CRUSH: Stella!! (Artois)
This week saw some very cool new media news including Chirp, "How to run a government from your iPad", why Steve Jobs caused the Iceland volcano, the new budget deficit video game (MA), Glee: the app, and of course Stella Artios - The Movie (starring you). All this and more. Watch the video:
Twitter held its first developers conference, appropriately called "Chirp", this past week and revealed the following key announcements: it has surpassed 100,000,000 users (with more than 300 thousands users signing up a day), the site boasts more than 180 million unique visitors a month, and that twitter will be releasing every tweet to be archived in the Library of Congress. Up next in the spring conference circuit is Facebook, which is preparing to display its latest news at F8 this Wednesday.
In international news, various social media tools covered the latest British debate between the leaders of the Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative parties, providing instant snapshots of the country's reactions into the debate. More than 184,000 tweets were sent during the debate and Facebook saw even more action - with over 45,000 people joining the Democracy UK page, which featured a "Rate the Debate" app. However, Facebook crushed under the pressure as the swarm of traffic caused the app to fail during the event.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was among the thousands of unlucky individuals whose travel plans were delayed due to the volcano that erupted in Iceland and created an ash cloud that caused the closure of European airspace. However, Stoltenberg is also one of the 450,000 people who own an iPad, which is how he has been running the Norwegian government from the United States.
Congressional deficit Commission Co-Chair Erskine Bowles is hoping that technology will be the key to balancing out our national debt. Bowles has asked Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to develop a game that will solve the national debt crisis, signaling both a new way to gain the interest of public, and opening up the possibility of fresh ideas by "crowdsourcing".
In other game news, if you are a Foursquare geek you will enjoy this new web series "Foursquare cops", brought to you by HubSpot and featuring the new police force the game has sent out to patrol the streets for cheaters.
Speaking of geeks, Glee fans are singing praises for the new "Glee" app, recently released and available for the iPhone, iTouch and iPad. The special "sonic network" adds a slew of interactive elements, making it more than just a music app. Users are able to not only sing and record their favorite show songs, but also share recordings, join people in their performances, and start Glee clubs.
And that brings us to our Crush of the Week, featuring another company who hit a high note with their innovative use of social media, the Belgian beer maker Stella Artois. But we don't want to ruin all the fun by just telling you how they did it, so check out their recent promotion to see it first hand.