J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS!

Even if you’re not into sports, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve heard that chant before. And there’s a pretty good chance you’ll be seeing a lot more of it if Gary and AJ Vaynerchuk get their way. That’s because they want to start a trend that every New York Jets fan uses the #J_E_T_S_JETS_JETS_JETS hashtag on Twitter before games and after every touchdown. And guess who is behind the idea: The New York Jets.

The Vaynerchuk’s VaynerMedia does brand consulting in the online space, and one of their clients happens to be the Jets. So they pitched the idea to the team and the team agreed to promote the idea before the first regular season game on September 7.

Sports chants are an odd thing because thousands of complete strangers come together to say them in unison. Usually, that happens in a stadium or arena, but really, the entire idea isn’t that different from Twitter itself. I know that I still do some of the Michigan Wolverine chants even when I’m sitting at home watching a game by myself (yes, even during last year’s miserable football season), so why not do them on Twitter?

Before the Twitter hashtag chant comes into play, the Jets are using Twitter another way. Tomorrow, before the final pre-season game, the Jets will be giving away tickets to each Jets player who tweets. These tickets can be given to fans of the players’ choosing. The idea is to apparently get the players more involved in the online community.

In terms of sports clients, so far VaynerMedia has signed up Kerry Rhodes of the Jets and former NBA star Jalen Rose (also a Michigan Wolverine), alongside the Jets. They are working on some other sports deals right now, and hope to get a few more signed shortly.

You can read more about it on the Jets’ Twitter page. And watch the video below to see the chant in action.

This article contains unofficial information.

One of our most loyal tipsters has just shared some quite spicy info with us. Hi-end handset lovers will be delighted to know that the RIM BlackBerry Storm 2, the HTC Touch Pro2 (XV6875), as well as the Samsung Omnia II and Convoy U640 (okay, this one might not be that hi-end really) have now appeared in Verizon’s inventory database. Unfortunately, we do not have any other details on these guys as of now, but hope this means we will see them official soon enough.

You didn’t think this was over, did you? Interestingly enough, two Palm devices have also found their way to the carrier’s system. Codenamed P101 and P121, we have absolutely no idea what these are, but we can still speculate a bit by saying that there is a chance for the P101 to be the Palm Pre itself. The reason for this is that back in March, when we got to check out the leaked 2009 roadmap of Sprint, the Pre was mentioned also as the P100. So, could the P101 be the Verizon Pre and could the P121 be the Eos? Alright, alright, we won’t push our luck here and will just wait for something new on the matter.

RIM BlackBerry Storm 2 Preliminary Specifications
HTC Touch Pro2 Preliminary Specifications | Review (EU)
Samsung Omnia II Preliminary Specifications | Review (GSM)
Samsung Convoy U640 Preliminary Specifications
Palm Pre Specifications | Review
Palm Eos Preliminary Specifications

Thanks, Snapdude!

Speakers:

Hartmut Esslinger,

Moderator:
Guy Kawasaki, Founding Partner and Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Garage Technology Ventures; co-founder, Alltop.com Co-hosted by:

Leading global designer Hartmut Esslinger founded frog design, inc. in his native Germany around the guiding principle “form follows emotion.” His work has had a major influence on the modern consumer aesthetic with such revolutionary products as the Apple Macintosh computer, Sony’s Trinitron television, Lufthansa’s brand and fleet image, and Louis Vuitton’s brand aesthetic.

In conversation with Guy Kawasaki, Esslinger discusses his perspectives on how “authentic human design” can connect strongly with both consumers and the bottom line.

Rene Ritchie

As anticipated — and anticipated again and again — China Unicom has finally announced that the iPhone is coming to China:

On 28 August, the Company and Apple reached a three-year agreement for the Company to sell iPhone in China. The initial launch is expected to be in the fourth calendar quarter of 2009. This will provide users with brand new communication and information experience.

Now all that’s left is to find out if it will have, you know, WiFi, an App Store, etc…

(via Engadget)

According to developers Bjango, Apple is now telling developers to remove the “Free Memory” function — the ability to clear data from RAM without force quitting or rebooting — from their iPhone (and iPod touch) applications or those applications will be removed from the App Store.

Bjango, who makes iStat [$1.99 on sale - iTunes link] had to do just that for their latest version:

Stat’s Free Memory function was removed at Apple’s request. This decision was completely out of our hands. Please note that all other apps with Free Memory appear to have been removed or updated without their Free Memory function too.

After eliciting feedback and considering their options, Bjango went ahead and removed the feature. (Bjango advises users who want the feature to NOT UPGRADE their copies, and reminds Mac users with Time Machine how to downgrade to the old, “Free Memory”-enabled version if necessary.)

To rub salt on their wounds, negative reviews are now piling up for iStat in iTunes, of course, despite Bjango explaining Apple requested the removal in the app’s “What’s New in This Version” section.

What Apple’s rationale may be (if Phil Schiller deigns anyone with another email) is unknown.

[Thanks Scott for the tip!]

Bing Community Blog has announced that Microsoft is “sprinkling some Cocoa” on their Bing. (No laughing!):

The Bing iPhone and Mac SDK is available for download on CodePlex, open source under the Microsoft Public License (MS-PL).

The SDK provides:

• The ability to easily query Bing from within your Cocoa or Cocoa Touch application.
• Perform both synchronous and asynchronous queries.
• Search Bing for Web, Image, Video, News, and Phonebook results.

We hope that you’ll be able to make some great Cocoa/iPhone apps that harness the power of Bing!

Happy Bing-ing!

Of course, the iPhone’s default search is Google, with Yahoo! as an option, and Bing will soon be powering Yahoo! search, so it’s ipso de post facto (pardon the Latin-ish) it’s already there, but still it will be interesting to see what kind of iPhone apps come of — and leverage — this. We just hope it really makes an awesome “BING!” sound whenever a query hits the index…

[Via Macworld]

They’re going to try and find a different yet equally minimalist icon, and we’re going to start counting down to a letter from either Phil Schiller or the FCC…

Sigh.

[Via Daring Fireball]

I have seen this headline circulating over the last week on Twitter and the blogs and so I decided that  I would have a closer look at it.

“Twitter Study Reveals Interesting results about Usage..40% are Pointless Babble” by Pear Analytics

Well this is my take on this “Headline” and its eye catching  emotive perspective. (by the way it is a good headline.. and it received a lot of attention and achieved great traction in social media mentions)

Guess what ..sounds like a normal share of typical “conversations” we have as human beings everyday.. some are deep and meaningful.. we pass some information along, we have some news to share and we also talk a bit about nothing in particular”

Like!

• “Honey.. I am taking the dog for a walk”
• “Hey..just popping down to the shop to get a paper”
• “Went to gym tonite”
• “Watched a great movie on the weekend”
• Does my bum look big in this?

Isn’t Web 2.0 about 2 way conversations?.. comments.. passing on information, some news and hey maybe a bit of self promotion slips into the conversation from time to time.

So here are the statistics from the Twitter Pear Study, August 2009

• Total News 3.6%
• Total Spam 3.75%
• Total Self Promotion 5.75%
• Total Pointless Babble 40.55%
• Total Conversational 37.55%
• Total Pass along Value 8.7%

Note: Notice the use of “Total”  why not use “News” instead of “Total News” It must have been written by marketing .. or was  it the PR Department?

So if we add together… News, Conversational, Pass Along and a bit of Self Promotion we have 56% of normal interesting and typical conversations on “Twitter” that would seem to closely parallel what we as normal human beings experience everyday.

What do you think?  ”Is Twitter Dysfunctional?” or does it just reflect and mirror what we as humans experience as normal everyday?

Yesterday, the Kennedy family launched a Twitter account: @KennedyNews. It is “the official account of the Kennedy family and staff.” Instead of discussing politics though, the family is using it to keep the public informed about memorial and funeral activities for the late Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who passed away two days ago after a year-long struggle with brain cancer.

The account is already very active, tweeting out not only news about the family, but information about the motorcade, the time and location of sitting vigils, and even who is currently paying his or her respects to the late Senator. Here are a few example tweets:

It’s another extraordinary use of social media to keep an interested public informed. Twitter () has quickly become the broadcast tool of choice, and for good reason. There will surely be a lot more vigils, testimonials, and information to come out as the funeral arrangements are made. Be sure to follow the account if you’re interested in more from the storied family.

Yesterday, we looked at Paris Metro, supposedly the first augmented reality app officially available for the iPhone. Today, Robert Scoble uncovered an Easter egg that looks like it may grant that title to Yelp, which got a version update earlier this week that carried a nice surprise: an AR mode dubbed “Monocle.”

Yelp is one of the App Store’s early successes. It offers crowdsourced locations and reviews of restaurants, bars, and other points of interests for tourists and leisure seekers. As such, it’s the perfect app for AR, which in this case consists of location names and ratings overlaid on a live feed from your iPhone’s (3GS only) camera.

Since it’s an Easter egg and not an advertised feature, activating Monocle mode requires an extra step beyond just downloading and opening the free app. Specifically, you have to shake your 3GS three times in succession with the app open. Mine worked on the first try, but I’m sure just shaking it until it works will open up the option eventually.

In my extremely brief, extremely office-based test, the app appears to work perfectly, so long as my sense of direction isn’t terribly off. As you can see from my screenshot, many culinary delights lie in the general direction of my iMac. I’ll be doing some more involved tests later this evening to see what kind of effect Monocle mode has on my battery life, but I can’t imagine it’s very energy efficient.

It’s unclear whether or not Apple was aware of this feature when it let this update through, so grab it now while you still can. If it gets pulled, let us know so we can be collectively indignant.