Tips, Tea and Free Gas For a Year? Thanks Foursquare!

Geologging still hasn’t reached it’s full potential as mobile checkins still havent quite been adopted by the masses just quite yet. Foursquare seems to be trying to battle that by creating some pretty intense incentives to start checking in. Recently, Foursquare teamed up with select Hess gas stations along the east coast to provide some discounts and kind of a ridiculous sweepstakes prize.

Some Hess stations are offering a Brisk Iced Tea and Frito Lay Combo for 2 bucks when you check into the station, as well as a chance to win FREE gas AND Brisk Iced Teas for an entire year. This is a pretty good deal for both Foursquare and Hess as it will definitely drive consumers to perhaps go out of their way to find a Hess station to take advantage of this sweepstakes (since we all know gas prices aren’t going down anytime soon, a year’s worth of free gas is a pretty big incentive). It will also hopefully drive more consumers to adopt Foursquare into their social media lifestyles and choose Foursquare over competitors like Facebook Places, Gowalla and SCVNGR. Gas stations are pretty far from the typical check in venue (compared to bars and restaurants) so this sort of promotion will definitely help shift the landscape of geologging at least in the short term.

Fareast Movement Performs in Macau

This morning at 5am (8pm local time in Macau) the MNET Asian Music Awards 2010 got kicked off by a great performance by Drunken Tiger. Being the insomniac I am, I managed to catch the whole thing and pass out for 3 hours at 9am. Anyways, Fareast Movement was scheduled to open for the show but ended up performing towards the end. They also received the International Artists of the Year award. I believe this is the first award FM has ever won and their performance was great, performing Girls On The Dance Floor and Like a G6.

This is definitely a testament to the hard work these guys have put in. I don’t think they’ve ever performed on such an international scale before in from of viewers from all over the world.

Tetris: Grand Master.

Just came across this Youtube clip of the world’s best Tetris player. it is indeed the most ridiculous Tetris player I’ve ever seen. The speed increases at 3:00 and the game goes invisible at 5:00 as the credits roll.

Behind the Scenes with Fareast Movement

Here’s a clip from Fareast Movement, behind the scenes of their video shoot for 2gether with Roger Sanchez.

A.S.S. – Agents of Secret Stuff

Wong Fu Productions and Ryan Higa premiered their new Youtube movie last night in LA. Today it has been released on Youtube for the rest of the world to see. Check it out (just a heads up, it is 35 minutes long)

Kik Gets Kicked Off Blackberry App World

Soon after Kik’s meteoric rise in popularity over the last few weeks, RIM presents a pretty big road block in its way. After it “breached contractual obligations”, Kik has been removed from RIM’s Blackberry App World without much explanation as to why it happened, except that they.. well.. “breached contractual obligations”.. which I just said.

Apple and Android devices are not affected at all, which isn’t really a big surprise. Neither iPhone nor Android devices have a proprietary messaging service built into their OS. RIM, with it’s incredibly popular BBM program, does, and Kik looks like it could take BBM out of the equation for most when looking for a new smartphone. BBM is a huge selling point for RIM, especially in recent marketing campaigns which targets a much younger demographic (as opposed to businesses).

Kik’s popularity definitely poses a huge threat to this aspect to Blackberry sales as lets face it, a lot of people are slowly moving over to Androids and iPhones. If RIM loses it’s BBM appeal because Kik offers it for free to everyone with a data plan, the results could be devastating.

Also Kik’s contact acquisition methods are really weird. I’m pretty sure they collect the information through the Facebook app on who your friends are and it has definitely brought up a lot of privacy concerns.

WUPHF. whenever. wherever.

 

WUPHF. The next big thing in Social Media. The Facebook of the Future. The Twitter of.. Ok to be truthfully honest I’m still not sure if this is real or not.

Tonight’s episode of NBC’s The Office showcased Ryan (BJ Novak) trying to find investors in the office for his new Social Media venture, called WUPHF. It’s a Social Media application that notifies you by phone, text, email, fax and printer. They even have a real website up at http://wuphf.com. Obviously a fake site and not really a new social media platform, they’ve created a fun albeit fake application that sort of mocks social media and all the notifications one gets from texts and emails etc.

Although fake, the concept isn’t a bad one. A notification system that notifies you every way possible, through texts, landlines, emails, fax and WiFi printer IPs. Now I’m not sure if this sort of system already exists, but could definitely be useful in emergency situations. (In The Office, Oscar brings up the good point that it can be used by schools to notify students of an emergency evacuation.) I know when I was in school, my school’s administration registered students cell phone numbers so that emergency texts could be sent to everyone’s cell phones if something happened. This would take it one step further and definitely be useful if used properly.

Popular Youtube ASSes Make Youtube Feature Movie

Ryan Higa and Wong Fu Productions come together with a slew of kind of famous people that have made a name for themselves on Youtube to create a 40 minute movie on Youtube. The video won’t be like normal 5 minute Youtube videos as an incredible amount of editing and manhours have gone into the production of this video.

This is significant because Youtube is generally used for how to videos, vlogs, reposts of clips from other sources, etc. Rarely do people come together to produce a movie for youtube, without the backing from a studio. All production is done by Wong Fu Productions, which is just three normal guys in their mid 20s that happen to be really good at this stuff. It will be interesting to see how this affects the future the film industry as more people create films and stories without the help from major studios as well as give small time actors a chance to showcase their skills when a shot in Hollywood may not be available.

Stars Ryan Higa aka NigaHiga, the #1 most subscribed user on Youtube with 2.8million subscribers. Along with Arden Cho, who happens to be a real actoress who acts in real movies and TV shows and DTrix, member of Quest Crew, America’s Best Dance Crew Season 3 winner.

The Movie is called ASS – Agents of Secret Stuff and tells the story of a secret assassin who is sent as an undercover agent to a local high school where he must protect its students from the SINS – Society Involving Not-so-good Stuff. During his mission I guess he learns what it’s like to become a normal high school kid through his interactions in school and with Cho’s character, Taylor. Here’s the trailer.

Trying to Decipher The Effect

Philadelphia’s own Danny Chung aka Decipher of Muzo Entertainment finally released his first track off his upcoming album, The Effect. The track titled Catch Me If You Can features fellow rising star Ailee to offer a powerful voice in the chorus to balance out Decipher’s lyrical flow in each verse.  The Effect officially drops on January 4th, 2011 (will make a great birthday gift to me the next day lol) and features other great artists like Jay Park, Dumbfounded, Manifest, Lyrics and ISA 2010 Break Out Performer Sam Ock (a little surprised I don’t see Johnnyphlo on the list). This album has all the makings of a great showcase of underground Asian American talent in the music industry. Can’t wait to hear more.

Watch Facebook’s Major Email Announcement here LIVE

Today, Facebook announces their new messaging and email products. Check out their announcement live:

http://cdn.livestream.com/grid/LSPlayer.swf?channel=facebookinnovations&autoPlay=false

facebookinnovations on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free