Of course, I’m just being greedy. With that in mind, the extra 30 seconds of the “extended look” makes all the difference in the world. First, here’s the Super Bowl preview:

Considering what 2012 as in store in the way of summer movies — The Avengers, Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Returns — which one is going to win the summer box office? As it stands, my money is still on the third Batman movie, although, The Avengers is going to pose a stern challenge.

Because of the emo/Twilight reboot approach the new Spider-Man movie is going for — all so Sony doesn’t lose the rights to the movie property — I don’t see it contended with the other two, but then again, considering the success of the Twilight series, people seem to like “woe is me” teenagers, especially when they are super-powered.

And it doesn’t hurt that the NFL has made #superbowl a promoted hashtag. Between the actual game, all of the pre-game theatrics, and then the commercials – Twitter is set to be dominated by the Super Bowl all week.

Social media agency Banyan Branch has already been monitoring the Twitter trends surrounding the Super Bowl and have discovered a couple of interesting things. First, and most unsurprising, the Quarterbacks seems to be getting the most chatter. Out of those Quarterbacks, Tom Brady is being discussed the most on the site.

The most interesting trend that they found was that people are actually talking about the Giants more as a team, but talking about people on the Patriots as individuals more. “Giants” beat the “Patriots,” but “Belichick” and “Brady” beat “Coughlin” and “Manning.”

Check out their infographic below:

[Image courtesy Flickr]

Check it out for yourself:

You see, the Three Stooges remake was comprised of an entirely different cast, one that could’ve made this film into something incredibly interesting, even for the non-Stooge fans out there. Since this isn’t a movie blog, per se, you can read more about the evolution of the movie at Wikipedia, but let’s just say the cast we could’ve had and the cast we’ve been given present two entirely different possibilities.

Instead, we get folks from the Jersey Shore showing up.

This indicates the direction the Farrley brothers settled on was the misguided path, especially if the Twitter reaction is anything to go by. Since the trailer hit the tubes this afternoon, the reaction to it has been a strong trend on Twitter. It’s so bad, in fact, I’m left pondering whether or not if the early reaction is so negative, would the creative teams behind the project simply abandon it, even as they are ramping up for the release?

In the case of the Stooges remake, one can only hope:

Agreed.

But then there are those who didn’t think it was that bad, bringing truth to the “different strokes for different folks” saying, although, there is something to be said about enjoying quality as well:

That’s understandable, I guess.

Were your eyes closed while you were watching?

I don’t know the guy, but the fact that he’s on the fence about the remake, especially after the trailer, makes me question the level of his Three Stooges “obsession.”

Here’s an idea: instead of test audiences for future movies, this is how all quality control for consumable entertainment should be done. Release a portion of it to the public and gauge the social media reaction. If the reaction is as bad it is for The Three Stooges, perhaps an alternative route would be better. In the case of The Three Stooges, the better route was the one that included this:

That’s far more preferable of a path than the one the Farrleys are currently on.

Of course, the next-gen Apple smartphone doesn’t have to be officially announced for people to speculate about its arrival. The most up to date rumors put the iPhone 5 release somewhere in early-to-mid October, with a possible pre-sale kicking off in late September.

Rumors regarding the specs are a little harder to group together, with one report contradicting the next. Some say that the device will be thinner and possibly wider, while others say that it will not deviate much from the iPhone 4 design.

Whatever the case, people want it.

According to the survey, 13% say that they are very likely to purchase the iPhone 5, whenever it arrives. 18% say they are somewhat likely. That means that 31% said that that are very/somewhat likely to grab the device when it launches. That’s 6% more than the demand for the iPhone 4 prior to its launch in 2010.

These numbers jump up when talking to existing iPhone users. 66% of them say that they will upgrade to the iPhone 5 when it comes out.

Another interesting stats from the survey is that 54% of current Sprint subscribers and 53% of current T-Mobile subscribers say they are very/somewhat likely to but the iPhone 5 if and when it arrives on their network. The latest reports indicate that it will probably launch on Sprint and possibly launch on T-Mobile.

While I’m not necessarily a fan of origin stories, especially when Sam Raimi nailed it so well in the 2002 version, the new trailer looks better than I gave the idea credit for, but then again, that’s the nature of making a good preview:

As indicated, the new trailer has thrust the “Spiderman” keyword to Twitter trend status, although, quite a few are wondering why Eduardo Saverin is in it:

Meanwhile, some people feel the need to correct those who spell “Spider-Man” wrong:

Not everyone is a fan of the idea of a remake, either:

There was positive reaction as well, but then again, American’s aren’t known as being the pickiest people when it comes to entertainment, either:

Apparently, the implication of that last tweet was that Raimi’s versions of Spider-Man was not character focus. Apparently, that Twitter user had their eyes closed during Spider-Man 2. Nevertheless, the hype is clearly building for what may be another record-breaking Spider-Man movie. Couple that with the incredibly successful Dark Knight franchise, a record-breaker in and of itself, and it looks like next summer may see two movies battling it out to see which one can break the most box office records.

Lead image courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.

Google is supposed to contribute $8.5 million to the fund, and according to an official release, most of the money "will go to organizations focused on Internet privacy education and policy, and will make additional efforts to educate users about the privacy aspects of Buzz."

That should be the end of the dispute.  After all, Google has changed quite a lot about Buzz since its initial launch, and the company seems to have won over its critics.

Gary E. Mason, a counsel for the plaintiffs, stated, "We feel this settlement has many benefits to class members, including providing a significant amount of money to non-profit groups committed to educating users about Internet privacy and ensuring that Buzz users can join this on-line community without compromising their privacy."

Plus, although this isn’t a point Google’s liable to celebrate, it doesn’t seem like anyone even uses Buzz anymore.

Google should at least be glad to put the PR fiasco behind it, and you can bet the company will be more careful in the future.

Original Article: YouTube announced that it will be streaming the red carpet footage of the Twilight: Eclipse premiere this evening. It’s that big a deal.

"The scene from Hollywood may look nothing like Forks, but all of your favorite vampires and werewolves will be there giving live interviews and greeting fans," says YouTube’s Thomas Henry. "Many of these Twilight faithful have been waiting for up to three days in order to catch a glimpse of their favorite pale-faced friends."

The coverage starts at 5:30 p.m. PT tonight. Watch it here.

If you can’t tune in live (and you still actually want to see it), you will still be able to watch the footage on the Twilight YouTube channel.

Learn about some online marketing strategies they’ve been using for this film here.

Recent feature additions include a reshare button (basically the Buzz version of the retweet), the release of an XHTML version of Buzz (which can be accessed from many mobile devices like those running Android pre-2.0, BlackBerry, Nokia S60, and Windows Mobile), greater email integration, and the official Buzz Buttons (which can go a long way for the strategic branding of Buzz across content sites all over the web).

Do you think Google is improving Buzz? Tell us what you think.

The API should lead to a much richer ecosystem around Buzz, with third-party apps finding new ways for users to get involved with the service – much like third-party apps have done for Twitter.

Famous tech blogger Robert Scoble appears to think Buzz may be ready for a comeback (it did release to much hype, but that has since fizzled out for the most part). He wrote an interesting post highlighting 9 reasons why such a comeback could be possible. Among these are superior mobile features (compared to other social networks), the addition of features in general (he says its getting "close to matching FriendFeed", a service Facebook found significant enough to acquire itself), a good search tool, and possible SEO opportunities to name a few.

He also lists some "significant negatives", which include a lack of noise control, lists, clients, and brands. Read his entire analysis here.

Google’s own Matt Cutts weighed in as well, saying, "Do you remember when you first started on Twitter, and you didn’t know quite what to do with it? Who do I follow? What do I say? I didn’t really "get" Twitter for months. But as I found interesting people to follow and got the hang of it, I began to see the appeal of Twitter and started using it more often. I’ve noticed Buzz is tracing that same trajectory for me: an initial burst, followed by a bit of a slump, and then a steady climb as I found people that make Buzz interesting."

Again the API could go a long way in this regard for a lot of people. Scoble’s point about brands is a very strong one though. I would include celebrities in that category. Remember stars like Oprah and Ashton Kutcher did for Twitter? You just don’t hear that with Buzz.

Gmail might be considered both an advantage and a disadvantage for Buzz. Being a feature of Gmail, it automatically gets in front of Gmail users (though certainly not all actually use it). At the same time, Buzz being a feature of Gmail may be keeping others away from it. Scoble notes that it’s not available as a service that’s separate from Gmail and that it’s "a real bummer."

Buzz just may find its niche in the social web though, if it hasn’t already. It was never presented as a replacement for Twitter or Facebook (at least by Google). In fact, the company has tried hard to distance Buzz from such services, and has repeatedly referred to Buzz as simply a node, and a node that promotes an open web at that.

Some are probably still turned off by the initial privacy fiasco that Buzz launched with, but as Facebook continues to show, privacy concerns don’t necessarily impede growth.

Do you think Buzz has a bright future? Share your thoughts.

Will new features fuel Buzz growth? Comment here.

Reshare only works for public posts. Private posts will not have the reshare link. However, you can reshare posts yourself publicly or privately. If a lot of people you follow reshare the same post, the similar posts will be collapsed.

"You’ll notice that resharing creates a new post, effectively forking the conversation. To fork or not fork was a decision we debated for a while," says Buzz software engineer Sam Goto. "Ultimately, we think forked conversations help create more varied, intimate discussions around a single item. We realize people may want a non-forking version too, so we’re thinking about how to do that as well."

"When there is a chain of reshares, the names of all of the people who publicly reshare the post appear on the original item, even if they’re not directly connected to the original author," Goto explains. "If you share something that ends up getting passed around by lots of other people, it’s pretty cool to see that."

It’s also worth noting that you can "like" a reshare, and that will not translate to a "like" for the original post. This means you can like a comment without liking what the comment is about.

Google also  announced that it’s releasing an XHTML version of the Buzz website which can be accessed from many mobile devices like those running Android pre-2.0, Blackberry, Nokia S60, and Windows Mobile. This could go a long way for getting Buzz used by mobile users across a broader range of devices.

Google Buzz launched earlier this year to a great deal of hype – and why not – a potential Facebook/Twitter competitor from the giant that is Google – but much of the "buzz" about Buzz has faded in the months since. In fact, most of the discussion in the media about Buzz has been centered around privacy issues (though that has become considerably less rampant…Facebook has filled that role nicely).

As we’ve been saying since long before Buzz was announced, the key to a Google social network offering is in the integration with its other products. This made launching Buzz within Gmail seem like a smart move, but there is still much work to be done if Buzz is to become a real player in the space.

Adding features, such as the reshare feature is a start, but what may have a more significant impact was an announcement that came last week.

During Google I/O, I attended a session in which Google quietly announced the launch of the Buzz API. The news was generally overshadowed by other Google announcements, such as the unveilings of Google TV and FroYo, but with developers getting access to the Buzz API, there is room for much to be done around the service in terms of third-party apps, which should ultimately make Buzz much more useful. That’s what happened with Twitter. Developers like TweetDeck, Boxee, Buzzzy, Klout, Meebo, Seesmic, Vinehub, Shareaholic, and other have already taken advantage of the Buzz API.

It’s hard to say if the general public will find a real need for Buzz alongside Facebook, Twitter and other services, but as Google grows its presence in mobile via Android, and soon into television via Google TV, there will be more potential gateways for Buzz adoption, as well as integration.

Is Buzz headed in the right direction? Do you think Buzz use will explode? Share your thoughts.

The session was aimed at "taking a deep dive into building with the Buzz APIs and the open standards it uses, which include ActivityStrea.ms, PubSubHubbub, OAuth, Salmon, and Webfinger."

Chris Chabot, developer advocate at Google announced the launch and a number of partners that have helped the company get it started. Among these: Seesmic, Tweetdeck, and Ping.fm.

The Buzz APIs were introduced under the labs label, as Chabot says, "a few things still need to be developed. We’re still talking to the community."

The APIs utilize Acivitystrea.ms, which defines who performed the action, what they did, and when. There can be other bits of info like mood, context, or location. Everything is geo-enabled.

With Buzz, you can choose whether you want your posts to be completely public or if you want particular people to be able to read them. There are precautions taken within the code that prevent private posts from being used in the APIs. "We don’t want to accidentlly expose private data," says Chabot.

Documentation for the Buzz APIs can be found here.