The 2010 NBA Free Agent class has been anticipated for a long time. It’s unusual in any sport for eyes to be on a free agency more than a year in the future, but the list of names available this summer was so prestigious, it can easily be considered the most anticipated free agency class EVER.

Amidst the abundance of top-quality names, there was the “Big Three”; LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. So much so that the headlining trio had a summit, to be in cahoots with one another about where they might end up.

At the pinnacle of all of this stands the most-talked about free agent of all time: LeBron James.

Seven years into his NBA career, he is already in the conversation of “best player today” and it is highly likely that when he is done he will be considered among the list of greatest basketball players of all time. Someone of this magnitude being courted by many different teams, different cities, is likely to attract a lot of attention, and in some unorthodox ways.

With his decision being broadcast on an ESPN special conveniently titled, “The Decision,” King James has done something unlike ever before. He’s calling all the shots, even so far as media coverage. He’s handpicked who will interview him, and has mandated that all of his sponsors take up the ad time, with proceeds going to the Boys and Girls Club of America.

Celebrities, agencies, mom and pop stores, and people on the streets with too much time on their hands have all played their part in doing what they can to sway LBJ’s decision. The media coverage has been, for lack of a more sophisticated word, redunkulous. Throughout the season, sports journalists, delivery guys, political pundits, everyone has been speculating where LeBron will end up.

When he launched his very own twitter account, @KingJames, it quickly garnered a massive following, yet – as expected – no news or hints as to where he was going to go.

It’s hard to comprehend just how much it could do to the city that acquires LeBron James. For example, Madison Square Garden shares rose nearly 6.5% yesterday, based on the number of people that are betting he goes to New York to don a Knicks jersey.

Even before LeBron puts on the Heat jersey or steps foot on the hardwood floor at American Airlines Arena for game #1 of the 2010-2011 NBA season, he will have drastically changed the landscape of not only the Heat, but Miami, as well. This is where he will be calling home for [at least] the next 5-6 years. And in ways that we really can’t even calculate, so it’s unnecessary to try to pinpoint the monetary, cultural and social impact that will come along with the acquisition of King James.

image courtesy of bleacherreport.com

“Adobe is lazy. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy” said Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, during a Town Hall company meeting.

Two months after the incident, an Adobe employee reply’s via blog,  “Go Screw Yourself, Apple”.

The gloves are on – it’s evident that these two heavyweights are ready to get in the ring. CreativeFeed breaks it down:

Two Top Tech Heavyweights – The Tale of the Tape

Surprisingly, these two giants were tag-team partners back in the day. Adobe and Apple used to have a good relationship. Apple used to own 20% of Adobe for a few years and even now, both companies still work together to serve the creative community. However, that is where their joint interests end.

The Apple iPhone and iPad have never supported flash, one of Adobe’s core offerings. In fact, Apple’s terms-of-service agreement prohibits it. No matter how much customers speculate and demand it, Steve Jobs refuses, and even wrote an open letter titled, “Thoughts on Flash“, stating his reasons.

As a result, Flash (and Adobe), lack a presence in mobile browsing, an industry that has exponentially grown in recent years.  Communities proficient in the development of flash and users (95% chance it includes you) currently suffer from limited web browsing freedom.

Two months after Steve Jobs’ manifesto, Adobe has finally responded with their marketing campaign called, “Freedom of Flash”, with a message of choice, open markets and love.

The Advertisements:

In today’s New York Times and Washington Post, enormous print ads were placed like the one seen below.

Online Display ads like this were seen on New York Times, Engadget and their own site, addressing Apple’s recent spate of clear and direct attacks against the company and its products.

The Letter:

Founders of Adobe, John Warnock and Chuck Geschke (pictured above), also replied with a letter titled, Our thoughts on open markets, which discusses Apple’s clear and direct attacks against the company and its products.

The Site:

Adobe creates a site, The truth about Flash, showcasing statics to “set the record straight” because “a fair amount of incorrect information has been communicated”

Our View from Ringside:

It looks like this bout is going to go the full 12 rounds, since these guys are just getting warmed up – and neither Jobs nor Geschke back down from a good fight. CreativeFeed can imagine Adobe continuing to go great lengths to defend its reputation and products in the open market, using consumer pull strategies to push Apple into opening up.  The question is – will any of this be enough to sway Jobs and his lust to wrestle power away from media industries and consolidate it in Apple products. (e.g. Music – iTunes, Books – the iPad bookstore and potentially the future of mobile viewing without Flash). Most likely not, since Jobs has never been one to answer to anyone, even his loyal fan base of Apple followers. (Okay, perhaps stockholders, but even that relationship tilts in his favor in a power struggle).

In regards to the opinions of both respective companies, it’s questionable whether either of them is truly “open” or representative of a “free market” as their letters and messages suggest. Adobe and Apple have both built proprietary products to gain competitive advantage, which they deserve to do. As this fight continues to rage on, we’ll see the future of how we all view and consume media play out. Our question – will either of their tactics, as the mudslinging gets worse, sully their images?  Or will the “free” market winner take home the Championship Belt and be dubbed King?

Social Mention is a social media search engine that directly monitors 80+ social media properties including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google and more.  If used the right way, it can be used as the world’s largest water cooler; online social networks.

At CreativeFeed, we were curious to see the effectiveness of this tool.  The convenience of aggregating user generated content into a single stream of information sounds great, but how well does it work?

As one blogger notes, “Those services are built for speed, not depth”.

A valid point, so let’s see.

.:.

9:30AM

We find a scheduled release of information from an icon who Tweets excessively, P. Diddy!  Perfect.

amNewYork 'Bits O' Buzz' section mentions Diddy to make a special announcement about Sean John at 11:15AM

.:.

11:15AM

Sean John announcement is presumably made.

.:.

11:19AM

Announcement has soaked for 4 minutes – let’s see what we can find

Google results: Nothing about the announcement

Social Media searches across the universe...(this takes close to 5 minutes)

After 5 minutes, results are in! 3/5 top search results are exactly what we're looking for, Tweets and Retweets. Not the most credible resource, but it leads us to the source, Diddy himself.

.:.

11:28AM

Not entirely pleased with the results we found, we let the social media world and Google soak up Diddy’s announcement for 13 more minutes, and search using more specific terms.

Search results using "Sean Jean Press Release": No relative results

Search results using the same terms with Social Media was even worse, with results having no relation with Sean John or press releases

.:.

11:42AM

Nearly 30 minutes after the announcement, we search again using “P. Diddy Sean John Announcement”.

Google results shows past announcement, but nothing from 2010!

Social Media results are entirely irrelevant to the search terms. Not sure how Chris Jericho's music video relates to Sean Jean or Diddy.

.:.

Thoughts:

Sadly, the results were pretty inconclusive. Although Social Mention did find the result we wanted the most effectively and timely, we weren’t able to find any results remotely close to what we were trying to find just 13 minutes after the announcement – even when using more specific search terms!

As mentioned in our previous blog post, Could Facebook be the new Google?,  Google has difficulty indexing and delivering constant streaming data from online publishing, especially from microblogs and regular blogs. Our experiment showed this as we were unable to find any relative information regarding Diddy’s announcement.

Social Mention may never replace Google, but we’re interested in seeing how and where it can be useful.

Oh, and the information we were so fervently searching for?

The prototype was found in the back of a limo after transporting several members of a Silicon Valley meeting to a conference. Our San Francisco office got wind of the iPhone prototype from a contact, and the CF team quickly jumped at the chance to explore the capabilities of this find.

The first thing you notice about the new iPhone is that it appears Apple has gone retro. This holy grail of a communications device is completely voice activated. We’re still playing around with different commands, but from what we can tell so far its voice recognition capabilities and performance are totally in synch.

The physical “phone” itself is actually a small piece of irony.

We heard rumors, but like just about everyone else out there, we, too, had our doubts. This find confirms it. The 4G leak was a red herring to cover up the impending 5G launch.

I have seen the future. It is beautiful. It is old school. And it’s just another bold move for Apple.

The founder of boxed wine may be gone, but his legacy has a thriving existence.

It’s been 45 years since Thomas Angrove first told his son about the idea for boxed wine, who told him it would be “ridiculous, nobody is going to buy wine out of a cardboard box and a plastic bag.”

Luckily, Thomas didn’t listen to his son and followed his instinct to create the first boxed wine.

Easy to open, easy to share and longer lasting (not to mention better for the environment), boxed wines have certainly added to social sippers’ enjoyment of vino. Here, as an ode to Mr. Angrove, we salute the history of wine packaging:

6th Century

Aphorae

16th Century

Courtesy of Sothebys

18th Century

Courtesy of Antiquehelper.com

2010

Student Contribution at Swedish Design Awards

Beautiful Design

Packaging is Entirely Made of Recycled Materials

Turpentine Spirits, Anyone?

Custom Wine label

Versus Wine Pouch

French Rabbit Chardonnay

CreativeFeed wants to know,  how do you think wine will be packaged in the future?

It may be a cheap shot to kick Maclaren strollers when they’re down, but the amputated finger storm that made it all the way to the Financial Times this week is a textbook example of why an active ongoing social media program is an essential facet of any good PR/marketing strategy.

By participating in the online conversation — having a company blog that is informative on issues important to parents (say, safely transporting children), or by contributing to customer sites, blogs and forums tangentially related to Maclaren products – the company would have been a bit less tone deaf and flat-footed in the face of such sensational news.

The FT does a good job today in “How Not To Take Care of a Brand” by John Gapper of detailing the missteps: ranging from delayed and insufficient reaction to complaints in the US (but not in other markets) to twittering and posting crisis/recall-specific pages that turned out to be dead links.

Know thy customer: “Anything relative to child safety tends to be off-the-charts viral,” says Pete Blackshaw, a brand consultant for Nielsen Online. According to Blackshaw’s data, new mothers are three times more likely than others to use social media and start blogs. “Given the higher order of sensitivity, parents are much more diligent,” says Blackshaw. “They want to talk to friends, family and even strangers about their decisions. They’ll go the extra distance.” Yahoo News

A pervasive product being used by such a connected and impassioned customer-base is usually the Holy Grail for a brand — and a strategic ongoing social media program is certainly essential for getting there. Maclaren shows us one other reason to be engaged and in-touch online: it can also help a brand withstand the riptide popular discontent.

His death nearly brought the Web to a standstill with several sites buckling under the sheer weight of traffic. Of the 1.6 million fans that applied to attend the memorial event in L.A., only 8,750 people were chosen at random. This is one event that will test the entire infrastructure of the web and will almost certainly shatter records for the biggest single live stream ever.

And just to prove our point:

It seems that even in death, Michael Jackson could prove once again to be a record breaker.