We all love free stuff, and today starts an opportunity for you to receive a free Pepsi MAX when you tag the new Pepsi MAX commercial using IntoNow. PepsiCo has partnered with the televesion-tagging iPhone Application, IntoNow to reward users with a free soda when they tag the new Pepsi MAX commercial.

“The basic concept is to find the Pepsi MAX commercial, tag it and select a store,” IntoNow founder and CEO Adam Cahan explains.

The way it works is with each tag, IntoNow will generate a unique digital coupon for the first 50,000 users who tag the spot. The coupon works like a gift card and can be scanned right from your mobile phone, and redeemed at Target and CVS stores.
The Pepsi MAX commercial will begin airing today (April 20, 2011) and features past and present Major League Baseball Legends. This promotion and the commercial are centered on Pepsi MAX’s MLB sponsorship. IntoNow will be featured on promo cards that will be distributed by Pepsi during games at MLB stadiums, but is not featured in the ad itself.



This campaign is expected to be a hit due to the ease and convenience as well as the incentive of a free Pepsi MAX. In addition, the popularity of smart phones is hoped to bolster the success of this campaign because people want to use them to connect in the digital world with things that they are interested in.
“This is the first time where consumers can close the funnel between a brand experience on a TV commercial right down to a real world drink you can consume. That’s a really exciting first that opens the doors for advertising partners. We’re thrilled to be creating a new consumer experience with a brand like Pepsi MAX.” Cahan said.

IntoNow is a consumer technology company which focuses on enhancing the way people engage with television. IntoNow works for commercials like Shazam does for music; it listens to and identifies television shows.

Launched in late January, IntoNow is a free companion application that allows users to tag identified contends and find out what their friends are watching. During its first four weeks of availability, IntoNow recorded more than 1 million content tags; an average of one tag per second.

This partnership marks the first time than at automated technology like IntoNow has been used to bridge the gap between real world and television commercials. If this campaign is successful they hope to move on to movie studios, automotive brands and other consumer goods companies for similar commercial-tagging campaigns.

-Hannah Wilhide

Foursquare Meetup

A new social media trend has been taking on followers for both individual users and local businesses around the world, Foursquare. Don’t let the name fool you, it’s nothing like the childhood game you used to play with friends, this is a new social tool designed with smartphones in mind. The application allows the user to “check in” to the places they visit and allow friends to track where they frequent, if said friend allows the person to view where and when they were at the establishment. The application does allow privacy settings, so the user doesn’t have to let people know when a person is out of their house and how far away they are all the while allowing a little friendly competition to spice things up.
Foursquare application users can find themselves competing with other users to frequent certain establishments the most in order to become the “mayor” of that place. For instance, in Saint Augustine, at the Flagler College Proctor library, users of Foursquare can check in there as many times as they enter. The user who visits the library the most will become the” mayor” of that location, just until someone beats them with more visits, but that user has the bragging rights for the time being.
The application also allows users the opportunity to earn all sorts of different badges (over 200) from “Adventurer,” meaning you have checked into more than ten venues, to “local,” meaning you’ve checked into the same place more than 3 times in one week. To see a list of all the possible badges a user can earn, check out http://www.4squarebadges.com/foursquare-badge-list/ . Earning more badges will obviously give the user more bragging rights, offering an even bigger competition aspect to the application.
Foursquare isn’t just for users to try and beat their friends in badge counts, business are getting into it, too. Some businesses offer certain deals for “checking in” to their establishments. Some retail stores will offer discounts on merchandise for checking in on a certain weekend, while restaurants will offer discounts off the entire purchase to a free appetizer or drink for the application users. Foursquare even promoted their meet up day this year on April 16th this year.
The website promoted April 16th as their “Foursquare Meetup Day.” As a play on the title, the website chose 4/16 because 4 squared is 16 (April 16th). The site encouraged users to promote a local place in their city to meet up on that day and have a good time. Myself personally being a Foursquare member chose Local Heroes here in Saint Augustine as a meeting place, being that I’m the bartender over there so I could organize to give a free beer or soda out to members who checked into the bar. Although I did not receive a huge turnout on the day, I did get a few members of the site who came in with their smartphones ready to check in and receive their reward. It was funny to see people talk about where they have been and how many badges they’ve earned so far.

Although Foursquare is just catching on, I have a feeling it could be a new fun thing to do – even to get out of the house and try to earn some badges, while also serving as a great tool to promote local businesses and have fun while doing it.
Joey Metz
Flagler College

Facebook Abusers

In a recent survey of 100 college students, studies showed that the social networking site Facebook had some intriguing correlations between narcissism and self-esteem.  The study found that young adults who have some narcissistic personality traits were more concerned with self-promoting themselves rather than using the site as a way to connect with friends.  Most of these people would use their "About Me" section of their page to show off their intelligence and many of their pictures were more focused on flaunting their physical attractiveness than showing good memories and times with friends.  The article explains that Facebook "offers a gateway for hundreds of shallow relationships and emotionally detached communication." In essence, Facebook gives its users complete control on how they want to be viewed by their peers.

With more than 600 million users, Facebook is clearly a major from of communication between just about everyone.  The fact of this matter is that anyone who has a Facebook page obviously didn't create that page in an effort to make themselves look bad, no one created their page with the attitude of "lets see how bad I can make myself look."  If that were the case what would be the point?  More and more employers are using Facebook to evaluate potential employees no one wants their potential future boss to have a bad perception of them because of what they saw on your Facebook.  I don't believe that the correlation between narcissism and self-esteem is an accurate one in this case.  For one, a survey of only 100 college students is nowhere near enough test subjects on a 500 million person social networking site to be considered accurate.  And what exactly they consider to be “narcissistic” is never clearly stated in the article.  In my opinion, this article is basically informing us that were all a little narcissistic.  Doesn’t everyone un-tag themselves in photos they don’t think their friends and family would approve of or find appealing to the opposite sex?  I can however understand where this article might be coming from when it says, “Facebook feeds narcissism.”  I do notice how many people like to update their status in what seems like an effort to “let it be known” that they are doing this or going there.  Many times this can come off as being obnoxious, and many times it is.  It seems as though many Facebook users are much more outgoing and show more confidence on the internet than they actually are, giving many people including potential employers the wrong perception.  Facebook is by no means a bad thing, I use mine everyday and like how it keeps me “in the loop” or what have you.  But, like anything else Facebook has its flaws and one of its biggest is that of getting the wrong perception of who people really are and getting to know their “online personality” instead of their real-life one.

By: Don Stewart