Others of note: 51 million viewers per month globally, and 49 million hours of video viewed per month.

The guys over at GamingChronicles.com are currently embroiled in a 72-hour video game marathon, and their game of choice for this excursion? Sonic the Hedgehog. The proceeds from the Sonic marathon will go to the Child’s Play charity, which, according to their description, is:

…a game industry charity dedicated to improving the lives of children with toys and games in our network of over 70 hospitals worldwide.

The Gaming Chronicles marathon began at 12:01am, Friday morning (1/6) and runs until Sunday (1/8), and for your viewing pleasure, the gang has set up a UStream channel so you can watch them endure their arduos battles with Dr Robotnik.

It should be noted the content of the stream is just a couple of guys sitting around with video controllers in their hands. In the lower portion of the video player, there’s in-screen footage of the Sonic game in progress. The page also features a ChipIn! widget so you can donate right then and there. Those who make donations can make requests of the guys playing, which they will perform live on camera. An explanation from the site:

Your donations will affect the marathon in the following ways:

• Punish us for failure via a “Fail Pie”. And we’ve activated the FAIL PIE! When a donation is made in honor of the FAIL PIE (currently a $4 donation will suffice) the pie comes out. If the current player loses a life during the level the pie is issued he will receive said pie to the face. If that player finishes his level the pie is passed to a player of their choice.
• Keep a frustrated gamer playing through a tough level
• Voting for the next game played
• Earning yourself a shout out or hilarious request (performance, singalong, etc)

Unfortunately, it seems as if the donations are slow going. The current ChipIn! total is $157, thanks to the eight people who contributed. Considering the worthiness of the cause they are supporting, surely we can do better than that. To donate to their worthy cause, check out their GC Marathon page.

If anything can be a commodity, why not craziness? Also, what better way to market your shenanigans than posting it on Twitter?

WebProNews has already reported about Sheen being the fastest Twitter user in history to gain 1 million followers.

To go along with this feat, “Sheen’s-Korner” (NSFW: language), a UStream channel has already garnered over 600,000 views. Episode 2, titled “Torpedoes of Truth” received 327k views on its own. He really opened up during this episode, showing a phone call with who appears to be his agent.

If the UStream views aren’t enough to convince one of the success Sheen is having with social media, he’s already searching for an intern. Of course, in order to be Charlie Sheen’s intern, you must be filled with #tigerblood and full of #winning.

It has been reported (during my typing of this article) that Sheen has been fired from Two and a Half Men. Which could truly prove the power of social media. With Sheen being fired from his moneymaking job, will Twitter and UStream be powerful enough to carry him to his next gig? Or has his life become the gig now?

Guardian reports that Apple has refused to allow its iPhone to be included in the UK’s green ranking system, which gives phones a rating of zero to five based on their environmental footprint.

As you may have heard, Google unveiled a new feature in Gmail today that allows users to make and receive phone calls. In addition to this, Google will be setting up phone booths on college campuses and in airports. Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land shares a video looking at the inside of the phone booth and talking to the product marketing manager about it:

According to PaidContent, Alibaba has acquired eBay auction management provider Auctiva. It recently acquired a similar service in Vendio.

Nick Bilton at the New York Times has an interesting profile of a startup called Stipple, which aims to tag the web’s images. It lets publishers add tags to parts of an image with info about its contents and related links. Launch partners include Six Apart, Jive Records and E.W. Scripps.

Ian Sheer at the Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece about online coupons and how they’re getting smarter. "Among the new approaches: computer programs to better target consumers with personalized deals and staff on the ground to help merchants," he writes.

ReadWriteWeb points to a video of Apple SVP of software engineering, Bertrand Serlet, who talks about using Apple’s private APIs.

According to Guardian, Facebook is now being valued at over $33 billion as investors try to secure a stake in it. Facebook shares are changing hands for up to $76 each, the publication reports. Still, it doesn’t look like there will be an IPO anytime soon.

Ad firm Specificmedia is being sued amid accusations that it is re-creating deleted cookies, according to Wired’s Epicenter.

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at the WSJ reports that Amazon has lost a big e-book deal with literary agent Andrew Wylie. This comes as the company also announced that its new Kindles are selling faster than any previous models.

Engadget reports that Apple’s Lala music team may be working on a video streaming product for a launch sometime this year, based on findings from CNET.

Gizmodo discusses an Apple iOS exploit that gives complete access to iPhones, iPods, and iPads – any device running version 3.1.2 of the operating system or higher.

Speaking of exploits, BBC News reports on one that lets attackers use router id numbers, a geo-location feature in Firefox, and a Google Street View database to find out where web users are physically.

Google has a post on its European Public Policy blog talking about "worrying restrictions on Internet access in Russia." This has to do with the previously reported banning of Youtube from ISP Rosnet by a Russian district court. Google points out the irony that comes along the Russian President’s own YouTube channel:

According to NewTeeVee, Ustream has handed over user IP addresses to UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), which has taken issue with unauthorized live streams appearing through the service.

Microsoft was in New York talking up speech technology today. The company’s general manager of it Speech Group, Zig Serafin, demonstrated speech tech in the upcoming Kia UVO multimedia and infotainment system, in Windows Phone 7, and in Kinect for the XBox 360.

In an email to WebProNews, a MySpace representative stated that the webcast attracted over 2 million uniques and a total of almost 3 million viewers.  Those large numbers are about equal to the populations of Houston and Chicago, respectively.

The MySpace rep then made clear that this "[m]arks the highest number of total viewers for any Ustream red carpet webcast," and that the New Moon premiere qualifies as "the farthest-reaching event Ustream has streamed to date."

It’s hard to imagine that MySpace won’t pursue further Twilight tie-ins as a result.  More movies are on the way, after all, and plenty of fans would probably visit the site in order to see exclusive interviews, fresh trailers, or just stale footage of the stars playing checkers.

Promotions involving other movies may proliferate, too, given that this could become a fairly cheap and steady way for the social network to bring in eyeballs.

Related Articles:

> MySpace To Host Exclusive Stream Of "New Moon" Red Carpet

> MySpace To Miss $100 Million From Google Search Deal

> Paramount Follows Up "Paranormal" Marketing With More Social Fun

Chad Ochocinco has released an iPhone app entitled the "Ochocinco Experience" (iTunes link). The app provides Chad’s season stats, his Twitter stream, photos and exclusive videos. The app will set you back $4.99, which is a bit steep if you ask me, and I’m a huge Cincinnati Bengals fan.

Below is the app description from Chad’s own personal site…

"Now available through your iPhone and iPod Touch* This iPhone app gives you an exclusive behind-the-scenes look into the life of the most interesting football player, Chad Ochocinco, aka Esteban Ochocinco, aka Chad Johnson. More features and updates coming 10/30/09."

Do you think people will purchase this app? Let us know what you think

As you can see by the above tweet, Chad states that he is the first athlete with an iPhone app… but we’re not sure if this is entirely accurate. Sure, he might be one the first athletes with an iPhone app devoted solely to him, but his teammate Jordan Palmer, younger brother of Carson Palmer, has a hand in a fairly popular iPhone app. Jordan helped develop RunPee, which is an app that informs cinema goers the most opportune time to venture off to the restroom.

Chad is known for making checklists, but normally he’s checking off NFL cornerbacks… now it seems as though he’s checking off social media sites.

Do you plan on purchasing this app for your iPhone? Tell us

Just today Ocho tweeted the following:

Essentially, he’s giving NFL fans the chance to see the events leading up to a game. If you’re interested in watching, the live USTREAM feed is below:

However you feel towards Chad Johnson Ocho Cinco, you can’t deny that this is a pretty neat idea. For me, being a huge Bengals fan, it’s quite neat seeing the players interact with each other out of a football setting. These days with ESPN being overtaken by Michael Vick and Brett Favre news, it’s pretty great when I can hear news just about my team… from the team themselves.

With the Bengals being featured on HBO Hard Knocks, Ocho’s USTREAM show steadily attracting viewers and popular Bengals World podcast gaining popularity over on Blog Talk Radio, it seems the Bengals are taking taking social media by storm.

It should be noted that the video is fairly choppy, as he is broadcasting with the Sprint MiFi (mobile hot spot) so it’s unclear how good of a signal he is truly getting.

Will you watch Ocho Cinco’s journey to New England? Let us know.

"The first self-service Facebook Connect widget, the Comments Box, was released earlier this year, and is now used by hundreds of blogs, news, reviews and photo sites," a Facebook representative tells WebProNews. "They benefit from one click commenting and the ability to offer users a way to share their comments on the site and back on Facebook as a Feed story — both on that user’s Wall and in the user’s friends’ streams. Where the Live Stream Box is great for real-time events and live streaming, the Comments Box is for asynchronous commenting over time that can be archived and searched as a log for activity around a specific piece of content."

The Live Stream Box is intended for use with events like:

- concerts
- speeches
- sporting events
- webcasts
- TV Shows
- presentations
- webinars

The box can also be used with multi-player games, or anything else that has a bunch of people visiting your site at the same time. Facebook says the box is "built for scale," and can handle millions of viewers updating in real time.

For those interested in putting the Live Stream Box on their Facebook Page, a post at Facebook’s Developer Blog highlights an offering from Ustream, which recently featured a series of Jonas Brothers webcasts.

To use the Live Stream Box on your site, users just log-in via Facebook Connect and share their updates, which appear in the box as well as on their profiles and in their friends’ streams.

One part that webmasters and marketers will particularly like is the fact that updates will automatically include links back to the box on your site. This creates an opportunity to bring more people to your site.

Remember those old Disney cartoons? The ones where fathers-to-be paced outside the delivery room with a handful of cigars? Yeah, well, those days are not just gone, they’re nearly, if not for the fossilized celluloid evidence, virtually erased.

Today, because of Wi-Fi, Web 2.0, and portable devices, not only is Dad in the delivery room, he’s bringing everybody in there with him.

Though a lot of hospitals will tell you to turn off your cell phone for fear of interfering with sensitive equipment – that may have the same justifications airlines use – it seems Wi-Fi is not a problem. 

Elle Marie Saarinen isn’t the first to be Twittered into the world. Fathers have been Twittering since early Spring, Blackberry in one hand, digital camera in the other, while the wife…glares at them from her bed.

What? She was going to be glaring anyway, right?

She is a pretty thing, Baby Elle, as evidenced on Flickr, and her father, Paul, chronicled her nativity on Twitter, right up to her final in utero moments. He also lifecasted the event in digital video on Ustream.

(Caution: I have not viewed all the videos, nor are they clearly labeled, but as far as I know there is nothing graphic, nothing to send you to the vasectomy table, at least, but I could be terribly, terribly wrong about that. It was a cesarean, by the way.)

Paul’s wife, Annamarie, apparently allowed him to keep his thumbs after detailing the common emissions of pregnancy in the weeks before (God, Jenny would kill me for that). Twitter posts are known for their brevity as there is a character-per-post limit, but the fast clip of the final minutes adds a nice urgency to Paul’s written cadence:

_{It’s a girl 7lbs., 21". 11:06 PM August 02, 2007 from web going in for c section be back in a bit. 10:09 PM August 02, 2007 from web}

They’re starting the Petocin drip again. She’s at a full 6cm now. 09:43 PM August 02, 2007 from web

I even getting a little tired. Need more soda and coffee. 09:31 PM August 02, 2007 from web

Baby had some decelerations in the heart rate, but has recovered. 09:17 PM August 02, 2007 from web

Doctor came in to check out the contractions and dilation. 09:14 PM August 02, 2007 from web

They just put a new monitor in "you know where" to better measure the contractions. Dilated to 4cm 08:37 PM August 02, 2007 from web

That was probably meant for more intimate friends, but we’re chronicling history here, and he did sort of post it on the Internet for everybody to see.

Wouldn’t it have been interesting if humans had these capabilities for other births throughout history?

_{BethlehemJoe:}

Shepherds just got here. They stink worse than the donkeys. 9:45 PM December 25, 0000 from web

It’s a boy. A little small for the Son of God, I think, but the halo gives him a way. 8:30 PM December 25, 0000 from web

Holy smokes! 8:25 PM December 25, 0000 from web

_TomKatRulz:

Man, I wish Katie would quit whining. 3:49 April 18, 2006 from txt

I already apologized, didn’t I?