As a self professed lover of all things bad TV, I have obviously been looking forward to the Season 2 premiere of the Jersey Shore, on MTV, for months. I’ve stayed informed of their off season shenanigans via Twitter and my most trusted of gossip news sources, Perez Hilton. I’m slightly skeptical of their move to Miami, filmed earlier this year when it was too cold to be at the actual Jersey Shore, but I wouldn’t miss this for the world.

As a way to promote the new season MTV has launched a Jersey Shore themed Facebook game. When I learned this I actually let out a ’squeeeee’ of happiness and I couldn’t wait to give it a try. The game is built in a similar style to Mafia Wars, where you have a certain amount of energy that you can use to complete tasks (think GTL, baby!), tasks award you money to buy things & collect points to move to the next level. You are also able to fight against other players, using a variety of hilarious attack methods. As the new season of the Jersey Shore progresses the Facebook game will include new challenges based on what is happening in the show. Great way to keep people engaged in the Facebook game, which I’ll admit, is really only fun for the first 10 minutes.

When you first start the game you are able to select your character: The Situation, JWOWW, Pauly D, and Snooki. The game appears to be the same no matter who you select. I, of course, selected my beloved Snooki, complete with hair poof & animal print.

Next you learn about the tasks that you are able to complete to earn points, money, and increased fighting abilities:

 The GTL tasks each take a set amount of time to ‘complete’, which just means you have time to wait between doing the task again. (2 minutes for Gym, 5 minutes for Tan, 10 minutes for Laundry) I suspect they will add more tasks here as the season moves along.

Fighting is probably the most entertaining aspect of the game. This is because of the wide variety of attack methods that are available (the higher your level the more options you have). Some of my favorite include: spray your opponent with pickle juice, use ‘The Shocker’ to shock your opponent, Beat Up The Beat, attack with a Hippo, Clinger, Meat Head, Duck Phone, OR Snooki Cartwheel. As you attack, your character can also be spotted Fist Pumping when they win.

Overall, I applaud MTV for their effort in keeping up interest in Jersey Shore (though is that really necessary?). I don’t think this will become as popular as Farmville, but I will be interested to see how it evolves throughout the season.

They have also announced an iPhone app titled…wait for it…’Spread Snooki’ (not making this up!) but it isn’t available for download yet. The idea is to add Snooki to photos on your phone and share with your friends. I’ve been stalking patiently waiting for it to become available in the App Store. Stay tuned for a blog post about it! Fist pump!

It is a well known fact that everything is more fun when there is a bet involved. Gambling makes even mundane tasks an adventurous and nail biting experience. A couple of our good British friends across the pond realized this and have sought to pair humanity’s love for gambling with its interest in social media.

A new gambling site, Betable, allows users to create bets for anything and share these with their friends. After signing up, users can then place a bet on any topic they desire. Bets are then able to be shared through Facebook, Twitter, and email. The site earns revenue by taking 10% of all winnings. Users who initiate bets receive 30% of the proceeds, so if your bet were to go viral you could potentially be raking in the dough.

The target market for Betable is casual gambling settings such as friendly office wagers or a small parlay between college buddies. Betable hopes to be “the Twitter of gambling” by allowing such transparent sharing of bets among peers. Imagine the possibilities. That $5 dare to eat the green moldy thing that has been rotting for months in the office fridge could have thousands of people’s life savings riding on you!

Who will throw the first fist pump on season 2 of Jersey Shore? What movie will top the charts at the box office this weekend? How many marshmallows can Steve eat before throwing up? These questions and more can now be flung into the social world allowing for limitless betting opportunities.

Unfortunately, due to the party-pooping American government and US gambling restrictions, betting is limited to UK residents exclusively (apparently gambling is addictive or something). For now us Americans can only stand in awe of our British counterparts as we see hundreds throwing in their pounds hoping to make bank, as long as Janet wears her ugly read sweater to work on Thursday.

Last night app developer Flipboard launched their self-titled social magazine app for the iPad. Flipboard communicates with your social media accounts, aggregating the best videos and articles that your friends and followers are mentioning and linking to. This content can then be viewed through Flipboard in a magazine style layout. Flipboard presents an interesting concept that may widely catch on with iPad user’s daily habits.  The interface design and layout makes it an attractive download to add to your app collection. Plus it’s free, and I’ll try anything that is free once (ok, maybe not everything). View the video above to learn more.

Is social media going to the dogs? Well, it will be August 20-22 as BarkWorld takes place in Atlanta. BarkWorld is the first social media event of its kind, having been created by pet owners with a focus on social media and pets.

Yours truly will be taking part, delivering a keynote talk around fictional Twitter (or Twiction) accounts for pets. It’s a topic I’ve been passionate about since creating a Twiction character based on my dog, James Bond. The weekend will also bring out folks from The Humane Society of the United States, PETCO, PawPawty.com, and many others.

JamesBondTheDog will be accompanying me to BarkWorld and riding along with me in style as we Bark and Ride with GMC. Follow updates from our GMC Terrain as we make our way to Atlanta next month or come on out and Tweet up with us.

If you’re looking to score a ticket to BarkWorld, look no further. @JamesBondTheDog is looking for a date to the conference and is offering up a BarkWorld pass to one lucky person. Just Tweet him why you’d be a great date and do it before next Monday, July 26th at noon. He’ll be making a selection then. There are details here.

Happy Tweeting and hope to see you in Atlanta next month.

Move over Farmville, there is a new social game in town. Womanly entertainment and celebrity gossip enterprise PopSugar is this time taking the reigns in an attempt to create the next big thing in online gaming. Yes, I am just as scared as you are.

PopSugar’s Retail Therapy aims to capture the attention of shop-a-holics in this social adventure. Users embark on a quest to own and operate a boutique. The game is free, however, virtual clothing can be purchased for anywhere from $1 to $100 to ensure you have the cutest store on the block ($100? Are you kidding me?). Players can choose clothing from real brands including Banana Republic, Juicy Couture, and Tory Burch. Clicking on specific store items will take the user to the apparel company’s website where they will be able to purchase the clothing item for real.

The social aspect allows players to visit their friend’s shops and share style ideas and designs. This virtual shopping experience can be played by downloading the Retail Therapy Facebook app. The game is an attempt to lure the feminine fashion community into the world of social gaming.

Social gaming is proving to be a huge industry with profits expected to be around 1 Billion by the close of the year. A survey conducted by Information Services Group revealed that 55% of online social gamers are female, making this a would be attractive market for PopSugar. The game does provide a consumer engaged way for companies to advertise, making it an alluring option for all parties. All points aside, is this going too far?

I hate shopping, likely because I am a guy. The one thing I could think of more miserable than shopping would be running a virtual boutique online. The fact that I explored the PopSugar website in order to write this makes me feel the need to kill a wildebeest with my bare hands while wearing Wrangler jeans after coating myself in Old Spice. I realize I am by no means the target market for PopSugar, but I am honestly frightened for what social gaming has in store. With the success of Farmville, many other social games will likely surface in order to copy their achievements. Receiving requests to tend my friends crops was bad enough, I can only imagine the misery of being asked which clothing setup would best compliment the pink drapes.

Likely, this is just the beginning. Even if social gaming is a fad, its current popularity is enough to keep it around for at least a few more years in some capacity. It is a scary world out there, but I guess someone needs to purchase virtual Gap skinny jeans.

ChumpDump on Prezi

Isn’t it about time you cleaned up your following list? If you are like most, chances are you follow a few people that are not worth the time. Working to clean up your timeline can take some serious effort, especially if you auto-follow everyone who follows you because you are a “nice person”. A new app for the iPhone and the Android Market called “ChumpDump” brings a little fun to the table when choosing who to un-follow.

The premise is simple; each day all of your friends on Twitter are thrown in a lottery. ChumpDump then presents you with someone you are following, and you are given the choice whether to “dump” or “save” them. If you choose to dump that person, you gain karma points. After earning enough karma, you can turn the lottery mode off, allowing you to un-follow whomever you may choose on demand. People who have been dumped, appropriately labeled “dumpies”, will go up for adoption in the ChumpDump world, allowing for others to decide if you were too hasty in your dumping.

Oprah once said, “think about any attachments that are depleting your emotional reserves. Consider letting them go”. She was obviously speaking about Twitter. Life is too short to have to read the mind-numbingly boring tweets from your old college buddy. Sometimes, you just need to let go.

If you question the potential popularity of ChumpDump, a quote from their website will alleviate your woes. “We like games and everyone loves the lottery, so we’ve given you a daily lottery game to play every day of the week”. Well said, genius minds behind ChumpDump.

Let’s be honest: Nick Cage even without that horrendous haircut and Stevie Nick’s wardrobe is enough to keep most people from the box office. So Disney has spared no expense promoting Sorcerer’s Apprentice in new and interesting ways.

We wrote about Disney purchasing the first ever promoted tweet for Toy Story 3 a few weeks back. Apparently, it went so well, they’ve also bought another promoted tweet for Sorcerer’s Apprentice. And they’ve also become the first to try Twitter’s new @EarlyBird service, a “deal of the day” promotion announced just last week, again for Sorcerer’s Apprentice. @EarlyBird will retweet promotions to its audience of around 45,000 for some undetermined fee. However, Disney’s own account has 54,000, so right now it seems the PR behind Disney being the first is more important than the benefits from @EarlyBird.

They’ve also rolled out an impressive interactive display window at the 34^th Street Macy’s where, using technology similar to Microsoft’s new Xbox Kinect, you can play a game based on the movie. The game lets you wave your arms to throw plasma balls, levitate mops, ect, and once you’re done, it takes your photo, shoves your head onto Nick Cage’s body and (of course) lets you upload the appalling result to Facebook.

If you’re nowhere near New York, you can also “train” to be a sorcerer’s apprentice online with an interactive series of YouTube videos with choose your own adventure links. Hint, you need a clear mind to throw plasma balls, it doesn’t help to squint.

Hopefully, it will all pay off. Though for the amount they’re spending, they could have spent a little more on Cage’s wig.

Several weeks ago, members of the Boston sports media received cryptic t-shirts that read: Help Vince!. There was little, to no, explanation. Yesterday, the meaning of the words on the shirt was finally revealed. Vince Wilfork, defensive lineman for the New England Patriots, has had his Super Bowl ring “stolen” by a Jets fan. The Patriots are asking their fans to “Help Vince” find his ring through a series of challenges.

The promotion was launched in conjunction with SCVNGR (based in Cambridge, MA), an up-start, location based game for your iPhone or Android device. On the surface the app sounds similar to other location based applications such as Foursquare or Gowalla. What SCVNGR does better, is to offer more of a game based element in the form of challenges, which can be part of a bigger Trek. By completing these you earn points, the more you explore, the more points you receive. They offer a much better scavenger hunt platform than their more well known location based competitors. Groups are able to customize Treks and users can earn points for checking in, snapping a picture, scanning a QR code, etc.

In the case of the Patriots promotion, fans are asked to complete challenges all over New England. The top scorer will win lunch with a Patriots player, including 3 friends, after the close of the 2010-2011 football season. The Patriots are also using their Twitter feed to push clues out to their followers, as well as traditional media outlets to gain attention.

The result of this effort by the Patriots is renewed buzz & interest about the team leading up to the start of the new football season. They are also able to encourage the rivalry with the Jets, and promote interesting places across New England. Fans will no doubt go crazy trying to complete challenges spreading interest with their friends. Seems like a win win for everyone, especially SCVNGR which is just making a name for itself.

Inside SCVNGR Treks:

Patriots challenges nearby:

Activities by others:

Leader board:

Many thanks to Colleen for taking these screenshots for me. Moving from MA to the south limited my location based ability!

“Viral” is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days in the social media world. It seems that with YouTube and Vimeo, a new viral video is popping up on our news feeds or pouring over our Twitter page on a daily basis. People like videos, that we have known for many years.

If you are one of those people, check out the site Xtranormal. Here you can create your own online videos with several different animated characters and scenes. The best part is no prior experience is needed. As long as you can click and type, you are good to go. Xtranormal has made your quest in creating the next viral video that much easier. Go ahead and check it out, but before you do, watch this one we created over here at BFG.

A new study from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism revealed that social media sites were the real winners among 18-24 year olds during the latest UK Election. A survey showed “extremely high” levels of activity online with 94% using Facebook during the election campaign and 1 in 4 using other social media. The study also cites a second nationwide survey in the UK that showed a quarter of 18-24 year olds commented on social networks related to the election and 81% expressed an interest online in a campaign (which I presume means they liked it). According to the study, this is due to the fact that the majority of 18-24 year olds, “receive most of their political information online and rarely read a printed newspaper or listened to radio for information.”

Clearly, politicians in the UK have gotten the message, especially where Twitter is concerned. 600 MP candidates were using Twitter during the election, and 200 members of the newly minted parliament spend time tweeting to their constituents. Despite our vague spelling differences and dislike of Marmite, I believe these results can be accurately applied to the United States and shouldn’t be ignored by either politicians or brands attempting to align their adverting with any social cause.

An excellent example of successful social media cause marketing comes from TOMS Shoes: the brand that gives one pair of shoes away for every pair purchased. TOMS uses social media to get the word out about their yearly One Day Without Shoes event. The event raises awareness about how difficult it is to live without shoes, but it also sells the TOMS brand. Wired has the scoop on how they’ve been using social media to grow the event from 16,000 people in 2008 to 250,000 people in 2010 thanks to scads of digitally organized local events around the world and the help of MSN. In other words, just as political action is much more than voting, cause marketing can also be much more than clicking the like button.