It may now be obscured by all the hoopla surrounding Facebook’s going public, but back in November the popular user-generated review site, Yelp, filed to go public and planned to raise $100 million ahead of its IPO (at an expected $1 to $2 billion valuation). On Friday, Yelp filed an amended S-1 that shows that the company plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “YELP.”

But, of perhaps greater interest to those following Yelp’s trajectory is the fact that the third amendment to the company’s S-1 includes full-year financials for 2011, showing that, while the company’s net revenues have continued to rise exponentially since 2009, its operating losses have continued to increase right along with them. Yelp’s total revenues in 2011 were $83.2 million, up 74.6 percent from $47.7 million in 2010 (and 25.8 million in 2009), but net losses were up to $16.9 million in 2011 — a 74.2 percent increase from a net loss of $9.5 million in 2010. (Adjusted EBITDA losses were $1.1 million.)

The amended S-1 also shows some adjustments in Yelp’s traffic for 2011, as it saw 65.7 million unique monthly visitors for the year (with 5.7 million uniques on mobile), up from 39.3 million in 2010. Yelp users left 24.8 million reviews in 2011, up from 15.1 million in 2010.

As to Yelp’s increasing net losses, most of that was incurred from sales, marketing, and product development-related expenses, as sales and marketing costs increased 61 percent to $54.5 million in 2011. Product development costs, in turn, rose 77 percent to $11.6 million, up from $6.5 million in 2010. Of course, revenues increased right along with losses, jumping to $83.2 million, with the majority of revenues coming from local advertising, which accounted for approximately 70 percent, or $58.4 million, of that total.

Yelp was founded Jeremy Stoppelman, a former PayPal exec, in 2004, and follows the public debuts of both Groupon and Zynga late last year, along with the announced IPO of Facebook last week. Yelp may be operating in the red, but it’s not alone, joining the likes of Groupon and LivingSocial. It’s not unusual for fast-growing companies like these to operate at a loss early on their growth, spending big money on acquiring talent and competitors, or getting their message out through advertising.

In terms of the latter company, Amazon’s updated filing with the SEC recently revealed that LivingSocial had sustained $558 million in losses in 2011, which mostly came from acquisitions, stock compensations, and marketing costs. While this was an expected part of LivingSocial’s fast-paced growth cycle, the high number certainly caught many by surprise — and in comparison — Yelp’s losses look slightly more manageable.

As for Yelp, Goldman Sachs is leading the IPO, with Citigroup and Jefferies pitching in on management of the deal.

Ahead Of Its IPO On The NYSE, Yelp Shows Growing Losses via http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/skdWMtAJZIU/ TechCrunch

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As you watch Super Bowl 2012 (on NBC tonight at 6:30 p.m. EST), notice how high technology continues to ease its way into your favorite weekend NFL smackdowns.

There’s instant replay, sophisticated communications equipment, spectacular camera rigs and super slow motion technology, and there’s even talk of the NFL adopting high-tech football helmets with a Head Impact Telemetry System (HITS), letting doctors monitor the condition of the human brain as the game is played.

However, too many human beings are being injured in the process of slamming into each other at high speed, so perhaps someday there will be a solution to all of the grisly casualties that occur on the gridiron.

That’s where our editor-in-chief and chief cartoonist Lance Ulanoff steps in with his own unique solution.

How about you? Do you think football is so violent that something drastic must to be done to curtail the injuries?

More About: comics, Super Bowl, Super Bowl 2012, Super Bowl XLVI

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Super Bowl 2012: Tech Marches On [COMIC] via http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/mashable/tech/~3/K96MWBuByWw/ Mashable

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Editor’s note: Nick Cronin is a former corporate attorney and now the President and Founder of ExpertBids.com, which is based in Chicago.

For more than a decade now, the Internet has done a great job of making things in our day-to-day lives more efficient by easily connecting parties who can have a mutually beneficial personal or business relationship. This same idea is now on the verge of disrupting labor and changing the definition of employment as we know it.

The Rise of the Independent Worker.

Over the past couple of years, there has been a huge increase in the number of workers who operate as some sort of independent, free-agent contractor or consultant. Though the numbers vary greatly, the consensus seems to be around 20 percent of the U.S. workforce, and growing (with some estimates up to 50 percent by 2020). Think about that, one in every five workers are currently unattached to any one company!

Expert explanations for this rise vary as much as the number itself, but I believe the two most important factors, by far, are:

1. Technology. Never before has a physical space represented less. An office building, in and of itself, often holds no more tools necessary to perform a job than someone can carry with them. Computers, phones, the cloud, and an overall connectedness has produced an environment where location is becoming less and less relevant. Not having to rely on someone else for the tools of productivity has given substantially more people than ever before the ability to be an independent worker. (No doubt there remain exceptions).
2. The economy. The recent recession has resulted in layoffs and very high unemployment numbers. Further, there is a whole new generation coming of age believing that long-term employment at one company is a remnant of the past. Whether this is because they have read about layoffs, experienced it with their family or friends, or any other reason — many people, regardless of age, no longer feel comfortable or stable at a traditional job. So the economic conditions have forced some into an independent role by necessity, and it has motivated a countless number of others to explore work options outside of the traditional job.

Armed with the technology and connectedness, people are setting out on their own in record numbers. But where are they finding work?

Changes in How Companies ‘Hire’ Labor.

Labor efficiency is about having the right workers for the tasks which need to be accomplished. This includes tasks of all types and in all areas. More than ever, this is being accomplished by having lean, flexible workforces which come and go as projects demand. Increasingly, employers are parsing up tasks and having temporary, project-basis workers complete the tasks.

Take one gigantic U.S. company, Caterpillar Inc., who recently reported that they hired almost 30,000 flexible, contingent workers in the last quarter of 2011. By almost every study, companies of all sizes are emphasizing a lean workforce, and hiring on project-basis engagements more and more (though not all are as drastic as Caterpillar). This trend is not limited to factory workers or computer programmers or any one group — workers in every industry and profession are seeing this increase.

For a company to hire someone, there are many costs beyond a salary and benefits (which in and of themselves are substantial!). There are recruitment efforts, on-boarding costs such as supplies and training, and finally costs when the employee leaves, such as unemployment premiums, severance packages, and HR costs. Now, instead of choosing to go the route of employing someone, companies have the option of hiring some of the millions of independent workers out there for substantially less. Instead of paying all the associated costs, businesses can parse tasks up into projects and find experts to do them very efficiently – only having to pay for the work completed, not the secondary costs discussed above. Additionally, they can more easily expand and contract their workforce as supply and demand dictate.

Not only are the large businesses hiring more independents, this trend is trickling all the way down to the millions of bootstrapped startups who hire (outside of the founders) only independents for projects as they grow their company. The era of the lean, flexible workforce is here and guess where both companies and independents are increasingly locating each other. Yep: The Internet.

Time for Disruption.

There are already plenty of companies out there connecting one party who needs a service with another who can provide it. TaskRabbit and Zaarly specifically are two startups that have grown very quickly. But we are just beginning to scratch the surface of how the Internet is going to disrupt labor. The real change will come as more and more of the traditional job creators, small businesses all the way up to the Fortune 500s, realize the benefits of flexible workforces and more and more individuals take the plunge into independent, free-agent land — whether by necessity or choice.

There are many companies working to facilitate the connection between project-basis workers and companies. Marketplaces like ODesk and Elance provide a worldwide platform of freelancers in a variety of different fields. Some of these marketplaces are aimed more towards commoditized services, but increasingly they encompass services of all types. OnForce allows companies to retain the services of IT professionals for projects. WorkMarket is a labor resource platform. Crowdspring and 99Designs are creative services marketplaces. And finally (though there are countless others that could be included here), my company ExpertBids.com is a professional services marketplace for consultants, lawyers, and accountants. Every day it seems a new vertical labor marketplace launches. There are many obstacles these companies must overcome still, but change is coming.

Some have criticized this shift, saying this type of labor and employment is only increasing inequality and the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. We need to begin looking deeply into this trend and how it is affecting people, but an efficient labor system can have major advantages to both parties.

A marketplace where tasks are accomplished by the right people, at the right time, and at the right price (not lowest price, the right price) may seem to favor the employer. But think about an independent who has very little overhead, can work from anywhere, at anytime, and for anyone and whose income potential is no longer limited by a single salary. Removing wasted time and expenses is something both parties, and the economy as a whole, can gain tremendously from. That is where all of the online labor marketplaces, ExpertBids included, need to assist. We must create efficient platforms that remove the barriers for these two parties to connect in a mutually beneficial relationship.

Labor Efficiency: The Next Great Internet Disruption via http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/VtVqmc1oLOc/ TechCrunch

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The 54th Grammy Awards ceremony is only eight days away and the Recording Academy is kicking off the next phase of its digital and social campaign. Under the heading of “We Are Music” the Academy and its partners are harnessing the power of social, mobile and digital to make the award show more modern than ever.

The Recording Academy made the decision to invest in social and digital media several years ago (you can read Mashable’s past coverage of the 2010 and 2011 campaigns) and the organization and its awards show are now seeing the dividends. Big time. The latest trends in social TV and second screen experiences are in direct alignment with the road Grammy has been traveling for years.

We spoke with Evan Greene, Chief Marketing Officer of the Recording Academy, and he told us the strategy around the 2012 Grammys was to put mobile and digital at the forefront of the project. That means the campaign and the show itself were designed with the digital and mobile attributes in mind from its inception, not tacked on at the end. As someone who has been beating the drum of making social and digital a part of the creation process from beginning to end, this is great to see.

Grammy Live and the Second Screen

As in years past, the cornerstone of the digital Grammy experience is around Grammy Live. Grammy Live is a three-day webcast of special Grammy events, red carpets and parties, designed to bring fans behind the scenes and close to all the action.

Although CBS (Grammy’s broadcasting partner) doesn’t stream the awards themselves online, Grammy Live is available as a second screen experience during the event, giving additional insight and tidbits into what’s happening, views from the crowd and access to backstage areas.

As Peter Anton, executive producer of Grammy Live pointed out in our conversation, Grammy Live was actually the first major second screen experience designed around an award show — and this was before the iPad!

Of course, now that the iPad is here, it makes sense to extend the Grammy Live experience to other devices. In addition to viewing the experience at Grammy.com, users can also interact with the experience in the Grammy Live app for iOS [iTunes link].

This year, Greene told us, the Recording Academy worked hard to make the Grammy Live app a perfect extension of the website itself. CBS was also heavily involved this year, both in helping craft the app and in giving Grammy Live official on-air callouts and integration.

Not only does the Grammy Live app give users access to the photos, videos and articles available at Grammy.com, it also features Grammy trivia, the ability to guess who will win at the 54th Grammy Awards and the ability to listen to a streaming radio station of Grammy nominees. One of my favorite features of the app is that it also includes a database of past winners, as well as nominees for the 2012 awards. During the show on Feb. 12, those listings will be updated in real time.

The app also lets users browse tweets from various Grammy accounts and hashtags, and of course, access the full Grammy Awards experience before and during the show itself. The app is optimized for iPhone and iPad, and is one of the best apps we’ve seen for an awards show.

The Campaign: We Are Music

For the fifth consecutive year, the Recording Academy teamed up with TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles for the awards show campaign. The team created a robust campaign with print, outdoor, digital, mobile and television components centered around the theme of “We Are Music.”

The genesis of the campaign was formed around the emotions and social experiences that music brings out in us all. The agency TBWA\Chiat\Day wanted to capture the way music moves us as humans and wanted a way to help visualize that emotive experience.

TBWA\Chiat\Day always likes to push the technical boundaries in the digital aspects of its campaigns, and this year was no different. The centerpiece is a microsite that lives at Wearemusic.grammy.com. This site was developed using cutting-edge web technologies (in this case, Flash 11 Stage 3D) to create robust real-time 3D visualizations that are modified based on what music is playing in the background.

Users can select their own mix of songs (powered using Rdio‘s library API) and add in their own photographs to create their own unique visualizations. Users can then share these visualizations with others using Facebook or Twitter. The effect is insanely cool and I encourage you all to visit the site and see it for yourself.

Creating a robust and cutting-edge desktop experience was important, but the agency also wanted to have a powerful mobile component. Enter the We Are Music iPhone app [iTunes link]. This app helps bring the visualized experience to mobile devices.

In the mobile app, a user’s own music library is used to power the visualizations. Users can also provide their own photos or take one within the app. The app then creates customized experiences based on the music, and also uses the camera flash on the iPhone 4 and 4S to create special pulsing experiences (you can shut this off if you don’t like it). Up to 15 users on the same WiFi or Bluetooth network can even share their experiences with one another.

It’s a super cool app and again, it’s cutting edge. The technology team relied on some of the newest features in iOS 5 to take advantage of these tools. What I like about this app — as with the Music Mapper from the 53rd Grammy Awards, is that the app and microsite can still be enticing and fun even outside the context of the awards show.

The TV spots TBWA/Chiat/Day crafted around the campaign have already made the rounds on YouTube. The Grammy artists profiled in this campaign include Adele, Foo Fighters and Bon Iver. All the spots have style, but the ad with Skrillex is notable because they outfitted the artist in a motion-capture suit to get the liquid movement effect.

Check it out:

Staying Social

Of course, no modern digital campaign strategy would be complete without a big focus on social media. For the 54th Grammy Awards, the Recording Academy is putting Grammy everywhere and engaging with the community of music fans across social platforms.

In addition to the Grammys Facebook Page @TheGrammys Twitter account, the Grammys are also active on:

• Instagram — Photo contests were held for the first month of the campaign
• Tumblr — The Grammy team held a contest asking users to blog about what artists have influenced them.
• Foursquare — This profile includes historical tips about venues that have hosted the Grammys as well as locations of studios where Grammy Winning albums were recorded.
• GetGlue — GetGlue is offering exclusive stickers not just for checking into the awards, but for checking in to the artists nominated for the Big Four awards.
• YouTube
• Google+

What made me really excited, however, was to see how The Grammys embraced digital music services. Grammy and Pepsi teamed up to create a custom Pandora station that includes Best New Artist videos and Grammy winners and nominees in 12 different genres. Next week, Grammy will also roll out its official Grammy Spotify app that will let users listen to all past Grammy winners in four major categories. The Spotify app will get more categories in the months ahead.

What this strong commitment says to us is that the Grammy Awards aren’t playing around with social, the team gets it.

Mashable will be at the Grammy Awards live on Feb. 12, 2012 and covering the digital action from the ground. Let us know what you think of the digital campaign for the 54th Grammy Awards in the comments.

More About: 54th Grammy Awards, apps, grammy awards, grammys

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2012 Grammys Embrace Digital, Mobile and Social Media via http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/mashable/tech/~3/hbDKbugJ9gg/ Mashable

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Want to watch the big budget Super Bowl commercials, but can’t wait till Sunday or don’t care about football? Facebook and USA Today have just launched Ad Meter, a Facebook app where you can watch many of the TV spots right now. Then from kickoff until Tuesday night you can vote for your favorites. Traditionally an offline poll done live with handheld meters, USA Today has finally brought Ad Meter online so you can judge ads both in real-time and post-game.

Facebook tapped Involver to build the app, and has secured early previews of roughly 20 commercials. The rest of the ads will become available through the app at game time. Last year Facebook let you watch

Several Internet companies have plopped down the big bucks this year in an attempt to court the mainstream. Arrested Development’s Gob plugs Hulu, and Teleflora.com touts the lovin you might get if you use it to send a Valentine’s Day gift. Etrade, Careerbuilder.com,

Investing in Super Bowl ads makes more and more sense for web services as the general public becomes more internet savvy. They should tread cautiously, though, considering past ads from Salesforce, Groupon have been voted most disliked and caused PR crises. Let’s hope no one gives our industry a bad wrap this time around. Oh wait, GoDaddy’s ads filled with body-painted models and angels in the cloud are just as sexist as ever.

Watch 2012 Super Bowl Commercials Now With Facebook + USA Today’s Ad Meter via http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/JF500ocX3Qs/ TechCrunch

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Apple has updated the End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) for its iBooks Author app, clarifying its terms and ownership conditions.

Immediately after its release, the EULA for iBooks Author was torn apart by the tech press and copyright analysts. The original wording stated that authors would only be able to sell books created in iBooks Author in Apple’s iBookstore.

The broadness of the terms made it appear Apple was claiming ownership of the content generated in iBooks Author.

With the 1.0.1 update [Mac App Store link], the language in the EULA is now much more clear on what Apple’s actual policies.

Here is the old agreement:

B. Distribution of your Work. As a condition of this License and provided you are in compliance with its terms, your Work may be distributed as follows: if your Work is provided for free (at no charge), you may distribute the Work by any available means.
(ii) if your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions:
(a) you will be required to enter into a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary) before any commercial distribution of your Work may take place; and (b) Apple may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.

This is the new agreement:

B. Distribution of Works Generated Using the iBooks Author Software. As a condition of this License and provided you are in compliance with its terms, works generated using iBooks Author may be distributed as follows:
(i) if the work is provided for free (at no charge), you may distribute it by any means;
(ii) if the work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service) and includes files in the .ibooks format generated using iBooks Author, the work may only be distributed through Apple, and such distribution will be subject to a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary); provided, however, that this restriction will not apply to the content of the work when distributed in a form that does not include files in the .ibooks format generated using iBooks Author. You retain all your rights in the content of your works, and you may distribute such content by any means when it does not include files in the .ibooks format generated by iBooks Author.

The new agreement makes it clear that Apple is only claiming sales exclusivity for the .ibooks format. If a user wants to tapiBooks Author to create a PDF version of an eBook, that PDF can be sold in any online bookstore, not just iBooks.

Users can only sell .ibooks formatted books within the iBookstore.

Apple further clarifies that “you retain all your rights in the content of your works.”

We’re glad that Apple clarified the terms of conditions on the software. While it’s clear the main goal in creating the software was to foster the creation of ebooks in the .ibooks format, the tool is easy to use and stacks up well against the competition.

Are you glad Apple clarified the iBooks Author EULA? Sound off in the comments below.

More About: apple, ebooks, iBooks, iBooks Author, publishing

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Apple No Longer Claims to Own Your Content on iBooks via http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/mashable/tech/~3/cfsowPWwyZo/ Mashable

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If you’re anything like me (and hopefully for your sake, you’re not), then you tend to do things –scheduling, booking, and so on — at the last minute. For we Last Minute Scramblers, some highly usable services have popped up that not only allow us to book at the last minute, but receive deals while doing so. Here’s to rewarding bad behavior. You may be familiar with HotelTonight, for example, an app for Android and iOS that takes last-minute deals (discounts up to 70 percent) offered by hotels on their unsold rooms — and serves them to you via your smartphone.

Well, another San Francisco-based startup thinks that there’s more to this whole last minute booking thing. Yes, from 500 Startups’ summer batch comes a new app, called WillCall, which wants to be the HotelTonight for … live events. (WillCall was one of Alexia’s seven favorite startups at 500 Startups Demo Day, which you can check out here.)

Debuting today on the App Store and on the Web for Android and Windows Phone 7 users, WillCall’s free apps offer users a short list of high quality shows each and every night of the week. The startup partners with promoters and venues to curate this list, enabling its users to purchase tickets directly from its app.

A la Uber, WillCall is starting with San Francisco before it rolls out it service in other cities, but roll out its service domestically it will, as the team plans to be in Los Angeles and New York City shortly after SXSW (in March). So, to begin with, it really is a short list of events in San Francisco for which WillCall will be offering last-minute tickets, mostly for smaller venues and independent artists.

But WillCall doesn’t just want to be for concerts, says founder Donnie Dinch, as the team plans to offer last-minute deals on musicals, symphonies, standup comedy, ballet, theater and art events, and more. There is a bar, a standard to be set, though, so you won’t find discounts on my clarinet recitals. However, at the start, events will mostly be theater and concert-focused.

As to the discounts, Dinch says that WillCall wants to be as transparent as possible with users, and sell tickets for what they’re worth. When tickets are $20 a show, the barrier to sales isn’t so much price as it is being able to find tickets at the last minute. However, for symphonies, and plays, for example, where the price of admission is much higher, discounts come in handy, and that’s where WillCall will be focusing the majority of its discounts.

The average discount will be 30 to 50 percent off, the founder told us, which is great not only for last-minute concert-goers looking for a deal, but for the venues as well. Inventory surplus can be a big problem for hotels as well as ticketed events; in terms of the latter, the merchandise is perishable, as tickets that go unsold for a concert equals can’t be offloaded a week later. For venues that still have a lump of tickets left for an upcoming event, handing them out via WillCall just makes sense.

As a free app, WillCall plans to monetize by entering into a rev share with venues on the tickets sold, taking what basically amounts to a 50/50 cut of proceeds.

WillCall also wants to capitalize on the social nature of event-going, offering its users the opportunity to receive push notifications when a friend buys a ticket to an event. So, essentially, the app informs you when a friend in the same metro area purchases a ticket to an upcoming event, and offers you the chance to get in on the fun.

As WillCall rolls out across the country, it’s going to be a great last minute option for busy, workin-type folks, procrastinators, and more to snatch up those day-of tickets and get out on the town.

For more, check out WillCall at home here, or watch the video below:

Want To Buy Last-Minute Tickets To Local Events (At A Discount)? WillCall Is For You. via http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/xP_MRvUyGh8/ TechCrunch

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Apple is unintentionally censoring rap music and other explicit tracks downloaded using its iTunes Match service — by replacing them with the clean versions of the same songs.

According to a report in Cult of Mac — confirmed in tests by Mashable — songs uploaded to the service with explicit lyrics are automatically replaced by the clean version of the song.

Launched after much fanfare (and a little delay) last November, iTunes Match is an optional service that costs $25 a year. It matches songs in your iTunes library with high-quality versions on Apple’s servers, and lets you play and download your choice of those songs to your iPhone, iPod or iPad — no cable or Wi-Fi connection required.

But it appears that iTunes Match doesn’t know the difference between explicit and clean versions of the same track. In Mashable’s test, a ripped copy of Jay-Z’s The Black Album (with explicit lyrics) was uploaded to iTunes Match, where it was promptly replaced by the clean version. Cult of Mac found the problem affected songs by Jay-Z, Kanye West and Ice Cube.

The problem does not seem to affect music that was actually bought on iTunes. This suggests that there may be information buried in the tag file attached to AAC songs (Apple’s proprietary format) that can tell you whether or not a song has explicit lyrics — and that this information is not replicated in MP3 tracks.

According to 9to5Mac, a reader contacted Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services, about this issue, and received a response from one of his engineers. The email acknowledged the existence of the problem, and said Apple was working on a fix. (We’ve contacted Apple for official comment.)

We’ve noticed a few other bugs and issues with iTunes Match, such as the fact that you can no longer use the “Genius” feature to create instant playlists of similar-sounding music on your iPhone. Evidently, enough users found the service problematic and confusing that Apple added an online Q&A about the service a month after its launch.

Have you had problems with explicit tracks in iTunes Match? What do you make of the service? Let us know in the comments.

Matching Songs with iTunes

After signing up for iTunes Match, the service will assess your library and upload tracks from your personal library into the iTunes cloud.

If Apple can find a song in its own repository, it just matches the song in place. For songs not available in Apple’s servers, your own files are uploaded directly to the cloud.

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Apple is Censoring Music on iTunes Match via http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/mashable/tech/~3/HXkj3K63qF8/ Mashable

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Well, that’s the end of that dream for me. I was really looking forward to owning one of these lovely little cameras, but Fujifilm has just gone and priced it right out of my range. Amazon has put up its pre-order pages for the camera and its lenses, and the earlier rumors were true: the camera sells for $1700 body-only, and the lenses aren’t cheap, either: $600 for the 18mm and 35mm, and $650 for the 60mm macro.

Damn it!

Well, at the very least, I’ll get to get my hands on one as soon as they send a few out to review. And the fact is that really, the X10 is probably good enough for someone like me. Someone as poor as me, I mean.

The question will really be whether this price represents a good value for the performance. No one doubts the X-Pro1 is a good camera, and that the lenses will be nice. But Fuji has been moving in a “luxury” direction, and like Apple, they may be able to add a bit of “tax” on there because they know they have a high-end brand. No one questions it when Leica does it, though they do question the quality when they put out something like the X1.

The competition at $1700 (with lens, $2300) is serious. That’s pro camera territory, beyond even Sony’s futuristic beast, the NEX-7. But Fuji believes their baby has the chops to compete, so we’ll just have to see.

Fujifilm X-Pro1 Finally Gets Pricing: $1700, Plus $600 Each For Lenses via http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/T1HGf_s4QuE/ TechCrunch

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Nearly half of Super Bowl XLVI viewers will check their mobile device as many as 10 times during the game, and almost a third of viewers under age 45 will watch the game “with device in hand.”

More than 80% of viewers say they’ll use their mobile device during the game at least as much as they did during last year’s Super Bowl.

That’s all according to a recent survey by research firm Harris Interactive. The study was commissioned by the mobile marketing company Velti, and shows that fans are increasingly reaching beyond just their in-person friends and the game broadcast itself for Super Bowl updates and interaction.

The survey also reinforces the potential that mobile brings for innovative advertisers — and the possible drawbacks of shelling out $3.5 million for a 30-second commercial break slot. Just 13% of poll respondents who plan to use their mobile device said they will do so during actual game action. That means they’ll likely be pecking away for stats, Facebook, or Twitter updates during the valuable commercial broadcast time.

Velti executive Krishna Subramanian said that the study results are indicative of a changing paradigm for advertisers.

“Viewers are sitting in front of the television with a mobile device in their hand and they’ll likely check that ‘second’ screen often,” Subramanian said in a press release. “There’s no going back now from the fact that the Super Bowl is truly a two-screen experience. Mobile is the second screen that completes the full circle of user engagement – turning advertising into content.”

Woman are apparently much more interested than men in the always-hyped Super Bowl halftime show. They are half as likely — 13% compared to 26% — to check out their smartphones and tablets during the break.

Mobile users between the ages of 18 and 34 will be especially wedded to their devices during the game. Fans who said they plan to look at least once predicted an average of 19 device-checks over the course of the Super Bowl broadcast.

The survey was conducted in late January among more than 1,400 American adults who own mobile devices and plan to watch Super Bowl XLVI.

Will you watch with your mobile device by your side? Do you think broadcast ads still have value? Let us know in the comments.

Infographic of Velti.

More About: Advertising, Mobile, Super Bowl, Super Bowl XLVI

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Super Bowl Viewers Will Check Phones 10 Times During the Game [STUDY] via http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/mashable/tech/~3/XWhSQqJ5ELc/ Mashable

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