Derek E. Baird :: Barking Robot

Augmented Reality Extends Hotels.com's TV Effort

Hotels.com looks to make virtual vacations a little more "real" via the use of augmented reality technology to extend its television advertising campaign.

Beginning this week, the company has set up a microsite, www.virtualvacay.com, through which people can use their Web cameras and computer microphone to convert a special "glyph" on print and e-mail advertisements into scaled-down, 3D-animated versions of 10 U.S. cities including New York City, Denver, New Orleans and Las Vegas.

The augmented reality program uses Hotels.com's claymation mascot character "Smart" (voiced by actor Ed Helms) to guide people through these cities. While touring, users can take part in various unique activities, like getting married in Vegas, riding a bull in Denver or attending Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

via www.mediapost.com

Trend Watch: LEGO Digital Box + Augmented Reality Marketing

This augmented reality kiosk called "DIGITAL BOX" has been developed by LEGO Digital Systems and metaio. After an evaluatiion phase it is now rolled out to LEGO brand stores worldwide and is widely considered to be one of the best examples of augmented reality in marketing.

Ideally, customers want to hold the product in their hands and look at it closely from all angles. But for products like LEGO sets, it can take hours of construction before you know what the toy really looks like.

Children of all ages can now hold LEGO boxes up to the DIGITAL BOX and watch a 3D animation of the product - from all angles, in every detail - in their hands. This is made possible by metaio, which fuses virtual 3D animations into a live video of the completed LEGO set.

While this is a pretty slick implementation of augmented reality in a youth marketing context, I think it actually is a powerful example of how a brand can leverage augmented reality as a digital storytelling tool.

It's one thing to look at the picture on the box, but to see the LEGO set come to life in 3D that provides youth marketers with exciting new opportunities to create a virtual storyline that draws the customer deeper into the world of LEGO and allows them to connect on a deeper, emotional level with the brand.

Sorta Related: LEGO to Launch Line of Youth Electronics

Weekly Wrap: Chegg Battle of the Bands, Oprah's Leno-CoCo PollGate, Social Data Revolution, Mattel Looks to AR, Gen X Stereotypes, Real Time UX, Rowling on Imagination & Failure, Mowtown Content Strategy & More!

Chegg Joins College Battle of the Bands: College Battle of the Bands is proud to announce its partnership with textbook rental service Chegg.com! Student bands and musicians can sign up for FREE and promote their music for a chance to play great venues and win amazing gear and cash prizes as part of the national series of events. [Chegg.com]

Conan-Leno Mudslinging Continues With Oprah.com Poll Allegations: So how exactly does the source close to NBC figure that Team Coco flooded Oprah’s ballot box? By good old-fashioned ballot box stuffing, thanks to software designed by die hard Coco fans and advertised on one of the many Team Coco Facebook pages. (Really Team Jay? Why would Ms. Winfrey, or Conan for that matter, want to do that?) Related: Conan, Leno & The Tonight Show Debacle [MovieLine] [Barking Robot}

Augmented Reality Gives Lift to Kids Digital Space: Mattel was at the head of the line as the first major consumer products player to incorporate AR into a retail toy product. As the master toy licensee for James Cameron's film Avatar, the California-based toyco teamed up with an AR software solutions house Total Immersion to create a line of action figures. [Kidscreen]

The Social Data Revolution(s): In 2009, more data will be generated by individuals than in the entire history of mankind through 2008. Information overload is more serious than ever. [Harvard Business Review]

Free Reality TV Show Debuts on Your PlayStation 3: Sony Computer Entertainment America is making good on its promise to expand original content offerings on its PlayStation Network distribution service. It will be bringing an original reality television series, The Tester, to PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable consoles via the PSN as a free downloadable series starting February 18. [Mashable]

Study Finds Podcasts Reach Unreachable Consumers: Although podcasting has shown to be quite popular in niche markets, many marketers have not jumped into the fray. The results of a recent Edison Research and Association for Downloadable Media (ADM) study could change some marketers minds, however, because apparently consumers being reached by podcasting are unreachable in other formats. [Junta 42]

Tweet O' the Week: "At Chateau Marmont on a gorgeous day. Everyone here looks like they're on the verge of famous." via @TVBlogster

Get Real About Gen X Stereotypes: Much laudatory ink has been spilled on the Baby Boomers...usually by Boomers themselves. As for the Millennials, those born between 1982 and 1998, the quantity of reportage lauding their public-spiritedness has quickly become tiresome. But a new report casts doubt on the widely accepted stereotype of Gen X-ers as inferior to these other groups. [New Geography]

The Case for Content Strategy, Mowtown Style: how do you start humming the content strategy tune to your own team and to your prospective clients? Listen up and heed Aretha Franklin. No, really. [A List Apart]

UX of the Real Time Web: A major thing done by users on the real time web is the posting and recommending of external links. These links will often go to a story, website, picture, or video that could be of interest to people right now. One problem is that there is so much sharing being done on the real time web that it can become difficult to differentiate the legitimate links from the noise. [instantShift]

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination: J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association. [Harvard Magazine]

Weekly Wrap: Mobile Donations, Neglecting Gen X, Facebook Marketing, Gen Y Goes GaGa, More Kids Go Mobile, Social TV, Google's China "Problem" & More!

Mobile Donations Make Giving Easier: Text message donations to Haiti are in the millions. Katya Andresen, chief operating officer at Network for Good, talks with American Public Media's Kai Ryssdal about why this type of giving is growing in popularity and how big of a role it will have in helping Haiti. [American Public Media]

10 Musts for Marketing to Women on Facebook: There are over 56 million women using Facebook in the United States, and for marketers this means one very important thing –- if you have a brand, product or company that targets women, Facebook is the place to be. [Mashable]

Why Millennials Are Going Gaga for Lady GaGa: She’s funky. She’s weird. She’s different. She’s who we all are on the inside. Unless you were a cheerleader (a thin one) or a mildly attractive quarterback, chances are you felt out of place in high school.

Whether you were called a freak, a basket case, a fag, or a fat ass to your face or behind your back, secondary education, and everything leading up to it, is a playground for ostracizing as many of your peers as possible. [Next Great Generation] Related: 10 Things Brands Can Learn From Lady GaGa

Spot411: A social TV platform that tells you what and when your friends and family are watching. Hmm. Looks interesting. Anyone tried this? [Spot411]

Google's Social Media Plans for 2010: Google plans to expose and elicit more of the social network built into the tools that many of us already use — Gmail, Google Talk, etc. If you use Google products, the company already knows who your most important contacts are, what your core interests are, and where your default locations are. [GigaOm]

I'll Tumblr for Ya: Do you use Tumblr? Be sure to check out the new Tumblr backup mac desktop app! Speaking of Tumblr, be sure to check out MiniRobot! [Tumblr] 

Couch Potatoes May Have Shorter Life Spans: The researchers suggest this link between TV-time and early death could be partly due to the fact that sitting in front of the tube may take away from time a person might otherwise spend moving about, engaging in light activity, which has been shown to reduce the risk of developing certain biological indicators of cardiovascular disease. [Yahoo! News]

Why No One Cares About Gen X: Financial institutions are falling all over each other trying to attract Gen-Y consumers. But what about Gen X? It doesn’t seem like financial institutions care all that much about Gen X. Why is that? Here’s the explanation. [The Financial Brand]

Are American Kids Crazy or What?: American teenagers are rebellious thrill-seekers who revel in immediate gratification and relinquish autonomy to peer pressure. But is it just the devil of biology that makes them do it? Or is American culture an accessory to the fact? [Miller McCune]

Why Google Wasn't Winning China Anyway: Google's decision to pull out of China unless the authorities will allow uncensored search results -- an unlikely outcome -- probably does stem from moral outrage over the government's heavy-handed tactics. But it could be a face-saving way to exit a market where Google has made surprisingly little progress. [AdAge]

Hallmark Launches Augmented Reality Cards: Hallmark Cards has announced the release of webcam greetings, new cards that use augmented reality technology to bring the card to life on a computer screen. [Shopping Blog]

Child Mobile Ownership Up: More than one-third of 10-to-11-year-olds in the US owned a mobile phone in 2009, compared with 20% in 2005. Ownership among kids ages 6 to 11 rose from 11.9% to 20% over the same time period. Thanks Graham! [eMarketer]

Meet the NEXT: Get the low-down on this new section that embraces a down-and-dirty style of filmmaking. If a filmmaker wants to create his or her own idiosyncratic vision, it’s often not worth looking around for a big budget, waiting for others to say it’s ok to make it. [Sundance Film Festival 2010]

Trend Watch: Using Augmented Reality as a Digital Storytelling Tool

This is a really interesting video clip showing how HIT Lab NZ is using augmented reality as a digital storytelling tool in books, museums and other educational media.

Their MagicBook technology is being further developed so it can be used to play augmented reality video games on the Xbox and Playstation 2 in new and exciting ways.

Weekly Wrap: Saving Our Web-Addled Brains, Augmented Reality Marketing, TV's Decade, Mobile App Boom, Kindle's Killer Holiday, Texting In The USA, Social Media 2010, Brightkite AR & More!

10 Reasons This Was TV's Decade: Ten years ago this month, there was almost no reality television, and the networks still had a near-stranglehold on quality scripted content. People generally watched TV using that quaint device, a television set — and for most people, watching a show anytime other than in its regular time slot meant hauling out a VHS tape.

It's an understatement to say that, as we edge our way toward the second decade of the century, a lot has changed. Here are 10 of the things that have changed the most. [NPR]

The Novel Can Save Our Web-Addled Brains: The idea is that stories can do for us what they’ve always done—allow us to understand something that we can’t yet see, to experience something that might be geographically distant.

And if the stories break through our fog of information and self-absorption to shock us into awareness of what’s happening to the planet, then maybe we can do something about it. Maybe stories, with their narrative progressions, their beginnings, middles, and ends, their heroes, can save us from ourselves. [Double X]

10 Awesome Uses of Augmented Reality Marketing: Visuals are an important part of advertising, so it’s not surprising that so many companies have jumped on the augmented reality bandwagon, offering tools that visualize their products in a magical and memorable way. [Mashable]

Kindle's Killer Holiday: On Christmas day, Amazon customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books. [Amazon News Release]

Mobile Application Downloads to Hit Five Billion in 2014: The iPhone’s share of the app market will contract from its 2010 level during the latter part of the forecast period, but it will remain the leading platform for applications…The big beneficiary will be Android, which will see its market share of total application downloads increase from 11% of the market in 2009 to 23% in 2014. [ABI Research]

Vancouver 2010 and Young People: We also built stronger connections to young Olympic supporters with new initiatives on social media. Those efforts will increase as we near the opening of the first Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in August 2010. Related: Olympics Must Embrace Social Media or Lose Youth Audience [Olympic.org] [Barking Robot]

Six Social Media Trends for 2010: So what could social media look like in 2010? In 2010, social media will get even more popular, more mobile, and more exclusive — at least, that's my guess. What are the near-term trends we could see as soon as next year? [Harvard Business Review]

Why Embeddable Virtual Worlds are the Future: Why are so many users migrating to graphically simple in-browser virtual worlds like Metaplace? Pixels and Policy looks at why increasing graphical capability is no longer the biggest deal in online gaming. Related: Game Over For Metaplace [Pixels & Policy] [Yahoo! Finance]

Teens Pump Up Texting Trend: Americans fired off 110 billion text messages in December 2008, according to data released this week by the Census Bureau. In the same month of 2007, they sent 48 billion. Related: Generation Text [Chicago Tribune] [Barking Robot]

Brightkite Launches AR Advertising: In addition to photos and posts from friends, users of the Brightkite layer can receive up-to-date and relevant location based advertising in an AR format simply by opening the application and pointing their phone at a participating business. [Android Guys]

Why Indie Directors Give Away Movies Free Online: Vuorensola took matters into his own hands: he used a Finnish social networking site to build up an online fan base who contributed to the storyline, made props and even offered their acting skills.

In return for the help, Vuorensola released Star Wreck in 2005 online for free. Seven hundred thousand copies were downloaded in the first week alone; to date, the total has now reached 9 million. [TIME]

Razorfish FEED Report: Meet the 'Connected Consumer'

How do consumers engage with brands in an increasingly digital world? That's the fundamental question Razorfish set out to answer with this year's Digital Brand Experience FEED report.

Sorta Related: PBS > Frontline > The Persuaders > Interview: Douglas Atkin

Weekly Wrap: Females Prolific Social Media Users, Facebook Billions, Lonely Planet AR Guides, Reinventing TV, 2010 Media Trends, Esquire iPhone Issue & More!

Survey: Females and Teens Most Prolific– and Regretful – Social Media Users: Three times as many females as males surveyed call social media like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace their "favorite leisure activity" and almost twice as many females over age 21 "believe they spend far too much time on online social media", according to a survey of social media users conducted by Crowd Science with its advanced research platform for online audience measurement. [Crowd Science]

Lonely Planet & Mobilizy Launch Android Mobile AR Travel Guides: Looking for the ultimate guidebook? One you can slip in your pocket? Lonely Planet’s Augmented Reality (AR) Compass Guides for Android give you interactive, personalized and fully searchable mobile access to Lonely Planet’s best-selling travel content.

Currently there are 10 Lonely Planet Compass Guides enhanced with Wikitude AR available for the Android market in the US: Boston, Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Seattle and Washington D.C. [Mobilizy]

Get Kids Doing Social Justice Projects: Often the most difficult part of getting your child to get involved in a social justice project is knowing where to begin. Here are a few ideas passed on from other parents on how to start kids doing projects of their choice. My take–the earlier you start the better. And there’s no time better than during the holidays. [Michele Borba]

YouTube Shows What Friends Share on Facebook: YouTube is pushing its Facebook Connect integration further by allowing its users to see the videos that their friends share on Facebook. YouTube users had previously been able to find their Facebook friends on YouTube as well as update their Facebook profile with their various actions from the site. [CNET]

Facebook to Generate Over $1 Billion Next Year?: If a new report from TBI Research is accurate, Facebook “is about to hit a $1 billion annual revenue run-rate”. We have been expecting Facebook to blast through their previously stated $500 million projection for this year, and surpass all the publicly available projected numbers for next year. If all goes well, Facebook could easily surpass $1 billion in revenue next year as the site grows beyond 500 million users. [All Facebook]

Television Dives Into Digital, Musical Offshoot to Secure Viewers: A TV show isn't just a TV show. These days, programming for the tube is a multi-platform endeavour, encompassing online, gaming, music, DVDs, toys and tours in a bid to keep budgets in the black and eyeballs glued to the small screen. Related: Survey Finds Local Appeal for Mobile TV [The Canadian Press] [Barking Robot]

You Can Take It With You | Future Trends in Media: While still in the early stages of a digital media revolution, the consumer has entered an age of enlightenment with expanded options for devices, content, and schedule. The consumer has responded with expanded use of those media options. But changes in technology, regulation, pricing, content distribution deals, etc., will complicate predicting the future growth (and future winners). [Nielsen Wire]

8 Companies That Are Reinventing TV: Web television has matured significantly in 2009; we’ve seen the introduction of the Streamy Awards, Dr. Horrible seized control of the Emmys, and the launch of more internet TV-related start-ups than we can count.

TV-over-IP is starting to hit television sets thanks to set-top-boxes, TVs, and disc players with built-in streaming capabilities, and like print media before it, traditional broadcast television is beginning to grapple with the inevitability of an Internet-driven future. [Mashable]

Act Now AU: ActNow knows that the more you understand about an issue the more you’ll feel empowered to do something about it. Use ActNow to find information on social, political, environmental, lifestyle and topical issues for a non-judgemental and factual snapshot of the bigger picture. All the content you find on ActNow is written by ActNow members who are young people just like you. [ActNow]

Esquire Rolls Out $2.99 iPhone "Issue": There was the perforated cover, featuring 27 different cover combinations (while not technically digital technology, the magazine was at least willing to experiment with the print medium on what has long been considered sacred editorial real estate: the cover). Then there was the “augmented reality issue” in December. Now comes a slick $2.99 iPhone application that contains its January issue. [The Wrap]

Weekly Wrap: BBC Digital Revolution, Creating Word of Mouth Buzz, 2010 Online Community Predictions, Perpetual Beta, Robots Attack & More!

5 Triggers for Creating Online Word of Mouth: Word of Mouth is clearly one of the fastest growing sectors in marketing. PQ Media’s recent study has it growing 14.2% in 2008 to $1.54B and expects it to reach $3B by 2013.

Powering that growth are social technologies that have made it increasingly easier for individuals to grow their sphere of influence and quickly spread content to their expanded social networks online. [WOMMA]

BBC Digital Revolution: Digital Revolution (working title) is an open source documentary, due for transmission on BBC Two in 2010, that will take stock of 20 years of change brought about by the World Wide Web. Sorta Related: Oprah's Film Club. [BBC] [Barking Robot]

13 Year Old Runs Up 22K Cell Phone Bill: A father is hoping his cell-phone service provider will cut him a break after receiving a bill for nearly $22,000 in charges made by his teenage son. [KTLA]

Streaming Will Never Stop Downloading: Far from being a cure for the industry's woes, substituting streams for downloads wastes bandwidth, reduces privacy and slows innovation. [Guardian UK]

Listen Without Prejudice: Dan Coates from Ypluse.com shares how to use the power of music to connect youth with the emotions that they feel as they discover themselves and the world around them. Also Related: For Gen Y, Music is Oxygen. [MediaPost: Engage Gen Y] [Barking Robot]

2010 Community Management Predictions: What will online communities look like in 2010? What will community managers be talking about? What legal changes are bubbling away? We asked some fantastic community managers for their 2010 predictions, and if their thinking comes true, 2010 is going to be a very exciting year. [Fresh Networks]

Beware the Youth--They May Think Your Marketing is 'Evil': The youth today is savvy; intelligent; and importantly, powerful. Powerful? Yes. Looking at demographics; purchasing power; and the extent of influence to set trends, this is a group to be admired; respected (yes, they ain’t no fools); and targeted intelligently. [MediaUpdate]

Facebook is Here to Stay: Facebook is not only the overwhelming favorite social networking site (SNS) among college students; it may rapidly become the only SNS that matters, according to research by Anderson Analytics. [Yahoo! News]

Perpetual Beta | The Communications Pro of the Future: The Communications pro of the future must be a master of three important disciplines: Radical Listening, Social Influence, and Perpetual Beta. Within each are new practical skills that will define the true PR master – the next generation trusted advisor. [Digital Influence Project]

Unknown Filmmaker Gets $30m for Robot Movie: Fede Alvarez, an unknown filmmaker from Uruguay, has been given $30m by Hollywood studio bosses - to turn his $500 YouTube video of a giant robot invasion into a movie. [NewsLite]

Augmented Reality Makes Money: Augmented reality start-up AcrossAir, which makes apps that help you find nearby subway stops and restaurants, turned profitable last month and is launching a bar finder this week. Also Related: Augmented reality glasses have been developed, projecting real-time language translation directly into people's eyes, Terminator style. [Venture Beat] [Brand Republic]

Weekly Wrap: Parenting Backlash, Twitter Christmas, Google & OpenID, BBC BullyProof, Africa & Web 2.0, Xbox Live Gets Social, Virgin Mobile, Homeless Teens & Lady GaGa

Backlash Against Helicopter Parents: The insanity crept up on us slowly; we just wanted what was best for our kids. We were so obsessed with our kids' success that parenting turned into a form of product development. Parents demanded that nursery schools offer Mandarin, since it's never too soon to prepare for the competition of a global economy. [TIME]

America’s first Twitter Christmas: America’s first Twitter Christmas got under way in earnest on Friday. Across the land,retailers and their customers used the social networking site to talk to one another about bargains, problems, purchases and shopping strategies. [NYT]

Tweet O' the Week: "I am too tired to play video games. I must be 35." via @smbeaverson

Google Profiles Turn into OpenID: As part of its push to go more social, Google has been attempting to unify its various account profiles into one Google Profile. What this means is that you can sign into any site that accepts OpenID simply by using your Google Profile domain. [TechCrunch]

Youth Judge Brands Like Peers: The clever thing is, understanding which factors earned a brand ‘aspirational’ status enables us to enlighten brands to where they must invest time and effort if they are to succeed in repositioning their brand as they so wish for it to be viewed by the consumer. [MTV Sticky]

BBC BullyProof: The BBC has launched a new campaign targeting online bullying. As part of BBC Radio 1 anti-bullying initiative, Bebo, Facebook, Habbo, MSN, MySpace and YouTube are joining forces for the first time to try and tackle the increasingly serious issue of online bullying by putting in special measures and advice on their sites. [BBC]

Assume Your Personal & Social Media Life Have Merged: Los Angeles Times employees have been advised to watch what they post on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or any online social space. In other words: Privacy Is Dead. [LA Times]

Nintendo Dominating US Female Gaming: Nintendo says 35% of "primary players" of consoles are women, 80% of whom own a Nintendo (11% XBOX, 9% PS3) [EDGE]

Human Rights Groups Warn Against In-Game War Crimes:The study attempted to determine if the acts gamers engage in while they play violent titles would "lead to violations of rules of international law, in particular International Humanitarian Law (IHL), basic norms of International Human Rights Law (IHRL), or International Criminal Law (ICL)." [CNET]

African Trends of Mobile Web & Web 2.0: The relative price for ICT services is highest in Africa, the region with the lowest income levels, yet that households in Kenya are willing to spend up to 50% of their income for mobile phones. (Thanks Dayna!) [Web 2.0 for Dev]

Millions Using Social Media on Xbox Live: First-week figures show that at least 2 million Xbox Live users have logged into Facebook, and that one million Last.fm accounts were created in the first 24 hours of availability. [CNET] [Mashable]

Virgin Mobile USA Monster Ball with Lady GaGa: For the first time, Virgin Mobile USA will extend its innovative "Free I.P." program to a national tour, offering fans who volunteer their time to homeless youth organizations access to free show tickets. Virgin Mobile has been a very active advocate for homeless teens. [CNN Money]

Alternate Reality Games Flourish At the Grassroots: Over the years, the games have become a favorite marketing tool of large companies like Microsoft, which has commissioned huge ARGs, as they're known, for the launches of things like the video game Halo 2. [CNET]

Weekly Wrap: Shoppers Hit Social Networks, Future of TV, John Mayer & Internet Rule 17, InStyle Augmented Reality Issue, Entertainment Subscriptions Hold Up & More!

Mobile Will Become the Hub of Multichannel Consumer Relationship: Marketers seeking to sprint out of the recession need to become multichannel-friendly and completely consumer-focused, and get over themselves.

The need to construct data-rich profiles of customers, personalize responses to their needs and smartly play in their social, mobile digital sandbox are themes that resonated in the opening-day keynote addresses and discussions at Forrester Research's annual Consumer Forum in Chicago Tuesday. [MediaPost]

Making the Connection Between Social and Mobile: A recent study by eMarketer predicts the number of mobile users accessing social networks from their mobile devices will reach 607.5 million worldwide by 2013, representing 43% of global mobile Internet users. In the US, mobile users accessing social networks will total 56.2 million by 2013, accounting for 45% of the mobile Internet user population. [VisInsights]

Holiday Web Shoppers Hit Social Networks: Sixty percent of consumers who plan to use social media in their holiday shopping will be looking for discounts, coupons and sales, according to Deloitte, while just over one-half will research gift ideas and check out friends’ and family members’ wish lists. [eMarketer]

InStyle Tries Augmented Reality Too: Fresh off the heals of the Esquire augmented reality experiment, InStyle Magazine has decided to also give it a go. Can augmented reality save traditional publishing? Doubtful, but it sure is fun! [Fishbowl NY]

Despite Economy, Entertainment Subscriptions Hold Up: While fewer Americans subscribe to newspapers and magazines, the subscription model continues to either maintain popularity or grow in areas including television, music, games and mobile services, according to a report from market research firm NPD Group. [Digital Media Wire]

Future is TV-shaped, says Intel: By 2015 more than 12 billion devices will be capable of connecting to 500 billion hours of TV and video content, says chip giant Intel. It said its vision of TV everywhere will be more personal, social, ubiquitous and informative. [BBC]

Sundance Announces 2010 New Frontier Artists: A fully immersive media lounge environment will present a collection of digital art, film screenings, multimedia performances, site-specific installations and video presentations. [The Wrap]

Gossip Girl: A Real NYU Student Grades This Season: This season on "Gossip Girl," Blair, Vanessa, and Dan began their college careers at New York University. But from the very moment Queen Waldorf stepped into her dorm room, something felt a little off. As a seasoned (and current) student of school, I like to think that I know a little more about NYU than the TV producer. So let's review the truth behind the gossip. [Yahoo! TV]

Twitter, John Mayer & The Importance Of Internet Rule 17:  On my Facebook wall this week, a friend posted what, in my opinion, was probably the most pertinent album review I’ve ever read. The final line: Merely by existing, “Battle Studies” violates Internet Rule 17: Never let your Twitter account be more interesting than you are. [Ypulse.com]

Junaio: Social Augmented Reality on Your iPhone

Metaio, a German based visual interaction company, has launched a social augmented reality platform that lets users create, explore and share information in a completely new way using augmented reality and location-based content.

Junaio users can place 3D objects, Twitter messages or websites into the real world and then share their creations with friends through social networks such as Facebook. You are also able to see any kind of location-based content through the display of your mobile phone.

The Junaio app is free and available globally on all iPhones. Users without an iPhone can also edit and share 3D augmented reality images via the online platform.

Weekly Wrap: Social Telly, UK Mashup Legalization, Moms on Facebook, Content Curation, Zombies + Gen Y, eBooks on OLPC & More!

How Moms Use Their iPhones: According to a new survey by mobile advertising network Greystripe, mothers with iPhones regularly let their children use their phones, download games specifically for their children and often use their phones at grocery stores to compare prices and check their grocery lists. [ReadWriteWeb]

UK Will Urge Legalization of Mashups: Lord Mandelson’s three-strikes proposal may have gobbled all the headlines. But a parallel package published Wednesday, aimed at liberalising copyright, may prove just as important for some creators. [paidContentUK]

What Do Teens Want? Their Moms Off Facebook: The problem with Facebook? Moms. "My mom uses it to plan dinner" was the sound bite complaint. One #w2s hashtag user remarked that he would pay his mom money to get OFF Facebook. [SF Chronicle]

Social Telly--A Round Up of Social Viewing: Television has always been a social thing. Whether it’s because you’re watching it with family and friends at home, watching football in the pub, chatting at school or work with friends about that programme that you all love the night before, television is about much more than a broadcast. [Roo Reynolds | What's Next?]

Industry panel warns media companies Must Embrace Social Media: As social networking becomes more prevalent among consumers of all ages, media companies will have to learn how to navigate the various social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to reach out and market to their customers, according to a panel of media executives speaking at a CTAM Summit ’09 panel session Monday. [MultiChannelNews]

Internet Archive Opens 1.6 Million E-Books on OLPC Laptops: The Internet Archive operates 20 scanning centers in five countries, where hundreds of workers are manually scanning books from public and university libraries, mostly public-domain works for which the copyright term has expired. It collects these books at its Open Access Text Archive. [Xconomy]

Curation| The End of Content Aggregation: In an age where anyone can be a publisher, it is now up to the editor to curate the best of the massive amounts of content now available in a way that is easily digestible. The role of the journalist is much like a museum curator whittling down, say, 19th century Neo-Classicism, into a single, walkable hallway. [eMedia]

OMG, Senators Target Texting: The senate, the Department of Transportation and the FCC want you to stop texting while driving, and on Wednesday, they all but declared a war on texting, promising education campaigns and laws to convince you to put your phone down — at least while you are piloting a two-ton SUV going 70 mph. [Wired]

Tweet O' The Week: "Customers are people first and they do not care about your ROI." via @kyleplacy / Kyle Lacy

Mobile Augmented Reality: There’s some momentum building in the mobile-based augmented reality space in Oz. Related: Second Use for Google Wave Discovered: Role Playing Games. [TechNation Australia] [Gizmodo]

Zombie Walk & Gen Y: The political classes are also acutely aware of some realities of demographics, and this has lead them to target Gen Y more heavily. Generation Y are going to inherit the working world, and remain in charge of it for many years to come. [Crazy Epic]

Weekly Wrap: Bing Rocket Contest, School Bake Sale Ban, iPhone & Teens, Brands, Content & Youth, Mobile Augmented Reality, Tween Summit Wrap Up, South African Youth Trends & More!

Interest in iPhone High as iPod & iTunes Dominate Teen Market: The of the 18th bi-annual Piper Jaffray teen survey shows that Apple's share among teen consumers continues to grow. Apple's smallest market among teens -- the iPhone -- is poised to greatly expand. While 15 percent of those surveyed currently own an iPhone, 22 percent intend to purchase one in the next six months. [Apple Insider]

Brands Must Accept Young People Expect Control Over Online Content: A lot of marketers are really just wrapping up the old-fashioned method of control and broadcast and making it look young. What teens want is to be given something and allowed to do anything with it, which is particularly hard for corporate marketers to grasp. [New Media Age]

Mobile Augmented Reality Booming in Australia: There’s some momentum building in the mobile-based augmented reality space in Oz. [TechNation Australia]

2009 Tween National Summit Wrap Up: Amy Jussel and Debra Moffitt (aka @pinklockermom) have put together a great round up of the first ever National Tween Summit to see what’s on the minds of preteen girls. Lot's of great info and insight here folks! [ShapingYouth]

Do Good!: Nominate Mr. Youth for Best Social Media Agency in Mashable's 2009 Open Web Awards!

Pepsi, Stay The Hell Away From My Daughter (and my niece too!): Any sweet-talking kid who thinks he will outsmart this girl with a stupid iPhone app could find himself on the mean end of a double-sided axe. [Mobile Insider]

Social Media as Content Gateway: In a nutshell, there is a segment of the online population that uses social media as a core navigation and information discovery tool — roughly 18 percent of users see it as core to finding new information. While still a smaller percentage than those who use search engines or portals like Yahoo! or MSN, it is a significant figure. [Nielsen Wire]

Laptop for Every Student in Uruguay: This is not simply the handing out of laptops or an education programme. It is a programme which seeks to reduce the gap between the digital world and the world of knowledge. Hat tip @SarahNewton [BBC] [Gen Y Guide]

Schools 'Ban' Bake Sales: Say What?!: The New York City Board of Education has implemented a new policy banning bake sales in all of their schools. Well, mostly. [MomLogic]

Bing Launches 10,000 Rockets: Bing is asking 10,000 students to submit the rocket design of the future. They’re assembling a pretty cool panel of scientists from across the nation to help them judge which of these designs best exemplifies how space travel might evolve. [Bing]

Twitter Adds 100 Million Potential New Users: Twitter, in an extensive announcement detailing its vision for making a global impact, announced that it had secured an SMS deal with India’s largest mobile operator, Bharti Airtel. This opens the service to 110 million new people can tweet via SMS, all from the second-most populous nation in the world. [Mashable]

Speed Round: Vodafone has a parents' guide to help you protect your family on mobile phones, Instant Grass has a new report on South African youth trends, Josh Shipp kicked off a new contest to win 1 of 5 FREE COPIES of "Josh in a box" and a $500 scholarship, UK-based Indie Screenings partners with film creators to allow anyone to buy a license to screen their films, several cult shows get a boost from recorded viewing and finally......Yo Television, Meet Twitter! [Vodafone] [Instant Grass] [Josh Shipp] [Indie Screenings] [The Wrap]

John Mayer's Augmented Reality Music Video

John Mayer, the singer-songwriter known for searing blues excursions and acoustic-guitar-driven hits, is drilling into augmented reality territory with a new video that lets fans insert themselves into the action.

The augmented-reality music video for “Heartbreak Warfare,” the lead track from Mayer’s upcoming album Battle Studies, hits the internet later this month. [via Wired]