Watch 2012 Super Bowl C...

Want to watch the big budget Super Bowl commercials, but can’t wait till Sunday or don’t care about football? Facebook and USA Today have just launched Ad Meter , a Facebook app where you can watch many of the TV spots right now. Then from kickoff until Tuesday night you can vote for your favorites. Traditionally an offline poll done live with handheld meters, USA Today has finally brought Ad Meter online so you can judge ads both in real-time and post-game. Facebook tapped Involver  to build the app, and has secured early previews of roughly 20 commercials. The rest of the ads will become available through the app at game time. Last year Facebook let you watch Several Internet companies have plopped down the big bucks this year in an attempt to court the mainstream. Arrested Development’s Gob plugs Hulu, and Teleflora.com touts the lovin you might get if you use it to send a Valentine’s Day gift. Etrade, Careerbuilder.com, Investing in Super Bowl ads makes more and more sense for web services as the general public becomes more internet savvy. They should tread cautiously, though, considering past ads from Salesforce, Groupon have been  voted most disliked  and  caused PR crises . Let’s hope no one gives our industry a bad wrap this time around. Oh wait,  GoDaddy’s ads filled with body-painted models and angels in the cloud are just as sexist as ever.

Still Looking For A New...

After eating something greasy to get rid of last night’s Jello shot-induced hangover, many of you are probably in the middle of writing your New Year’s resolutions. Well, here’s a good one (especially considering that the tech sector seems to be the only bright spot in a sort of lackluster economy) … Learn to code. The folks at Codecademy   have teamed up with a number of partners like Girl Develop It , Techstars and YCombinator  to help make coding skills a reality for those that wish they had them, with Code Year , a program designed specifically for those that want to make 2012 the year they build technical skills. Signing up for the free service will hook you up with a new programming course each week. Codecademy co-founder Zach Sims tells me that the courses will be a mix of everything so people have “well-rounded basics,” beginning with Javascript and then continuing to server-side languages like Ruby and Python. He hopes that the curriculum will turn people into competent developers by the end of the year. “People should make their New Year’s resolution something that can improve their quality of life,” says Sims, “We’re giving them new skills and actually helping them keep their resolutions. This is just the beginning of our big effort to get lots of people to recognize the importance of learning to code.  I think 2012 can be the year we finally get programming to start entering the mainstream.” *Signs up for Code Year*

Did You Review Your Who...

Really? The whole thing? You probably didn’t, but you should because there are things you posted long ago you that you might not want people to see. I sincerely worry that all over the world, this is happening right now: “Oh look, a new Facebook profile design. Grrr, I dislike change, but it looks cool. There’s a 7 day preview period? But all my friends are showing off their pretty covers. I’ll just publish my Timeline now, and go back and delete embarrassing posts later.” But they won’t. This is a big problem for individuals and Facebook. For the majority of users, things will be fine, and they’ll love Timeline . Facebook did a great job designing it. Maybe too great, such that people publish it too fast. I’ve heard Facebook is planning more ways to educate users about the importance of curating your Timeline. There are already a few alerts in the tour, intro, and blog post, but they’re not very strongly worded. That needs to change. Once users have already opted in to publishing their Timeline, it will be harder to get them to go back and review. And with today’s global rollout , the time bombs start ticking. Two weeks, a month, a year later, they get a call from their boss about a sexist or racist joke they posted in 2009. They get a call from their mom asking if they have a drinking problem. They get a call from their little brother about whether getting high is fun like they said in that post 3 years ago. Facebook needs to get serious about pushing users to review their Timelines. Raising awareness without scaring users will be tough, but Facebook must figure it out. Otherwise, horror stories of lost jobs and family drama are on the way. Burned users will blame Facebook, and the mainstream media will jump all over it. This isn’t fear mongering or snarky criticism, I’m really trying to help. Facebook, you’ve worked too hard on Timeline to let it become a talking point against you. Tell the users loud and clear how important Timeline review is. Users, tell your friends.

Karl Lagerfeld And Net-...

Le Web kicked off today in Paris, though the show was opened not with a discussion about a tech issue or company of the day, but with a demonstration by fashion scion Karl Lagerfeld on how he uses the iPad and technology to enhance his work. Not your typical Le Web fare, but then this reflects a growing maturity in the tech scene as it infects the mainstream, in part thanks to devices like the iPhone and the iPad. With just a small amount of technical hitches Lagerfeld managed to demonstrate to Le Web’s Loic Le Meur how he now creates many of his designs using drawing programmes on the iPad, even showing a sketch he’d done of Steve Jobs that morning. But the news from the fireside chat was delivered Natalie Massenet, founder and executive chairman of Net-A-Porter, who announced her company would be working with Lagerfeld on a new online fashion brand, called Karl .

Modern Warfare 3 Sets N...

If anyone has been thinking that we’ve deliberately avoided the Modern Warfare launch in favor of Battlefield 3 stuff, well, I wouldn’t blame them, but it really wasn’t on purpose. Let us demonstrate our impartiality by passing on this rather astonishing statistic: Modern Warfare 3 made more than a quarter of a billion dollars in its first five days. That’s definitely a record. Comparisons to big movie launches are warranted, of course, and MW3 has the biggest beat by a factor of three or four. Note that MW3′s sales number include pre-orders, however, while most box office receipts are sold on the spot. The game is sure to hit the billion-dollar mark soon, and will likely have done so faster than any game before it. If there’s anyone left who doubts the power of the mainstream games market, numbers like these should humble them. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that the mega-franchises are really very few when compared with the number of titles released at large, but the same could be said for standout TV shows and movies. And after all, there’s plenty of pie to go around. It’s not like the people who buy MW3 can’t also buy Minecraft or Sword & Sworcery. I’m not a Modern Warfare guy myself, but then again, I’m not a Rush Hour guy either, and I paid to see that and I enjoyed myself. MW3 may not elevate the genre, but every game like it elevates the market away from niche (where to be honest it hasn’t been for years and years) and further into everyday life.