And now, we get that. Well, we all get that. If you want to see your own version, all you have to do is…well, give PlayStation access to your Facebook account with Kevin Butler’s “Hall of Play.” Install the app, agree to some terms and conditions, say an oath, and you’re in.

Apparently they’ll be choosing some gamers to honor more officially starting on October 31, going through to Thanksgiving.

To see what your version of the ad would be like, check out the app here. (Don’t be alarmed if your name’s not in there, though. Though there are some fairly simple names that are somehow missing…)

To enter:
All you have to do is comment below on Google +. What you like about it? How many circles you have? It can be anything about the new service.

Each comment gets you one entry into the random drawing on Friday.

Good luck and make sure to add me on Google +!

This week’s Featured Facebook game is a fresh face for the fans of match-3 type games. In Feevo, players swap pieces to match bundles of four or more in a move-controlled rather than time-controlled setting. That means that, instead of making as many moves and scoring as many points as possible in one minute, it’s okay to take time, strategize, and maximize points per move in order to move up the level ladder and continue playing.

I like the fact that this concept changes the approach to the game and slows things down in our lightning fast world. Don’t get me wrong, I am as blitzed out and love the speed challenge as much if not more than the next guy, Feevo just rounds out my mental game quite nicely. The music in Feevo also has quite the calming effect. It reminds me of something one might hear at a spa… or shopping in a store that sells expensive bath products. Wither way, it calms me.

Each move made sets off a bonus ball along the sides of the game board, which, depending on how they fall, also add little boosts of points to keep going. Of course there are bonus power pieces for making bundles of five or more. And there is an even bigger – almost game saving – mega piece for matching power pieces in groups of five or more. If the pieces fall in the right way to match 7 or more, an extra action is awarded. *strategy tip – save mega pieces for a final move. It’s an almost guarantee level boost, which keeps the game going.
Lastly, with Feevo being a social game, having more friends who play also puts players at an advantave both in unlocking boosts and meeting weekly team goals for more in-game prizes. Join my team!

Play Feevo now and start racking in the power!

They say that most students spend about 7.5 hours a week looking at social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook. Though this might be a shocking number, that number does not include the amount of time that is spent looking at the rest of the  internet including: YouTube videos, email and IM. You may think that 7.5 hours, about one work day, is a lot of time to be spent connected to the online world, but if you look at the shift away from other media forms such as the all mighty television, to the internet; you’d think they were writing up their term papers.

One big thing they found was that productivity went up when people were cut off from social media. I know from my personal experience, students that had social media banned within their schools were more productive then the students that had the option to visit the site while working.

As a tip to students heading off to post secondary: try to limit the amount of time you are spending on social media, and put down your smartphone for a little while. You could head to the library or a place with no internet connection to do your work.

What do you readers think? Do you think we are spending too much time being connected?

Unfortunately, I didn’t make the party since I was still driving up from Kansas City.  I was especially sad I missed it when I found out there were some video games at the bar (which was an addition from last year’s opening party).

Last year, I set out on this journey to Omaha, not really knowing what to expect.  But I knew that there were going to be a lot of smart people at the event, and I hoped to take home just one thing that I could use.  I came home full of notes and ideas, and I’ve spent the past year trying to better align myself to learn more about this stuff.  It’s intimidating to change the way we think, the way our parents think about how work/business “should” be, and what it absolutely CAN be, and IS, for some very lucky people right now.  So, when they announced the second annual Big Omaha, I was completely on the watch for the moment registration opened.  I knew I had to be here again.

The big day Friday started with some breakfast, bright and early at 8am, brought to us by PayPal X.  Jeff and Dusty kicked things off with some information about the day, about breaks and lunch and all the little minutiae of what makes Big Omaha as cool as it is.   Seriously, conference and convention organizers (I’m even looking at you PAX) you could take a lesson from how these guys work to get the Kaneko space ready for Big Omaha.  After Jeff and Dusty had said their piece, there was a brief challenge from Roger Fransecky for us, for the day.  He talked briefly about the idea of entrepeneurship, which is the heart of the whole event, but then challenged everyone to try and have new conversations.  Not, with new people, but conversations that are different than the standard ones we fall into in typical social settings.

David Hauser Co-Founder of Grasshopper was next up.  He had some great things to say about the core values and culture of a business, and how to make an impact in the market.  Hauser is working to get 1 million signatures on a petition called “Entrepreneur’s Day”, hoping for Barack Obama to create an official holiday to recognize these innovators.  And, I love the video here (a spoof of Jay-Z and Alicia Keys “New York State of Mind”):

Up after Hauser, was Scott Belsky, CEO of Behance.  He talked about how “most ideas never happen”.  The idea he talked about was that as people get bogged down in the details of what it takes to get an idea built, the tasks become boring and people start getting new ideas, something to build that excitement back up.  By continually trying to work on new ideas, the old ones never get finished because they’re no longer exciting.  He mentioned some ways that different people work to stay organized so that they can work on current ideas while keeping a running ‘backburner’ for ideas that they can work on later.  I’m all about staying organized to get work done (ask our staff if you doubt me) so his ideas really appealed to me, and I’ll be checking out more about the things Behance is doing to help creative individuals stay organized so they can improve their productivity.

Here, I want to tell you about the emcee for the event, Rachel Hruska.  She’s also an entrepeneur and got time to talk about her work with, Guest of  Guest, a blog about the nightlife.  Here’s where she improves over last year’s emcee: she knows a lot of the speakers, so instead of just reading their introduction, she tells us about a personal experience or story about the next speaker.  However her presentation was lacking, and though it’s obvious that she’s excited about the work she’s doing, it was hard to find a point in what she was talking about, which might just mean that she’s a less experienced speaker than the others.

She introduced Scott Harrison with Charity : Water next, which I think was a presentation that had everyone near tears.  It’s amazing work that they’re doing, and especially interesting that he spoke after Rachel, since he quit the nightlife scene in New York to do the charity work that eventually brought him to the work he does now with Charity : Water.  Here at GA, we’re completely impressed with what Charity : Water is able to accomplish and how much there is left to accomplish.  Scott broke it down in time increments: that despite the amazing amount of money they’ve raised, what they’ve been able to accomplish to-date is only two weeks of what is a possible 32 year problem.  That’s mind- and heart-breaking.

Lunch happened.  It was in the same place as last year, but set-up a little differently, and I’m not sure it was an improvement.  I did learn that one of the gentlemen greeting guests as they walked into the building for lunch is the Mayor of Omaha, but there wasn’t any indication as such, and he didn’t really introduce himself.  Lesson for next year guys: give your mayor a nametag/badge/big sign, something so that we out-of-towners know who that guy is.  Also, another note for next year: can the Blogger Lounge please be open over lunch?  I know they have to eat too, but when there’s so few comfy places to sit if you need to type for a while, it would’ve been nice to have.

After all that, the afternoon started with a small Q&A with Matt Mullengweg of Auttomatic, led by Robert Scoble.  Matt talked a lot about the future of WordPress and it’s security issues, how he doesn’t descriminate against potential employees by their location, how location services might be coming back to WP and about how “slow cooking makes for good eating” (influenced by his upcoming trip to a BBQ event – think about that when you wonder about WP 3.0).

Gary Vaynerchuk, last year’s keynote speaker was up next and gave a short (well, as short as he could be, he’s still Gary after all) explanation of his background and upbringing and how he got started with WineLibrary and WineLibraryTV.  At one point, when talking about how people can find their passion, he joking asked “where is the board game chick” with follow-up that people would be interested in that.  Well @garyvee, we’re here!   Gary mostly held a long Q&A session in which he talked a lot about the things that he’s ‘obsessed’ with right now, notably, the idea that 1 on 1 conversations are scaleable to large markets.  I think I said it last year too, but listening to Gary talk is pretty motivational, and on it’s own is worth the trip.

Poor, Danae Ringelmann, I’m positive that I might be a comfortable public speaker, but I would NEVER want to follow a Gary Vaynerchuk, session.  Even if it was mostly Q&A.  Thankfully, he’s loud enough and passionate enough, that he had everyone thoroughly awake by the time she went on.  Danae is the founder of IndieGoGo, a “Do it With Others” idea collaborative funding site that helps users raise money for their projects by offering a pre-sale of a product, or something in return for monetary support.

Although a comment for future female public speakers at this or other event, get out from behind the podium.  Many of the male speakers are more engaging, more charismatic because they get out on stage and walk around, make big gestures to draw in the audience.  I noticed it last year, and again this year; I feel like the female speakers while they might have something really interesting to talk about like Danae’s IndieGoGo, but they lose the majority male audience because they’re far more quiet, withdrawn public speakers than their male counterparts.

Jason Fried of 37signals, the company behind BaseCamp was the last speaker of the day.  Mostly, he addressed the topic that is on the mind of most entrepenuers, Money.  ”Charging for a product is a great motivator.”  The idea that once you start asking people to pay for a product, you feel a bigger obligation towards making it as good as you can.  He also talked a little about the idea of usefulness versus innovation, and how innovate/creative products are good, but if they’re aren’t ultimately useful, then there may not be a point to their development.

All the speakers were invited to participate in an extended Q&A session, led again by Robert Scoble to round out the day.  I really like this idea, and I’m glad they put it at the end of the day this year.  It gives people a chance to bring those questions that have been nagging them throughout the day.  It’s always frustrating when you think of a good question for a speaker, right after they’re done – so it’s a good way to wind things down.

Day two continues today, and I’ll bring you more on that later.

• Tony Hsieh, “Delivering Happiness” book & Zappos
• Dennis Crowley, foursquare
• Scott Harrison, charity: water
• Gary Vaynerchuk, Wine LibraryTV & “Crush It!” book
• Scott Belsky, Behance & “Making Ideas Happen” book
• Matt Mullenweg, Automattic
• Jason Fried, 37signals
• Danae Ringelmann, IndieGoGo
• David Hauser, Grasshopper
• Alexa Andrzejewski, Foodspotting
• Matt Galligan, SimpleGeo
• Melody McCloskey, StyleSeat
• Justin Shaffer, Hot Potato
• Roger Fransecky, The Apogee Group

You can find biographies for each speaker at http://www.BigOmaha.com.

The second annual event will conclude on Saturday, May 15 with the “Big Omaha Big Friday Party” by Archrival at Nomad Lounge, which is also open to the public with no cover charge. For a complete schedule of Big Omaha, visit http://www.SiliconPrairieNews.com.

I’ll be there both days, so if you’re in Omaha for the weekend, keep an eye out for me.

The Big Omaha charity: water Campaign
Big Omaha organizers challenged attendees and community members to raise $5,000 for Scott Harrison’s non-profit organization charity: water before the kickoff of Big Omaha. The community raised more than $5,000 by April 20 and organizers are looking to raise another $5,000 during Big Omaha.

Since its founding in 2006, charity: water’s efforts has provided clean drinking water to more than one million people. To learn more, visit mycharitywater.org/bigomaha2010.

Of course the question is, how doesit all work?  Well, there are two types of events; online and offline. The offline events are events that are taking place in different places all over the world. Each event is run by volunteers. In order to find out which event is happening near you, you can check the Twestival twitter feed or if you wish to register an event or school, head over to the website.  If there isn’t an event near you and you wish to get involved, then you can make a donation via Paypal, or you can make a donation through Twestival FM and be able to download some music from artists in return for your help.

For more information, or to donate head over to the website.
http://twestival.com/

Gravity Bear’s flagship 3D social media combat game, Battle Punks, is now available for play in open beta on Facebook.

With Battle Punks, Gravity Bear is setting a new bar graphically in the social gaming world, visually immersing players in the Competitive world of Battle Punks. Environments, characters, towns, weapons, tools, and loot all spring to life in the stunning animation and customization of the game.

Test your skills and challenge your friends in this all new, ground breaking twisty realm that is Battle Punks. I have taken a little looksee and it is quite visually interesting. Let me know how you think it plays! Check it out!

For more information, check out the interview with the president of Gravity Bear, Aletheia O’Neil.

A brand new study of more than 2,000 women show that they enjoy engaging with the brands while playing social games like Farmville and Causes. Women in the survey also show that they are passionate and competitive about (Lil) Green Patches and Happy Aquariums stocking up on virtual currency in the game.

“As brands seek relevant and natural ways to shake hands with women via social media, the gaming and application marketplace holds tremendous potential to integrate in a consumer-friendly, meaningful way,” said Matt Wise, President, Q Interactive. “Women seek a partner to support their entertainment, which is exceptionally important given their busy lives.”

Some of the stats show that 85% of the women surveyed use five or less games regularly. Most show a large indication to being loyal to a handful of favorites.

More than half are earning/spending virtual currency. A very interesting stat shows that 57% feel that virtual gifting is just as meaningful as real life gifting.

Most of the women (97%) prefer to earn virtual currency through winning more or accepting a branded offer versus paying for it with real money.

“Applications and games are quickly becoming part of everyone’s daily lives,” said Ian Johnson, Director, Social Media World Forum. “This provides a terrific opportunity for brands to serve as a trusted, valued partner to them. By having a presence in the game and app space, brands get the benefit of reaching an influential consumer set. With the support of brands, advance in games and apps and we’re finding also get information from brands they value.”

This is a pretty cool storytelling method, are there any other social media stories you’re following?

I also really enjoy Shadow Unit, another group story being told in seasons and released online for free – with an interactive community and lots of easter eggs and various social media tools being utilized to expand character bios and story plots.