Stop me if you've heard this one before: the question of social media comes up at your company or organization. Someone says the company should be on Facebook. But is it really the right fit for your organization? A new infographic from Zintro answers the burning question of which social network you should use for business.  

Facebook or Twitter? LinkedIn or Google+? Find out which network suits your needs below.

 

• Facbeook boasts 845 million users globally
• Largest segment of Facebook users are male, 21-24 years old
• On March 12, 2011, there were 572,000 new Twitter accounts created
• 140 million tweets were sent per day on average in 2011
• There are more than 150 million LinkedIn users
• Google+ has over 100 million registered users (many are not active)

 

Welcome back from the holiday weekend.  Here's what we've got for you in this week's edition of the Social Mashup: Google+ launches brand pages, LinkedIn group statistics, 'Where Is The Cool' rivals Pinterest but for men, and QR code haircut sponsorships.  

Google+ Launches Brand Pages

  If you didn't hear that Google+ has launched pages for brands last week you might live under a rock. This is the biggest news to hit Google+ in a while and brought it back into the limelight. When Google+ first launched, brands began building profiles which Google+ was not very fond of and put the company into motion to churn out business pages sooner.   Google+ pages appear much similar to profiles, with the main difference a small square icon that designates it as a Page rather than a Profile. Users can begin adding brands like the Dallas Cowboys, Angry Birds, Pepsi, and CNN to their circles, browse their photos and read up on their posted information. The brand's follower count is increased when fans add them to their circles.     For you social media marketers out there don't expect to run a promotion on your new Google+ Page. Google+'s policies detail that Page admins are not allowed to "run contests, sweepstakes, offers, coupons or other such promotions."   Are you excited to finally see brand pages on the map? Is your company on Google+?  

LinkedIn Releases Dashboards for Group Statistics

LinkedIn has been unveiling new features left and right lately that are making the site more visual and navigable while helping to build your network. The latest revealing is the Group Statistics dashboard which gives group admins a look at the size, growth and demographics of their groups.   The dashboard churns out relevant info into any easy to consume infographic-like display. While just a summary is shown on the dashboard, the statistics can be broken down into the following three areas "Demographics", "Growth" and "Activity." Anita Lillie, LinkedIn Data Visualization Designer noted,  

We’ve designed each infographic view to highlight the most important signals you’ll need to help you understand your group better.

 

  Under "Growth" admins can see the number of new members to the group within the last week as well as a graph of week-over-week growth. The "Activity" section shows how many members have changed jobs or received a promotion and how many discussions have taken place. The "Demographics" tab displays the number of members, comments in the past week, location of members as well as their job function and seniority level.   Are you one of the 1 million group admins that will see this new feature? What benefits do you see in it?

Pinterest for Men?

  Pinterest, as you might have heard, is the ever popular female driven website where users can "pin" their favorite content to share with others. Jack Archer has created a slimmed down website geared towards men, Where Is The Cool (WITC). The site features photos of anything that might peak a guy's interest including penthouse apartments, rugged actors, stylish fashion, musical artists, vacation spots and of course women.   Unlike Pinterest, WITC is the lazy man's version. There's no pinning here, just pages upon pages of photos to flip through. Each photo can be enlarged with just one click, then shared through social media or viewed on the original site it was pulled from.   The website is based on simplicity and good design. Archer originally pushed to bring GQ to the iPad, but it didn't work out. Now Archer stands behind the scenes of WITC, scouring the internet for the site's content and going through user submissions. WITC currently has over a million page views a month and more than 27,000 subscribers on Tumblr.  

QR Code Haircut?

  Yes, you heard that correctly. There's a new form of sponsorship in town. Bromley FC players shaved QR codes into their heads as part of quite a unique sponsorship with Betfair, an online gaming and betting site.   The QR codes are believed to be the first time they have been cut into someone's hair. Fans who scan the QR code will be taken to Betfair's mobile site where fans can bet on the game. Daniel Johnson, a celebrity stylist, was hired to cut the very intricate designs into the players' heads. Johnson said that he's gotten some strange requests from soccer players before, "but this was in a different league. The QR cuts certainly put my skills to the test." Each QR code took about an hour of labor.     The manager of the English soccer club said,

This is a great tie up for the club, a little unconventional, but great nonetheless. The lads were shocked when I asked them to take part but they know what this could mean for the club and they're looking forward to showing them off in our biggest game of the season on Saturday.

What are your thoughts on this? New trend or just some crazy marketing stunt?

Happy Monday! Did you take advantage of your extra hour of sleep yesterday?  We certainly hope so!  Well, here's what we're covering in this week's Social Mashup: Glamour Magazine's use of Social SnapTags to generate more "likes" for advertisers, Google's "GoMo" mobile initiative, Twitter's testing "Top News" and "Top People" in search results, and LinkedIn's continued growth.  

Google Mobile Initiative: “GoMo”

  Businesses are looking to get on mobile, but often find it harder and trickier than expected. Google saw a hole there and has launched its “GoMo” (short for go mobile) initiative to help these businesses create a better mobile presence.   When a customer visits a mobile site and finds it is not working properly, they may be turned off and the business will lose a prospective purchase. According to Jesse Haines, group marketing manager for Google’s mobile ads,   “This happens hundreds, even thousands of times every day because most businesses’ websites don’t work well on smartphones.”   Businesses are pointed to HowToGoMo, which lets them view how their site looks on mobile and resources that will help in building out a better mobile site. They can then choose from a list of vendors where they can pick from plans based on the amount they are willing to spend and the timeframe for building the site.   http://youtu.be/Ja7abx3OPOQ   So why might Google be pushing businesses to other vendors to build mobile friendly websites? Easy. Google wants to continue growing its mobile ad business which has a $2.5 billion run rate this year, a dramatic increase over $1 billion last year.  

Twitter Testing “Top News” and “Top People” in Search Results

  It looks like Twitter is testing yet another new feature. Some users may see “Top News” and “Top People” results at the top of their realtime search results. When search for a story, a box will appear highlighted with a link to the top news story and thumbnail. If you search for a famous person, the “Top People” result will pop up at the top of the search results with a link to their Twitter stream and their profile picture.   Unfortunately, the feature is only in its testing phase so only a small group of people can see it. If Twitter highlights “Top News” and “Top People” in search results, they will undoubtedly help users find the most pertinent and popular information floating around Twitter.  

  The feature is definitely a benefit for content producers. If they can get their story to the top of the search results list they are going to see more traffic to their websites or blogs.   Top search results could bring in a new revenue source for Twitter. Do you think Twitter could eventually charge for the top spots just as Google does for its top search results?  

LinkedIn Growth

  LinkedIn is continuing to grow at a rapid rate with over 131 million members and more than a million groups. The professional social network’s CEO, Jeff Weiner, announced on an earnings call that 15 more million people have joined the network during Q3 2011. That’s a growth of 63% compared to the same time last year.   Want to know what’s really remarkable? How about LinkedIn’s mobile use has grown 400% year-over-year. Mobile visits account for 13% of all visits to the network.   LinkedIn’s Share button is now on 180,000 domains, an increase of 80,000 from the second quarter. More developers are using LinkedIn APIs to bump up the usage by 30% from Q2.   The company’s revenues increased by 126% to $139.5 million. The Hiring Solutions product has seen the significant traction and growth. The product has 7,400 customers, increasing 159%. Marketing Solutions has also seen increase in usage with a 113% growth rate year-over-year. Premium Subscribers is growing “faster than overall membership,” doubling in size since last year. Pretty impressive.  

Glamour Magazine’s Experiment with 2-D Barcodes

  Glamour Magazine experimented with Social SnapTags in its September issue. The 2-D barcodes incorporated Facebook and helped generate nearly 51,000 new “likes” for the magazine’s advertisers. Glamour saw an opportunity to use SnapTags to engage consumers and wondered whether or not readers would respond and act more upon the viewing the Facebook logo.  

Advertisers were bugging the magazine about wanting more ‘likes’ so “this seemed like a logical solution,” said Jenny Bowman, executive creative services director at Glamour. “We loved what SpyderLynk had to offer with a Facebook logo in the circle that was different from other 2-D barcodes.”   Over 100,000 readers activated the codes, coming out to 4.2% of the issue’s paid circulation and .8% of the magazine’s total readers. A total of 512,339 readers interacted with the Social SnapTags by either scanning the codes with an app, snapping a photo and sending it in, liking an advertiser or article, signing up for a deal or sweepstakes, or sharing one of the offers with friends. Bowman said,  

It was strong out of the gate and proved that readers wanted that print-mobile experience. And the numbers stayed strong over the month, not just in the first two weeks. The momentum continued. I think that had a lot to do with the sharing capabilities of the app.

  What’s impressive is that 67% of the readers that activated one of the Social SnapTags “liked” either the magazine or one of the advertisers to access deals. Of those 67%, 18% shared deals with their friends. But it was the sample offers and sweepstakes that produced the highest conversion rates. These offers represented 85% of all “likes” followed closely by exclusive content at 84%, coupons and promotional codes

  Bowman says that Glamour is looking to continue the use of Social SnapTags for its March issue, including expanding into e-commerce with the codes.

Back to the work week! Without further ado, here's what the Social Mashup has in store for you this week: LinkedIn introduces 'Classmates' tool, the LA Kings debut gamification, IBM and USC join forces to analyze MLB fan sentiment, and social media on mobile devices soars.

LinkedIn Introduces Classmates Feature

LinkedIn has debuted a new feature called Classmates that allows you to connect to alumni of your colleges and universities. Once you choose a university, you can see where your classmates work, what they do and where they live. Through the feature you are able to see your connections and send them messages directly through the feature.

The new tool makes it easier to connect to old alumni. Your profile will automatically filter in the universities you currently list and populate with classmates that attended school during the same years you were there. With all of the data information collected by LinkedIn, this is just one new way they are offering you a new means to search your connections and create a deeper network around you.

L.A. Kings Introduce Gamification to Engage Fans

While gamification has become widely popular in other industries, the L.A. Kings may be the first to use it in the sports industry. The Kings are have partnered with Bunchball, a gamification company, to create “The United Kings Family.” Fans will have the chance to earn points through various social media and online activities such as watching videos, posting on the King’s website and sharing news through their social networks.   As fans accumulate points, they will earn online badges and trophies and those with the highest scores will be seen on a digital leaderboard. Earning points will also unlock certain elements and rewards like signed merchandise, personalized messages, behind-the-scenes videos, private tours and more.   Gamification allows the team to reward fans and personalize the brand. The importance of this may be seen when a team may not be playing their best. The gamification element then keeps fans intrigued and engaged by allowing them to interact and receive exclusive content and prizes.

USC Students and IBM Analyze MLB Fan Sentiment

IBM and USC’s Annenberg Innovation Lab have teamed up to measure fan sentiment during the MLB World Series. Millions of tweets will be analyzed to assess social media engagement through the USC Annenberg Social Sentiment Index compiled by students with the help of IBM’s Social Analytics technology.   The students will determine “social media MVPs” with the goal to find insights through Twitter users to better understand the sentiment of both players and teams, and show how analytics can help recognize vital trends. During the National League Championship Series, the students analyzed over 1.5 million baseball-related tweets finding the overall sentiment rankings among NLCS players with any positive and negative nuances.   The studies showed that Chris Carpenter of the Cardinals had the highest number of tweets and received a 61.5% positive and 21.6% negative sentiment. David Freese, the NLCS MVP, had 768 tweets of which 89.3% was positive and 15.4% was negative, making him the winner of the most positive tweets.   The collaboration is key to strengthening students’ skills and showing that the technologies can provide valuable insights to public opinion. Director of the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab, Professor Jonathan Taplin, said,  

We've known for some time how important statistics are in baseball, and today they're an even bigger part of understanding not only player performance but also the views of loyal fans. The fans understand that the highest paid player is not necessarily the MVP. The Social Sentiment Index enables our students a unique opportunity to gain valuable knowledge in the use of advanced analytics technologies and apply it to real world settings to understand how this new information can benefit a variety of industries.

 

Social Media Usage Through Mobile Explodes

As most of us know, social networking and smartphone usage is growing and the two combined is increasing at an even faster rate. According to new data from comScore, 72 million Americans used their mobile devices to access their social networks or blogs during August. This is a 37% boost over the same time last year. The research suggests that almost one-third of all U.S. mobile phone users access their social networks from their device and that 40 million Americans do this nearly every day. Mark Donovan, comScore SVP for mobile, said that smartphone users are more active on their social networks via mobile, with three out of five accessing their networks each month.   Facebook has seen a 50% growth in mobile usage year-over-year to 57 million. Twitter however, has received the most substantial growth with a 75% increase in monthly mobile users to 13.4 million. LinkedIn is also growing at a steady pace with 5.5 million monthly mobile users, 69% more than last year.   The greatest change seen has been in users accessing their social networks via mobile apps, jumping 126% since the same time a year ago. Over 38 million people used a social networking or blog app in August.   While the growth of apps is increasing, the adoption rate is taking a bit longer. The most common form of accessing a social network or blog remains the browser.

A few week's ago in our Monday Social Mashup, we told you how new user adoption of Facebook is beginning to slow in a few mature markets including domestically in the United States. Well, in case you were wondering about the overall global growth of Facebook, it is reportedly showing no signs of slowing down. According to a source close to the company, Facebook has now reached more than 750 million active users per month. (more...)

What an exciting weekend for sports! First Rafael Nadal defeated his arch rival Roger Federer to join the elite company of Bjorn Bjorg as only the second person in the history of professional tennis to win the French Open at Roland Garos six times. Then, in a series that keeps everybody guessing, the Miami Heat notched another victory for the road team by edging Dallas in the final seconds of Game 3. Completely changing pace and looking at the week ahead, country music fans have the glamorous 2011 CMT Music Awards to get excited about.   In this week's mashup we review Sony Ericsson's "hide and tweet" scavenger hunt for the UEFA Champions League final, the new LinkedIn job application button, Twitter's new photo sharing service and search, and Twitter's sleek new follow button.   UEFA Champions League Campaign In cased you missed last week's UEFA Champion's League final, LaLiga's FC Barcelona assured it's status as one of the greatest sides of all time by dismantling a talented Manchester United side 3-1 at Wemble Stadium.  Lionel Messi was absolutely masterful as usual and gave Barca the game winning tally. Off the pitch, Sony Ericsson (an official sponsor of the Champions League) used Foursquare to make a creative pitch to consumers.  

Sony Ericsson, a global leader in mobile communications hardware, utilized a "hide and tweet" scavenger hunt to activate their sponsorship of the highly anticipated European final. The brand created 11 limited edition shirts and hid them throughout London where the final was being played, revealing the location of each shirt.  The first person to check in on Foursquare at the shirt's location was the winner.

  What really made this social media scavenger hunt appealing to the fans was the prizing. Each winner received tickets to the Champions League final, tickets to the group stage next year, official UEFA apparel, and Sony Ericsson headsets.  All participants who checked into the  Sony Ericsson Football Hotspot venue at Wembley Stadium the day before the match unlocked the Xperia Footy Final badge. These fans were also entered in a random drawing for a chance to win tickets to the UEFA Super Cup in Monaco this August.

This was a well organized promotion by Sony Ericsson highlighted by the quality of the prizes.  Tickets to the final were impossible to come by which guaranteed an enormous interest in the campaign. Sony Ericsson also added hint of creative symbolism by hiding 11 jerseys to represent to the total number of starters on a club's side.   Although partnering with Foursquare to create a custom event badge is nothing new for Sony (they've done so for the WTA and previous soccer events), it almost always guarantees an authentic touch point with the fan helping to create a tangible connection between brand and customer, and of course, it never fails to excite the Foursquare enthusiasts.  We give Sony Ericsson kudos for a well run, if simple, campaign. Activ8Social has run a number of similar social media scavenger hunts to this promotion over the last 12 months including Rajon Rondo's #Looseball (featured on ESPN Boston), Reggie Bush's #RedZones (featured on Mashable), and Tim Lincecum's StrikeIn (featured on AllFacebook) which have set industry benchmarks. Be sure to check out these case studies! Click here for our full work portfolio.   New LinkedIn Button LinkedIn has added a button which will make it that much easier for potential employees to apply for jobs.  The button will be called “Apply With LinkedIn”, and it allows job candidates to submit their LinkedIn profiles as resumes essentially.  This is the first time that LinkedIn will allow third party sites to integrate their services.  Potential employers can simply post the buttons on their sites and then review the LinkedIn profiles of anybody who clicks the button.  At that point, participating companies can contact the potential employee for more information and with further questions. It can also do a whole lot more.  Aside from making it easier for candidates to apply for jobs, the button uses applicant data to automatically sort candidates for the employer based on specific criteria. Integrating with the LinkedIn platform also enables HR specialists to include template questions for employee screening, add customized questions, or request a cover letter or official resume.  Potential applicants can submit their package via email address, URL, or JavaScript callback.   Of course, the LinkedIn button doesn't just make life easier for potential employers, it makes it that much easier for potential employees too.  One click to apply for a job is a far cry from an application which takes hours upon hours worth of prescious time to fill out when you don't even know if you would be seriously considered.  Now if a company contacts you to fill that info out, at least you know they are aware of your background and consider you to be a reasonable candidate before you take that time. LinkedIn is the dominant figure in online professional networking and there is absolutely no sign of that changing.  What do you think of this button?  Does it make applying for jobs too informal or is it a brilliant time streamliner for the job application process?   Twitter Launches Photo-Sharing Service, Revamps Search Get excited Tweeps. Twitter has launched its own photo sharing service last week to its employees and will be rolled out to the public in the upcoming weeks.  The new feature will allow users to upload a photo and attach it directly to the user's tweet from Twitter.com as well as Twitter's official mobile app.  In addition to making photo sharing easier, Twitter is also making your searches more relevant with a new version of Twitter search that will now include related photos and videos for both search results and trending topics. Take a look at this video to see the new features in action:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmB15ER3LUQ&feature=player_embedded   Who's going to be most affected by Twitter's photo service?  No doubt it'll be third-party developers.  Needless to say they weren't to happy when they heard the news.  Twitpic, a third-party application that currently holds the majority  of Twitter's photo sharing market with 45.7%, claimed it was unaware that Twitter was working on its own photo-sharing service.  Noah Everett, founder of Twitpic, even went so far as saying in an interview with Mashable that, "Communication between developers and Twitter has never been very clear and the relationships between Twitter and its developers has changed a lot since the Chirp conference last year."   We were not surprised by Twitter's new photo-sharing feature, in fact we can't believe it took this long for them to develop this service.  It's just another way, coming off Twitter's TweetDeck buyout, that the social platform is taking action to own more of the Twitter ecosystem that was cultivated by third-party developers.   Twitter Creates Follow Button

In other Twitter news, the social networking site has made it easier to follow someone instantly with a new Follow Button embedded directly on a website.  Rather than a link opening a new window to the user's Twitter stream, with the new button you are able to cut out the extra step to follow the account.  By clicking the username next to the button you are redirected to the user's profile showing their latest tweets.

The follow button is a powerful tool for brands and website owners, creating an easy way to stay connected to their audience.  The new feature rolled out to an impressive list including AOL.com, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, Glamour, Fox Sports, The Huffington Post, Sports Illustrated, Lady Gaga and The Washington Post.   If you're interested in adding a Follow Button to your website, it's just this easy: enter your username, choose a light or dark background and whether you want to show your amount of followers then copy and paste the ready-made code into the HTML of your website where you want the button to appear.

Ready for the Mashup? This week we cover Twitter and the Super Bowl, Facebook's spin on group buying, the first of what could be many social media IPOs, and a cool social media game that should settle more than a handful of friendly bar bets. Don't worry, we promise we won't take shots at our own teammates via Twitter. Twitter Super Bowl Microsite Visa is using Twitter in clever fashion to sponsor a microsite that will aggregate all tweets about the Super Bowl together.  The site was launched last Wednesday and fans can go to see everything that fans have to say about the Steelers, Packers and of course the Black Eyed Peas.  Users can view the volume of tweets on any given NFL-related topic and sift through tweets from the players, NFL officials, the media and their fellow fans.  Twitter and Visa both recognized how valuable this sort of thing could be given that 40% of all Tweets were Super Bowl related last year when big plays occurred such as Tracy Porter's "pick six". Visa is almost certainly taking a hint from what American Express did during New York City's Fashion Week by creating a similar microsite aggregating tweets.  Twitter also ran its own microsite for the World Cup, which helped it become the most tweeted about sporting event in history.  This year's Super Bowl is not expected to challenge that record but this could still be a big win for Visa given the sheer volume of tweets surrounding the Big Game, which will easily surpass that of Fashion Week. Twitter is still experimenting with advertising ideas, but between these types of microsites and Promoted Tweets, they are expected to post ad revenues as high as $150 million so they must be doing something right.  The success for Visa will ultimately depend on how many fans it gets on the site.   In addition to Promoted Trends and links from the league and Visa Twitter handles, the promotion can now be found through banner links and other ads on NFL.com and should receive heavy referrals through the the #sb45 hashtag attached to tweets generated from the microsite.  The site is sleek, appealing to the eye and feature-rich.  This appears to be the work of JESS3, who has emerged as the leader in social data visualization microsites like these. Facebook's Group Buying Plan It's not often your predictions come true so quickly but just last week when we introduced Google Offers we said "Facebook can’t possibly be far behind".  We weren't exactly going out on a limb though given that Facebook has tried its hand at just about every single new fad in the social media world.  And while Facebook's group buying idea is not the same as the others right now, Groupon is going to have its hands full if Google and Facebook both have successful social buying programs. Facebook's Group Buying idea is different than the Groupon types though as for now it only works for virtual purchases.  It's called "Buy with Friends" and it gives the user discounts on virtual goods that their friends have purchased.  Basically a user can make a purchase in an app using Facebook’s currency, Facebook Credits, and then when they share it in their news feed, a friend can see the purchase and make the same one at a discount directly from the feed.  Developers determine the promotion they want to set for each day.  Forbes reported that Facebook’s head of commerce product marketing, Deb Liu, said that during beta testing over half of users chose to share their purchases with friends. The most interesting part of Buy with Friends is certainly not what it is now but what it could be.  Imagine buying a pair of shoes, putting it in your news feed, and then all of your friends could enjoy some percentage off on those shoes or the brand of shoes.  The possibilities are endless here and this could be another breakthrough for the social media giant.  It could also be a jumping off point for Facebook Credits, as the potential is there for them to become the next PayPal. LinkedIn to Have It's IPO The wait is over on when LinkedIn is going to file, now the question becomes how the dominoes will fall for other social media giants to file.  This week LinkedIn filed their S-1 form to the SEC which is the first step toward the IPO.  LinkedIn will be looking to raise up to $175 million although they have yet to announce how many shares will be available or what the price will be.  They also have not announced whether they will be on the NYSE or the Nasdaq.  Most high profile tech companies go to Nasdaq so if they were to go to the NYSE it would be a surprise and a serious coup for them.  The IPO will be managed by Morgan Stanley, BofA Merrill Lynch, and J.P. Morgan Securities.  The official announcement on what they plan to do with the money they raise is as follows: “We intend to use the net proceeds from this offering for working capital and general corporate purposes, including further expansion of our product development and field sales organizations, and for capital expenditures. In addition, we may use a portion of the proceeds from this offering for acquisitions of complementary businesses, technologies or other assets.” On their key stats sheet, LinkedIn made 1.85 million in profits over the first nine months of 2010, they employ 990 people and they have 90 million registered users with 65 unique views per month.  LinkedIn considers its primary competition to be sites like Google and Facebook.  LinkedIn will be the first among the big names in the current wave of Web startups to go public. Facebook is likely to follow next year and after that we could easily see many other sites follow suit. Thump Turns Spectators into Players Another site has sprung up that adds to the in-game viewing experience of fans.  Thump is letting fans compete with each other while being a spectator.  The site is now awarding points to the bar conversations of who knows what will happen next.  The way it works is friends or strangers compete with each other most accurately predict the next play.  So if you predict a run up the middle, and your friend predicts a deep pass, you would get points if a running play was called. The idea was derived by Thump CEO while watching the 2000 Rose Bowl and playing the same game as the site entails with his friends.  Obviously ten years ago there was no such thing as social media so this sort of idea was forward thinking, but nine years later Chip Overstreet put his idea to life.  The NFL and NCAA football versions launched last September and proved to be a success so a baseball version will launch this March.  The site is clearly still in its infancy and the first season of football was not without its problems given the nature of syncing to real time events but Overstreet is not even remotely worried. “Most sports fans tend to be guys, and guys have big egos, and we sit around and talk about sports and brag about how much we know about our teams, and we’re constantly telling each other what we know is going to happen next.  And that’s basically what we’ve done. We’ve wrapped the game around that existing behavior, giving sports fans the ability to record what is going to happen and see for certain just how effective they are at making those predictions.” The game is currently available for all Apple products, Blackberry, Android, Microsoft's Slate Table and through Facebook.  They don't want to restrict anybody from being able to play, which is a smart move.  Along with getting the fans to come, Thump hopes the advertising will come eventually as well.  Brands will have the opportunity to sponsor specific plays and trivia questions much like sponsoring trivia questions on the jumbotron at stadiums.  Overstreet expects the ad money to come due to the intriguing nature of synchronizing what is happening on TV and on the phone.  The site right now is sponsored by Microsoft's BizSpark which helps give life to small business ideas.