel, who revealed Wednesday that his nonprofit organization has received donations from 2,300 supporters last year, with 100 of the contributing on “quite significant levels.”

His prediction for monetizing and sustaining journalism? “Every major city in this country has a symphony,” Tofel said. Eventually, cultural institutions like symphony orchestras, libraries and museums would be complemented by nonprofit press institutions. Having nonprofit press is essential for many areas that can’t be covered by traditional media organizations anymore, he argued, whether those have a paywall or not.

Check out the rest of our paidContent Live 2013 coverage here, and a video embed of the session follows below:

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Twitter has launched a new advertising product that will allow brands to advertise specifically to consumers based on the words they’re tweeting. That means the content of your tweets is going to start having a greater affect on the ads you see on Twitter.

Previously, advertisers could target Twitter users based on their general interest graph, only part of which was based on the actual content of a user’s tweets. But this is a brand new product that could be huge for Twitter.

It both improves the targeting and makes ads more relevant for users, and also gives advertisers more chances to surface tweets on your stream when you’re tweeting about related topics. The company has been ramping up advertising and money-making products this year, working to improve the quality of ads on Twitter and the users it can reach.

Twitter explained what this means for the user logging into Twitter:

For example: let’s say a user tweets about enjoying the latest album from their favorite band, and it so happens that band is due to play a concert at a local venue. That venue could now run a geotargeted campaign using keywords for that band with a Tweet containing a link to buy the tickets. That way, the user who tweeted about the new album may soon see that Promoted Tweet in their timeline letting them know tickets are for sale in their area.

The company emphasized that this doesn’t mean users will necessarily see more advertising, and in fact, by allowing advertisers to target the words in your tweets, Twitter believes the product could make ads even more relevant for you, as they do in the concert example. And for advertisers, there’s a lot more intent inherent in the words you’re tweeting — tweeting about your favorite music artist is probably more of a committent on your part than just following the artist on Twitter.

Here’s a screenshot of what the product will look like for advertisers, who can pick the keywords to target:

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Sending fat teens to boot camp, or sending troubled teens to “scared straight” prison sessions has been a staple of daytime television for decades. Now, it seems that one of these teens was not happy about her daytime TV experience, and is suing the Rachael Ray show.

E! News is reporting that Christina Pagliarolo is suing the show for negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress during her appearance on the show. Pagliarolo, who weighed over 270 pounds at the time, appeared on the show in a series of segments in which she attempted to lose 70 pounds before going to her high school prom. She was put on a diet and a personal trainer was brought in to help her exercise.

According to the report, Pagliarolo is claiming that a trainer, who was not the one depicted on the show, verbally abused her and pushed her too hard. She also claims that the trainer increased the speed of a Stairmaster until she fell off.

As seen in the Rachael Ray show clips below, Pagliarolo’s weight loss began when a trainer woke her before dawn and made her run, toss a medicine ball, and do jumping jacks. The trainer, Jennifer Giamo, is depicted checking to make sure Pagliarolo’s heart rate doesn’t rise too high and providing water breaks. Giamo is not the trainer named in the lawsuit.

Though Pagliarolo’s training began to make a difference, she soon began canceling her training sessions:

Apple has plenty of new products in store for consumers in 2013, including new iPhones, new iPads, a new iPad mini and new computers. According to Forbes, however, Apple won’t really launch anything “new” anytime soon. Forbes contributor Haydn Shaughnessy on Wednesday writes that we won’t see any new iconic products like the iPad, iPhone or MacBook Air from Apple in 2013. Apple does have a couple of new products like the “iWatch” and “iTV” in development, but according to Shaughnessy they won’t see the light of day this year due to various issues.

Continue reading…

During it’s Nintendo 3DS Direct today, Nintendo announced a number of new games for its handheld device. The most exciting was obviously the announcement of a sequel to A Link to the Past. Beyond that, however, the company also announced a new Yoshi’s Island, Bravely Default and the next Professor Layton title.

The above games are all newly announced for the North American market. What about the already announced games though? Nintendo had more details to share on those as well, including new trailers.

The first trailer is for Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. The latest title in the successful, and very funny, Mario & Luigi RPGs follows the exploits of Mario and Luigi as they attempt to rescue Princess Peach from a dream world. The only way to enter said dream world, however, is through Luigi’s dreams. Inside his dreams, Mario will be battling enemies with Luigi who gains almost god-like powers thanks to his newfound dream abilities.

Up next is Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D. This particular title is a remake of Retro Studio’s wonderful Donkey Kong Country Returns that debuted on the Wii in 2010. Most of the title is a straight up port, but it does have a few new features. For one, the original game was incredibly difficult in later areas so Nintendo is upping the life bar of Donkey and Diddy Kong for players that aren’t ready for the challenge of the normal mode. There’s also a new world with eight new levels to be unlocked for those who beat the main game.

The third is for Animal Crossing: New Leaf. The latest entry in Nintendo’s popular life sim looks to bring more of the Animal Crossing experience that fans have come to expect with the added gameplay feature of the player now being the mayor of their town.

Finally, Nintendo released a new trailer for LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins. The prequel to Wii U’s LEGO City Undercover, this new title brings the open world gameplay of the console title to the 3DS. Expect more of the zany LEGO humor that you’ve come to expect from the series.

Instart Logic, a company looking to share its technology for making mobile sites load faster with businesses, has emerged from stealth mode after two years with $17 million in Series B venture funding. The need for this sort of latency-lowering service will become larger mobile keeps rising and consumer-facing and <a href="http://gigaom.com/2013/03/18/salesforce-rolls-out-new-mobile-features-for-its-chatter-social-network/enterprise-focused companies look to provide richer mobile offerings.

Even though Instart has emerged from stealth mode, the company is keeping the technology behind its Software as a Service (SaaS) a secret for now. (It won’t say how many customers it has, either.) But suffice it to say that the Instart software won’t require any major reworking on the part of developers. “We do not impose any burden (that) you need to change your code or change development methodology,” said Manav Mital, a co-founder and the company’s CEO. “The process is very easy to come in.”

At the moment, Instart, based in Mountain View, Calif., is aimed primarily at web-based applications, not native apps, Mital said.

Tenaya Capital led Instart’s Series B round, alongside contributions from Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures and other investors. Total venture funding in Instart is now at $26 million. The new funding will help Instart add sales and marketing and also work more on their product.

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Mobile users chomping at the bit for the new-new thing won’t have to wait much longer. Seven different US carriers will carry the Galaxy S4 by May. That means you can get it an array of not only traditional, but also prepaid carriers. Chances are Samsung will sell millions upon millions of units and make the S4 the best-selling Android handset to date. Yet the smartphone giant could already be falling behind.

As noted in March, the S4 launch wasn’t revolutionary. Samsung upped the stakes with a larger screen, though it already had that with the Galaxy Note and Note 2. It also added more face-recognition features. With the S3 you can keep your screen lit up just by continuing to look at it — a wonderful and useful feature. With the S4 you can pause video just by looking away, which seems like more of an annoyance than anything, and scroll down web pages when your eyes reach the bottom of the screen (which seems like a recipe for bugs). To that I say:

So what?

The more I think about it, the more the S4 just seems to be riding the coattails of the S3 and the S2, both of which were enormous successes. There’s nothing really new feeling about the S4, and in fact it makes me glad I got the S3 rather than wait for the new-new thing. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Apple released a phone this fall that represents a much bigger upgrade over the iPhone 5 than the S4 is over the S3.

Perhaps one reason I remain unimpressed is because one unexpected company released a wonderful, potentially revolutionary software feature. Facebook has been focusing on mobile for years now, but the output has mostly come in the form of bland apps. The Android app in particular looks kind of shoddy. Apparently, a mobile app is not at all Facebook’s end game. Instead they created an Android overlay that is comparable to a manufacturer skin such as TouchWiz. Yet they added one feature that we will likely see copied in many messaging apps.

Chat Heads is awesome. This is coming from someone who rarely uses Facebook chat and the Facebook Messenger app. Instead of requiring you to be in a single app to conduct an instant message chat with someone, you will see a notification right on your screen. And this isn’t your standard notification bar ping. It’s right at the top of your screen, awaiting your attention.

Sure, ChatHeads has the potential to annoy users. But I honestly believe that is an effect that will diminish with time. Eventually people will realize that messaging is an enormous part of mobile, and that instant notification — right in front of your face — of new messages can be hugely useful. Expect many developers, including Google itself with Google Talk, to create a similar messaging feature. Surely they want their messages passing through to all apps.

It is the first implementation, so Chat Heads is far from perfect. One feature I’d like to see is the ability to control who gets to interrupt you. I don’t want random high school person to have the ability to interrupt anything I’m doing. When they message me, it can go to the normal notification bar. In other words, we need a whitelist for Chat Heads.

That concept can extend to all other messaging apps, including email. Imagine if the Gmail app adopted this. You set a whitelist of people whose email you want to see as an interruption. You’re checking your fantasy baseball team, and all the sudden Ed’s face appears at the top of your screen. He just replied to your email, which you’ve been awaiting for hours. Previously you’d have to drag down the notification bar to see if the message is from Ed, and if you have multiple new messages you have to click through to the Gmail app.

Overall, the concept of Chat Heads is far more powerful than anything Samsung announced last March. Even though it costs between $150 and $200 up front, more people will likely buy the S4 than download Facebook Home. But almost everyone will download Facebook Messenger, which is where Chat Heads live. And that could have a bigger impact than the eye-based features that Samsung introduced.

The lesson: your technology might be neat and novel, but unless it creates solutions, it’s not going to be as big a hit with consumers.

The post Samsung’s Big Phone is Coming, but Facebook’s Big Feature Means More appeared first on MobileMoo.

With a vast array of content types and devices to consume them, publishers still can’t easily decide between using the web or native apps for their wares. Three high profile content providers debated the topic at the paidContent Live 2013 event in New York City on Wednesday and it’s clear that digital content will have a home in both native apps and online for at least a few years yet.

Jason Pontin, editor in chief and publisher of MIT Technology Review, has tried both and hated “every single moment of native apps.” His publication lost money, had to let go of resources and got nothing in return, he said, and decided to close down the native apps in October of last year.

“Traditional publishers figured the internet taught readers they could pay nothing. Native apps would expected to be like digital replicas but be better and would create monetization,” said Pontin, but that hasn’t happened for all publishers. “We’re moving to HTML5,” he noted, even though Pontin cautioned that the LocalStorage feature of HTML5 is the only agreed-upon function of the specification.

Some content types work better on native apps, however, or are supplemented only with HTML. Ryan Spoon, SVP, Product Development at ESPN, says that the back of every ESPN business card reads: ”Serve fans anytime anywhere.” That means going to where the users are and having content both in native apps and on the web.

“It depends on content: what you want to build, how you want to monetize it. The web experience is being built truly mobile first; that’s a shift. We think mobile and apply global. For rich experiences, however, I think it has to be native.” Spoon said. He also pointed out that apps are more powerful for re-engagement thanks to in-app notifications.

Nick Alt, VP of Mobile at Vimeo agreed: “Push notification and in app messaging shows far higher engagement than email marketing for our service.” With content, that’s really what it’s all about: engagement. If you can boost engagement and then monetize it, you’ve got a potent business model.

For Vimeo the goal is to “build a better user experience and obtain a more engaged customer, particularly on mobile devices.” Alt said that tablet adoption is moving at an aggressive clip, faster than smartphone usage of Vimeo ever was. Spoon agreed on the engagement point, saying “Our goal is to lift engagement: both usage and users. The rest will follow. And the best usage depends on the product. Native, for example can help with ads and transactions.”

All three speakers agree that ultimately, content providers have to choose the best vehicle for their content and that either — or a combination of both — is a smart strategy, at least until HTML5 standards are agreed upon by all. Pontin summed it up like this: “A good compromise is an HTML5 app wrapped in native code for now. It helps you keep a common code base and in the end, open standards usually win.”

Check out the rest of our paidContent Live 2013 coverage here, and a video embed of the session follows below:

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As you may or may not know, Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission is investigating allegations that Samsung paid students to attack HTC smartphones on the web.

Here’s the fun NMA Taiwanese animation take on the story:

As the beta versions, aka Explorer Edition, of Google Glass start to get into the hands of individuals, we are now treated to the first unboxing videos that have surfaced. There are actually two versions of the unboxing available. The first is the actual unboxing that was filmed with something running at a really low framerate, giving the video a very choppy look.  The second video then recreates the unboxing, but uses the new Google Glass device to record things. This gives us a look into what an unboxing videos will look like using Google Glass and you can see what kind of record quality is possible with the device. Hit the break to view the videos.

The “Real” Unboxing

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Re-created Unboxing via Google Glass

Click here to view the embedded video.

Come comment on this article: Google Glass Explorer Edition unboxing videos hit YouTube

Cloud-based web publishing service provider Instart Logic emerged from stealth Wednesday, with a $17 million Series B funding round. This brings its total investment to $26 million, which includes earlier investments from Andreesen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures and Tenaya Capital.

Mountain View-based Instart Logic offers a cloud-based service for web publishers that is a radical departure from traditional CDN and web optimization offerings, that delivers rich, personalized web experiences, even over mobile and WiFi networks.

“Today’s web and mobile users expect near instant delivery of applications, but the explosion of apps combined with the proliferation of mobile devices has resulted in debilitating performance issues that degrade the user experience,” said Peter Levine, partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “Enter Instart Logic, which has developed a unique and elegant solution that was built from the ground up to resolve the mobile bottleneck and transform the user experience.”

Team Has Experience at Aster Data

The Instart Logic team of Manav Mital, Hariharan Kolam and Raghu Venkat came from the engineering group at Aster Data, which was acquired by Teradata for $263 million in 2011. The company has been in stealth mode for two years, and its staff brings years of experience from Google, Facebook, Amazon, VMware, Citrix, Akamai, Adobe and Mozilla.

“Yesterday’s solutions for speeding up delivery of web and applications are showing their age, as they addressed core network congestion but not the last mile,” said Dr. Peter Danzig, who formerly served as a vice president at Akamai and was an early investor in Riverbed. “By approaching this problem thinking mobile first, Instart Logic was able to develop a sophisticated solution.”

Instart’s technology is designed to solve the last-mile bottleneck of wireless networks. With web sites growing in complexity and morphing into immersive applications, the user experience for applications served over wireless and WiFi deteriorates and result in longer wait times. The Instart Logic service deploys entirely new technology to allow users to start interacting with rich web applications, making them stickier and more profitable for publishers. This reduces the time-to-engagement and improves the user experience significantly.

Instart Logic successfully completed its beta program in December 2012. The company says the majority of beta customers are now using the service in production for mission-critical applications. These paying customers use Instart Logic’s service to drive conversions and increase user engagement across a broad set of industries including retail, travel and hospitality, enterprise SaaS, online gaming, and media sectors.

Apple shares were absolutely pummeled right out of the gate on Wednesday, and the stock has since fallen below $401 for the first time since 2011. Concerns over the company’s slowing growth sent Apple screaming downward after reaching an all-time high this past September ahead of the iPhone 5’s debut. Apple shares have lost more than 35% of their value since then, and the stock was down almost 6% to $400.71 during Wednesday afternoon’s session. Shares have since recovered slightly to $402.60.

UPDATE: Apple shares have fallen below the $400 mark, hitting $389.11 at 12:51 p.m.

Intel may be struggling on the PC side of its business, but the chip giant is making aggressive moves in the data center and enterprise computing sector. After buying networking silicon vendor Fulcrum in 2011, Intel introduced a few products and hinted at its plans, but on Wednesday at the Open Networking Summit it revealed its SDN strategy and took the gloves off.

Intel is showcasing its networking silicon, but it’s also offering two reference designs — one for new switches and one for new servers that would use Intel’s new chips. It’s also showing of a software layer called the Intel Data Plane Development Kit for OpenVSwitch that will accelerate packet processing on Intel’s CPUs instead of on dedicated network processors. One of the reference designs is aimed at the data center and the top of rack switches made by Cisco, Juniper, Arista and Force10 (owned by Dell), and the other is more of a punch for Cisco and Juniper in that it’s aimed at service providers. In fact, at the event Intel said Verizon was testing a prototype version of its reference design.

With these offerings, Intel is putting Broadcom, a popular maker of merchant silicon, on notice that it’s going directly after its business. That’s not surprising. The only question is how low Intel will go in pricing to put the hurt on Broadcom. But it’s also providing designs and capabilities that could obviate the need for special-purpose silicon that Cisco and Juniper currently rely on in their high-end boxes. Intel has gone after special purpose hardware before when it took on Sun and IBM in the server world with its x86 chips for personal computers.

Intel’s moves into the networking world are a symptom of the broader shift in computing. On the consumer side, mobility is changing the devices we use. In the enterprise, considerations of power consumption can now trump performance. In fact, super chips like the ones Intel traditionally sells can cause their own challenges in a virtualized world because using all of that capacity requires data center operators to virtualize the hardware and complicate their lives.

On the enterprise side the architecture to support our computing needs is changing as well as the workloads. The business considerations are changing too. This is a trend that’s shifting the ground underfoot all of the large IT vendors. So to see Intel going after its fellow chipmakers is perhaps unsurprising, but to see it going after Cisco’s and Juniper’s markets is like watching a rat resort to cannibalism during a time of starvation.

IT companies aren’t starving yet, but they are under stress, as Intel’s lackluster earnings indicate. The very real disruptions caused by a new generation of computing and web infrastructure are going to eat away at the margins and business models supporting today’s giants. Seen in this context, Intel’s moves aren’t surprising, but they are a symptom of the overall disruption in the IT world.

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The Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission is investigating allegations that Samsung representatives posted fake reviews of rival HTC’s products online. Allegations of dirty dealing come from whistle-blowing site taiwansamsungleaks.org, which posted documents it claims are from a third-party marketing agency employed by Samsung.

The documents reveal a raft of allegedly fake posts on popular Taiwanese gadget websites, prompting the leaks site to describe Samsung’s tactics as “evil”. The company is accused of hiring students to post negative comments about HTC smartphones.

Now that the Fair Trade Commission is involved, Samsung could be fined more than $800,000 if found guilty of false advertising. In a statement to the media the company says:

Samsung Electronics remains committed to engaging in transparent and honest communications with consumers as outlined in the company’s Online Communications Credo. We have encouraged all Samsung Electronics employees worldwide to remain faithful to our Credo.

The recent incident was unfortunate, and occurred due to insufficient understanding of these fundamental principles.

Samsung Electronics Taiwan (SET) has ceased all marketing activities that involve the posting of anonymous comments, and will ensure that all SET online marketing activities will be fully compliant with the company’s Online Communications Credo.

We regret any inconvenience this incident may have caused. We will continue to reinforce education and training for our employees to prevent any future recurrence.

HTC also issued a statement saying it is considering whether to take, “appropriate action” against its rival.

All of this raises some interesting questions. Is paying someone to say bad things about your rivals widespread? If a company like Samsung is involved how many other technology giants are doing the same thing? And will you ever trust user reviews again?

On the other side of the coin, have you ever posted a negative review of a competing product online? Or has your employer ever asked you to and what was your response? We’d love to hear from you on the comments thread.

Photo Credit: zwola fasola/Shutterstock

With some carriers already taking pre-orders for the Samsung Galaxy S 4, and Samsung officially announcing product availability later this month, U.S. Cellular has joined the fray competing for buyers today by opening their own pre-order page. U.S. Cellular is offering the 16GB version of the smartphone for $199 with a new 2-year contract. To help draw customers in, U.S. Cellular is throwing in a free S View flip cover for anyone who pre-orders online. The cover is normally a $59.99 item. You can read their full press release after the break.

U.S. CELLULAR BEGINS PRESALE FOR SAMSUNG GALAXY S 4 WITH EXCLUSIVE OFFER FOR FREE S VIEW FLIP COVER

Device will be available for purchase in late April

CHICAGO (April 17, 2013) – U.S. Cellular (NYSE: USM) and Samsung Telecommunications America have announced that the 4G LTE™ Samsung GALAXY S^® 4 is available for customers to preorder atuscellular.com/GS4, and it will be available for purchase later this month. The 16GB GALAXY S 4 is offered in Black Mist and White Frost and is $199.99 with an instant rebate. In addition, U.S. Cellular exclusively is offering a $59.99 S View flip cover for free to anyone who pre-orders the device online.

The Samsung GALAXY S 4 is the latest Galaxy smartphone to join U.S. Cellular’s line-up of 4G LTE devices. U.S. Cellular currently carries the Samsung Galaxy S^® III, Samsung Galaxy Note^® II, Samsung Galaxy Axiom^TMand the Samsung Galaxy Note^® 10.1. Customers who purchase the GALAXY S 4 from U.S. Cellular receive benefits no other carrier offers, including a valuable rewards program that recognizes customer loyalty.

“Samsung has once again raised the bar with a powerful device that has features and tools to help you simplify and enhance your life,” said Edward Perez, vice president of sales and marketing operations for U.S. Cellular. “The Samsung GALAXY S 4 lets you get more done wherever you are and adds value to your many experiences with the ability to share meaningful moments with friends and family on a fast 4G LTE network.”

The GALAXY S 4 has a 5-inch full HD Super AMOLED^TM display, weighs only 130 grams and is 7.9 millimeters thin, and it blends an attractive design with innovative features. Its dual camera function allows customers to use the 13 megapixel rear camera and 2 megapixel front camera at the same time, so the person taking the picture isn’t left out of the shot. There are also several features designed to help you get the information you need faster and easier. Air View allows you to hover over your phone with your finger to enlarge content and preview an email, calendar, image gallery or video, and with Air Gesture, you can change music tracks, scroll up and down a web page, or accept a call with a wave of your hand.

Highlighted Features:

• Android 4.2.2
• 1.9 GHz quad-core processor
• 16GB internal storage, can be upgraded with up to a 64GB microSD card
• Group Play lets users enjoy music, photos, documents and games with those around them without requiring a Wi-Fi connection or cellular signal.
• S Translator provides instant translation, using text or voice translation on applications including email and text messaging.

U.S. Cellular, in partnership with King Street Wireless, currently offers 4G LTE service covering 61 percent of its customers in select cities in Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. By the end of this year, 87 percent of U.S. Cellular customers will have access to 4G LTE speeds. For more information about the 4G LTE experience, visit uscellular.com/4G.

Samsung, Galaxy, and S 4 are trademarks of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.  Other company names, product names and marks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners and may be trademarks or registered trademarks. 

Purchase of a smartphone data plan, a new two-year agreement and a $35 activation fee is required. Additional terms, conditions and/or charges may apply. See uscellular.com for details.

4G LTE not available in all areas. See uscellular.com/4G for detailed coverage info. 4G LTE service is provided in partnership with King Street Wireless. LTE is a trademark of ETSI.

About King Street Wireless, L.P. 
King Street Wireless, L.P. currently holds 700 MHz wireless spectrum in 27 states and is partnering with Chicago-based U.S. Cellular to deliver high-speed 4G LTE service to U.S. Cellular’s customers in several of the carrier’s markets.  King Street Wireless is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia where it is recognized for its involvement in its community both through its economic development and philanthropic efforts. To learn more about King Street Wireless, visit www.kingstreetwireless.com.

About Samsung Telecommunications America
Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC, a Dallas-based subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., researches, develops and markets wireless handsets and telecommunications products throughout North America. For more information, please visit www.samsungwireless.com.

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