instagram:

The 85th Academy Awards on Instagram

Watching from home? Share photos from your Oscar party with the #oscars and #academyawards hashtags

The Academy Awards (@theacademy) kicks off tonight at 7 PM ET/4PM PT, but starting now you can get a behind-the-scenes peek at all of the event activities on Instagram, from the red carpet to backstage. Follow these Instagrammers for a first-hand experience of the awards as they unfold:

• ParaNorman, nominated film — @paranorman
• Jennifer Hudson, Academy Award Winner — @jhuddiva1
• Giuliana Rancic, red carpet host — @enewsgirl
• Wolfgang Puck, Governors Ball chef — @chefwolfgangpuck
• Brad Goreski, stylist — @mrbradgoreski
• Anna Kendrick, Academy Award Nominee and ParaNorman voice actress — @annakendrick47

You can also browse photos from where the show is held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood by visiting this location page.

Instagram makes push into Social TV around tonight’s Oscar’s.

Tumblr is Not What You Think

"In some ways, Tumblr is actually Facebook 2.0! As Facebook has become a real-life social network infested with parents, co-workers, ex-friends, and people you barely know, Tumblr has become the place where young people express themselves and their ACTUAL INTERESTS with their ACTUAL FRIENDS."

Some great insight in this post.

Digital Notes: The Scorecard on Social Media's Grammy Predictions

Who did better in predicting the Grammy’s — social media, or traditional experts. It turns out that the score was about even.

Twitter Platform 2013 - Overview

BII Report: Why The "Second Screen" Industry is Set to Explode

Here’s why the second screen industry will ultimately succeed:

• Usage is growing rapidly:85% of smartphone users reported second screen-linked behavior at least once a month, over 60% reported doing it on a weekly basis, and 39% did so daily. Over 80% of 18- to 24-year-olds told Pew they used their phone while watching TV, and 60% of Americans with annual incomes above $50,000 use their phones while watching TV.
• And mass acceptance isn’t even necessary: All that matters is that a significant minority of viewers develop this habit (especially if they are highly engaged viewers). In the U.S. alone, TV ad spending was $18.4 billion in the third quarter of last year, a $74 billion annual run rate. If mobile can carve out even a small share of that pile of dollars via second screen channels, it would boost the mobile industry tremendously.
• Second screen isn’t really a new activity: It’s a natural update to the old ways of engaging with TV, like the old office water cooler conversations about last night’s football game or popular TV drama. Moreover, second screen-type behaviors were already popular on desktops and laptops, before mobile came along and made it a lot easier to participate. 
• Second screen apps and sites are bridges: They bring together the powerful but increasingly fragmented world of television media, and the fast-growing but still undeveloped digital realm. For TV-centric advertisers and content producers, second screen provides a channel through which to test out digital strategies while still remaining tied to familiar territory.

Twitter Buys Bluefin Labs!

Twitter has acquired Bluefin Labs, a social TV analytics company that was founded in 2008, sources say.

Although we don’t know the exact acquisition price, we were told this is Twitter’s biggest acquisition to date. 

(Presumably these sources were excluding Twitter’s early stock aquisition of Summize, which would now be worth ~$800 million.)

HUGE news.

Real-Time Marketing Grew Up When The Lights Went Out

For all the planning and millions of dollars that go into the creation of Super Bowl commercials, arguably the best ad of the game last night was a tweet…

"Power out?" Oreo posted to Twitter. "No problem. You can still dunk in the dark." The tweet was retweeted 10,000 times within one hour.

The Oreo graphic was “designed, captioned and approved within minutes,” according to Sarah Hofstetter, president of the cookie brand’s digital agency of record, Dentsu-owned 360i. All the decisions were made in real time quickly because marketers and agency members were sitting together at a “mission control” center, or a social-media war room of sorts, at the agency’s headquarters in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Manhattan. Among those who were there were two brand team members from Oreo, and nearly a dozen creatives, strategists, community managers and social-media listeners.”

Brilliant.

Dijit Buys Miso as Further Consolidation in Social TV Continues

Through the deal, Dijit will get a bunch of technology and patents that Miso has built over the last three years as one of the first second-screen or social TV apps. But while the companies have definitively struck an agreement for Miso to be acquired, there’s still a lot that’s up in the air. For instance, it’s not clear how many of Miso’s nine employees will be joining Dijit. Or how Dijit plans to incorporate Miso’s technology and community into its own applications.

Golden Globe Advertisers Share in the Social TV Spotlight

via Bluefin Labs Blog by Sheila Sales