Your Weekend Viewing

Gmail Intervention

The inimitable Ben Parr of Mashable brings our attention to Gmail’s retro video encouraging viewers to stage “an email intervention.” I mean we all have friends who languish on AOL, Yahoo! and even HotMail. While it probably doesn’t mean much to my wife and her friends, the digerati clearly are bothered by the continued use of those once ubiquitous (but now anachronistic?) email domains. Will they heed Gmail’s call to bully them out of existence? It’s a nasty world out there.

iPhone versus Blackberry

I, like many others, are growing tired of my Blackberry, and the lack of innovation therein. Sure, it’s email remains tops, even as Android and i/OS continue to gnaw away RIM’s market share lunch. The Times today popped out this video comparing the two. As for me, let’s see whether the new iPhones expected to bow in late August, will provide a sufficient incentive for me to finally make the switch. (@NYTimes via Crackberry)

iPad 2 for Everyone

Here’s the new family-friendly TV spot for the iPad2. (via mashable)

Awesome A/R

Whenever TechCrunch uses the adjective “awesome” in one of its headlines, it grabs my attention. And to hear it in association with the inventors of code division multiple access, i.e., CDMA for short (think VZW and Sprint), it really draws my attention. I used to represent Qualcomm in the days when company CEO Irwin Jacobs campaigned to convince the world that his standard was the standard. And I’ll never forget riding with him in a taxi to CNBC’s New York studios. When we arrived, I grabbed my wallet and realized I only had a single dollar bill in it. “Irwin, would you mind terribly picking up the fare?”

This particular video clip shows a new dimension to Qualcomm, and it’s in the augmented reality space. Teaming with Mattel’s Rock Em Sock Em game, we witness a demo on an Android phone of an A/R app that’s pretty cool, albeit in the fighting realm. The news? “Qualcomm’s Awesome Augmented Reality SDK Now Available For iOS” (via @grg / TechCrunch)

For the Ginger Baker in All of Us

This may not be augmented reality in the strictest mobile context, but this little drummer boy certainly augments reality. (via TechCrunch

The Internet According to MTV (circa 1995)

Love this trip down memory lane….

Web Metrics Wonk

My very analytical friend Marshall Sponder aka @webmetricsguru, whose new book Social Media Analytics bows next month, introduces us to a Twitter search tool call FollowerWonk that lets you search for people, places and interests via their Twitter profiles. Here’s his demo of the tool.

The Apple Store Challenge

AKA “The Cult of the Apple Store.” With big Apple news this week that Apple will Shake Shack New York’s cavernous Grand Central Terminal, here’s one fellow at the Apple Store in Soho who decided to test the retailer’s patience. (via Laughing Squid, H/T Guy Kawasaki and AllTop.