The NBA (National Basketball Association) has signed a deal with Joost to operate a channel on the Joost network which will showcase some of the "instant classic" games — these are games from the last few years that are supposedly spectacular. Some of the example games on the new channel include: Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game and Cleveland Cavaliers’ LeBron James’ sensational performance in Game 5 of the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals.

Why did they decide to show instant classics instead of real classics? Because today’s youngster wants to watch LeBron jam vs Bill Walton hit from the outside. It’s all about marketing kids, marketing.

This channel will be available worldwide so other countries can view these spectacular games and the stars associated with the NBA. Oh and then they will buy more jerseys and hats and stuff.  It’s all about marketing kids, marketing.

Check out our previous Joost coverage including their partnership with Meebo for inline chat.

Source:CenterNetworks

AT&T (NYSE: T) has made a couple of big announcements today: Free nationwide directory assistance if you listen to some ads and the results of a survey of small businesses.

Let’s start with the free directory assistance. It works pretty well from my three tests this morning. The ads were short and meaningless; one was for a law firm and the other two were for some other company I can’t even recall their name. The ads appear to be geographically targeted but there is NO call-to-action. I’ve already forgot the names of the companies and its been only a few hours. I am sure that AT&T will get a good sell-in on these ads as "new" or "revolutionary" but without a call-to-action, I can only imagine that there will be low rates of continued advertisers. Also, the ad appears immediately when you connect to the service. Why not wait until they figure out what I am calling for first? It would certainly be a stronger ad if they targeted it to what I am asking about, right?

The second piece of news out of AT&T are the results of a survey of small businesses. While they note the cities that the survey ran in, they don’t note that these are all traditional businesses — not online.

"Consumers are still going to the book as their primary choice for local business information, but they’re also searching online before they buy," said Frank Jules, president and CEO of AT&T Advertising & Publishing, which publishes the AT&T Real Yellow Pages. Yea, right. When my mother moved online for local business information earlier this year, that should tell you that the Yellow Pages are dead.

Some additional stats from the survey related to online spend:

• Thirty-eight percent expect to spend more on Internet banner ads.
• Forty-three percent said they spent more on keyword-search traffic this year compared with last year, and 34 percent expect to keep increasing that spending next year.

It’s important for AT&T to run these type of surveys so that they can sell-in the yellow page subscriptions to businesses. What they should be asking is people on the street how they are searching…. perhaps I should head over to Times Square and run some informal video surveys?

Episodic video content hosting company Blip.tv CEO Dina Kaplan is this week’s guest on nextNYers. Dina speaks with Meghan about her company, the shows they pimp, their revenue model and the rev share options with video content creators. They are working on creating a new form of advertising she says and also working on getting their shows onto the TV set as well as online.

Check out all of the previous nextNYers episodes along with our review of online video in NYC.

Here is her video:

Source:CenterNetworks -

AT&T has announced this morning that they have boosted the 3G coverage in, and around, NYC. With the addition of 200 third-generation (3G) cell sites, AT&T has expanded its mobile broadband network in Bay Ridge, Coney Island, Bensonhurst, Flatbush, Flushing, College Point, Bayside, Throggs Neck, Tremont, Fordham, City Island and Baychester. In New Jersey, the 3G network is also now available in Edgewater, Weehawken, Hoboken, Jersey City and Bayonne.

Of course iPhone owners need not worry! You get nothing. Deal with Edge - it’s the best AT&T could do.  

"We are staying ahead of the growing demand for fast, dependable wireless broadband access to feature-rich Internet content, such as streaming video," said Tom DeVito, vice president and general manager for AT&T’s wireless unit in New York and New Jersey. He went on to say, "Imagine the thrill of using your wireless phone to show grandparents in Florida their granddaughter taking her first steps in Bayridge or Bayonne." Yep, that’s it, that’s the plan.

Side note - anyone else had enough of the absolutely pathetic AT&T wireless commercials running now? Must be made by the same team who created the gem, "xyz killed the algo".

Mashable first reported that Google would acquire Jaiku today. It has since been confirmed on the Jaiku blog. Of course with the continued GOOG stock increases, did they even feel the hit?

Sean wonders why they didn’t acquire twitter. I know why. Because Twitter shows an out-of-service bird more than it should.

From the acquisition faq:

Q: Why did Google acquire Jaiku?

A: Activity streams and mobile presence are important areas where we believe Google can add a lot of value for users. Jaiku’s technology and talented team are a great addition to Google’s current application and mobile teams.

While the chatter yesterday was around Twitter’s text advertising, clearly Jaiku is made for Adwords integration. Congrats to the Helsinki, Finland Jaiku team!

Source:CenterNetworks -

Since the Cingular re-brand, AT&T has been doing everything possible to appeal to the younger, hipster set. While I think most of their efforts haven’t reached their desired effect (see grandma saying IDK, My BFF Rose), they are now leveraging the current Superman strength of the Facebook brand.

I noticed the following advertisement outside the AT&T store in Union Square and saw two more large billboards in Times Square as well. Reminds me of the Palm advertising campaign in Chicago and NYC w/flickr/Google/eBay earlier this year.