By Paul Thomson :: 4:52
3 PM
Twitter this afternoon announced its acquisition of social television analytics company Bluefin Labs. No price has been set on the deal, although sources close to both companies are saying this is Twitter’s largest deal in the microblogging service’s history.
Bluefin Labs, founded in 2008, provides reports to brands about how often they are being discussed on social media channels. The value to Twitter in this deal is that Bluefin has a great deal of historical data behind how brands are doing socially, and Twitter can use this data to leverage its advertising sales strategies going forward.
Clients of Bluefin include roughly 40 U.S. television networks, as well as top national brands and advertising agencies. Their flagship product, Bluefin Signals, was developed in collaboration with the television advertising industry in conjunction with the research community.
Neither Bluefin or Twitter have made a public statement about the deal yet, so this story will be updated as it develops.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 9:07 AM
For those Samsung fans hoping that this month’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) would bring them the next handset in Samsung’s flagship lineup, they’ll just have to keep waiting. The Korean electronics company has decided not to do any type of announcement around the Galaxy S4 at MWC, and will opt instead to hold its own launch event at a later date.
Like Apple and Microsoft, Samsung is looking to create a special niche and stand out on their own, and like those two tech giants, has seen a reduced presence, in terms of square footage, at some of the tradeshows lately. Opting to create their own event allows them to own and control the branding and access better than they would be able to piggybacking a new hardware announcement at a place like CES or MWC.
For example, last year, the company launched their Galaxy S3 at their own event in May, just before the CTIA Wireless conference began.
The company has nothing to worry about when it comes to press coverage when it schedules its own standalone event. The Galaxy lineup of smartphones
MWC will kick off at the end of this month, but as we said, don’t expect to see a big splash from Samsung there.
By Gilbert Falso :: 12:14 AM
If you watched the Super Bowl tonight, you might have caught Dodge’s spot for their Ram trucks. It featured late radio personality Paul Harvey, and his monologue on what it means to be a farmer. It was an emotional ad, with some well positioned visuals to match Harvey’s iconic voice – but it wasn’t Dodge’s original idea.
Harvey’s talk was called “So God Made a Farmer,” and he originally delivered it at  the Future Farmers of America convention in 1978. But that’s not the issue – the idea of pairing up Harvey’s talk with farm and farmer images actually happened in 2011, when Farms.com, a website and portal for the livestock and agricultural community created a very similar video, complete with Paul Harvey voice-over, but with imagery that was much less polished.
The Farms.com website discussion board has linked to Dodge’s version, with some positive commentary, so it doesn’t appear to be a sore point for the agriculture website – but it still shows that whoever produced Dodge’s spot most likely stole it from this low-budget original endeavor.
Below, watch the Farms.com original version of “So God Made a Farmer.” Learn more about Paul Harvey
By Cynthia Herbert :: 9:21 PM
One of the more controversial ads during tonight’s Super Bowl 47 was the GoDaddy spot at the beginning of the 1st quarter.
Featuring Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli and actor Jesse Heiman in a deep french kiss for most of the 30 seconds, the ad was quick to elicit a lot of response on Twitter – 50,000 Tweets in just about 20 minutes.
It was a controversial ad – not a new thing for the web hosting company, of course – but much of the chatter seemed to focus on the ick factor of the kiss itself.
Below is a chart showing the quick uptake of Twitter conversations about GoDaddy after the commercial.
By Paul Thomson :: 6:23 PM
If you’re unlucky enough not to have access to cable or over-the-air reception for your TV viewing tonight, rest easy – CBS has got your back this year – the network is offering live web streaming of the Super Bowl, and plans to do it big.
The network has brought its big guns to the show this year, with some features that won’t leave users wishing they hadn’t cut the cord with their cable company.
CBS has 22 camera angles available on the live stream, giving football fanatics the ability to see over the entire field of play, as well as a roving camera operator that will go to certain parts of the field based on online user requests, in real time. In addition to the huge complement of camera angles, CBS’ web player has a DVR-type function that allows users to rewatch parts of the game.
If you usually turn on the game for commercials, however, you might be disappointed. While the live stream will show commercials, they won’t be the same ones as on TV – at least not all of them. CBS sold the streaming ads separately from broadcast ad slots, at much higher prices than traditional web video ads.