Facebook Streaming Movies:

Warner Bros. is testing out streaming movies on Facebook with “The Dark Knight”. The movie rental costs users $3.00 (Facebook will receive 30% of revenues) and can be watched for 48 hours after purchase.  If the test goes well, we are likely to see more video streaming options on Facebook.

Foursquare v3.0:

Foursquare’s latest app version, v3.0, has some innovative new features. They have done away with the “tips” tab and replaced it with an “explore” tab. The explore tab will look at your information (where you’ve checked in, who you’re connected with, your favorite places to check in) and what you’re looking for (nightlife, sushi, etc.) to show you what Foursquare thinks you’ll like nearby. You will also be able to see how many of your friends have been to a recommended place, and what reviews have been posted about it.

The iPad 2 Available Today:

The iPad 2 has arrived. You can order it online now, and purchase it in store starting at 5pm local time. They will be sold at the Apple Store, AT&T, Best Buy, Target, Verizon Wireless, Walmart and select Apple Authorized Resellers. Starting early today, people were lined up at Apple Stores all over the country in hopes of being some of the first to get the latest tech gadget.

Image from CultofMac.com

SXSW Interactive:

South by SouthWest’s interactive portion was kicked off today in Austin, Texas. Five days of networking events, presentations, announcements and exhibits, all centered around emerging technology. For those of us who can’t be there, we can follow along with the hashtag #SXSW or visit our favorite social media news websites (such as http://techcrunch.com/sxsw/) for updates.

Japan & Social Media:

When a tsunami and an 8.8 magnitude earthquake tragically hit Japan this morning, many took to social media. Some families relied on social media to get in touch with their loved ones, and Google even launched a Japan earthquake person finder to help victims and families locate each other.

There has been an overwhelming amount of support spread though social media channels:

-Anna (@alucas9)

Apple announced the iPad 2 this week. The iPad 2 is 33% thinner, has duel webcams, and new color options. The prices will range from $499 (for 16GB WiFi-only models) to $829 (for the works) and will be available on March 11, 2011. Watch the following video to see more about the new iPad:

(For those who are TeamCoCo, watch a spoof on the commercial here.)

@CharlieSheen:

You’ve probably been following the tirades of Charlie Sheen… actually I know some of you are (on twitter, at least). Charlie Sheen joined Twitter (@charliesheen) this week, and gained a million followers in a little over 24 hours, breaking a Guinness World record.

Side note: Three Feedbacker’s made it into the list of Charlie Sheen’s top 10 followers. #Winning

Libya’s Internet Down

The government has shut down the internet for most of Libya, including the capital city of Tripoli. The Wall Street Journal reported, “U.S. firms that monitor global Internet networks reported that Web traffic in and out of Libya was disconnected abruptly Thursday afternoon local time and continued to be unavailable late Friday.” This is all too familiar to what we saw a few weeks ago in Egypt. Learn more here.

Behind the Scenes with Old Spice

Old Spice brought you the man that smells like a man, man, and now they’re bring you behind the scenes of their latest commercial shoot. Take a look at the following video, which shows the creative process behind the latest Old Spice commercial:

Healthcare Pick: Emerging Media Whitepaper

Those who are members of SHSMD, take a look at the official Emerging Media Handbook/Whitepaper from SHSMD – Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development where Feedback’s Dean Browell wrote the introduction as the Chair of the Emerging Media Task Force.

-Anna (@alucas9)

At a certain point, it’s easy to lose what attracted us to social media in the first place: the opportunity to have a deeper connection with the things we love and are passionate about. But in examining social media from a non-vocational viewpoint, we can uncover concepts that translate into digital success in the business world.

Take sports as an example. Beyond the raving narcissists like Chad Ochocinco (@ochocinco), a number of professional athletes have taken to Twitter and, without a publicist or PR person looking over their shoulder, embraced it like a newfound freedom to express themselves.

While this often proves controversial (@charliesheen, anyone?), it’s also very personal and real. How cool would it be to be retweeted by your favorite basketball player? It happens all the time. Or they’ll announce a meet-up or a charity event they’re involved in that you too can be a part of. But it’s not just the athletes. Coaches get involved too.

Former University of Florida football coach Urban Meyer (@CoachUrbanMeyer) and University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) routinely offer up little nuggets, like announcing honors for players or throw out updates on recruiting.

From the fan perspective, this is fun way to engage with our favorite sports brands and figures. The teams, companies and players become more human to us, we become bigger champions of them, and in return we watch more sports, buy more memorabilia, and buy more tickets. This is social media participation that provides us with an experience, not just a Twitter stream with the latest stats or scores, or a team having an online account for the sake of saying they have one.

Interact with the head of the NFL's PR department.

NFL PR czar Brian McCarthy (@NFLPRguy) is an active tweeter as well. Some of my favorite feeds to follow are reporters. I logged onto Twitter during the Heat/Knicks game the other night and ESPN.com’s Michael Smith (@mrmichael_smith) was livetweeting the game. All of a sudden, my experience changed and I was now watching the game with one of my favorite sports commentators.

What could be better than that? Actually being a commetator yourself. I looked up my favorite basketball team, the Los Angeles Lakers on Q&A site Quora.com the other day and saw the question, “Why are the Lakers underperforming this season?” So I crafted an answer (if so inclined, find it here) and responded as though I was working for SportsCenter.

Other people can now see and comment and add their own opinions to my post. Thanks to social media, I’m now part of the dialogue. It’s better than boxscores in the morning paper and, sometimes, even catching a game on TV.

When I think about social media for companies and non-profits, I consider the enjoying experiences I have in my personal life online. If we create this for a client, will people use it? If so, how often? How will audiences use it? When?

Don’t just jump onto the latest social media buzzword hoping it’ll help you move more widgets. Instead, consider the ways it can create an enjoyable experience that people will want to come back to again and again. Do it right, and your returns are guaranteed.

- Thomas (@thomasmcdonald)

To be honest, I’ve actually started falling behind in my knowledge of what’s happening in the world. And I can’t be the only one. After thinking about it (even mapping it out on some paper), I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not the news’ fault that I can’t pay attention to it all anymore. News is always happening; the problem is with technology.

Consider the political demonstrations going on in the world. I followed the Egypt crisis to the extent that I understood what bearing it had on America, but as for Libya and Wisconsin, quite frankly it’s bad timing for the American attention span. Most of us have moved on, and are hoping for the best in those places (or, ignorant as it may be, just not caring either way). There’s too much else going on (hear about Bieber’s new haircut?) to pay attention to it all (we’ll just hope the Wisconsin thing doesn’t cause a shortage in cheese production).

Point is, we are constantly hounded in an era of not only 24/7 news coverage, but hyper-24/7 news coverage. We’ve always talked about how advertising is thrown in our faces all day long. Now it’s the news.

We’re all aware that we live in a time where simply pulling up a social network will cause an onslaught of the latest news coverage, giving us accessibility that we didn’t have even a year ago. Furthermore, if you own a tablet or iPad or browser-capable handset, you’ve likely stumbled upon the numerous apps available at your disposal for news consumption, with cool names like Flipboard or Zinio.

It’s out of control. News aggregators and apps and social networks are supposed to make it easier for us to find, read and share the news, but technology is starting to make news consumption and distribution more complex. By now, most Americans are starting to settle on a small number of ways to get the latest scoops: they may read a newspaper, or browse a news website. Some also rely on interactive media, be it a morning email, a shared article by an acquaintance, or an RSS feed. The tech savvier of us will use a combination of these services for news, including some of the more niche apps for iPads and iPhones. I’ve started narrowing the services I use to get news to simplify my own news-getting life, which I hope makes it easier to stay on top of things.

The concept of news services oversaturation is going to further complicate the news industry for media companies, some of which are starting to – for perhaps the first time in years – experiment yet again with paid-content models. A decade or so ago, when news companies hopped on the web and thought it’d be cool to charge for content or made people register to read, the model failed hard, due to the fact that people simply think news from a website should be free, they could perhaps find it elsewhere, or there was a paper with the same article nearby.

It’s a different world now. Newspapers and magazines aren’t sitting around homes or offices like they used to, giving publishers an open door to charge for content. If the process is kept simple, people will register on a website these days, but really only to allow them to comment or perhaps get a daily email or restaurant deal.

Yet asking people to pay could be an even harder sell this time around, as there are multiple ways to consume and various places to find news. Add on top of that our waning attention spans (who reads an entire article anymore?) and news being thrown at us constantly, and the idea of pressing the Pay Button for one story becomes one heck of a daunting click. The concept of sharing through interactive media is new, too. Media companies are seeing higher traffic to their websites because of shared articles through social networks, which means more impressions for advertisers. But you ever click through a shared news story only to find that you have to pay to read it? Back Buttons have never been hit faster.

Richmond-based Media General will be one of the first news companies in the nation to use Google’s new One Pass service, allowing the company’s flagship paper, the Times-Dispatch, to set terms and pricing on select content.

Charging for a single news story is going to prove unsuccessful, as – let’s hope – I’m sure any media company is well aware by now. Even charging for in-depth investigative pieces is going to be a stretch for many readers who don’t have the time or interest to read or the desire to pay, unless the cost can be kept to mere pennies. My hope is that paid content at Media General or other companies would be stuff like vital public court documents that are of value to business owners (as Richmond BizSense does), or stories about public officials’ salaries. It’s content you may desire, but would take lots of legwork to find on your own.

For most people, the concept of being charged for online news is a frustrating and an even alienating concept. Unfortunately for the publication paying lots of money to create valuable content, it comes off as greedy if other media outlets are giving away similar news for free. The money problem for newspapers is that they aren’t just paying the cost of running a website, they’ve still got to pay for the print edition’s production and the costs of running a newsroom. Online ad revenue can support a website, but it can’t support a website and a newspaper’s overhead.

Worse still is that the individual news outlet no longer matters to news audiences. Consumers aren’t going to a single place for the story anymore, they are visiting aggregators that have multiple versions of the same story for their choosing, using apps, or being referred by friends from their Facebook pages. Audiences already pay hundreds of dollars each year for Internet access and applications, they don’t have the attention spans they used to, and rarely does anyone sit down and read entire articles anymore. Many of these behaviors for consuming news are not what they were even six months ago.

News creators are focused on how much their news is worth. News audiences are concerned with how much their time costs. Hopefully, the two can meet in the middle.

-Jeff (@jephkelley) Note: Jeff was a business and tech reporter at the Times-Dispatch, reads it online and on its iPhone app, and has faith that the T-D and other media outlets can make the paid content model work.