Motorola will unveil an Android Tablet at the CES 2011. The company is teasing the new tablet already ahead of CES. The Motorola Tablet is seen as the first real competition to the dominating Apple iPad. We already reported that the rumored Motorola Super Bowl 2011 ad is featuring the new Android Tablet. Now NFL player Chad Ochocinco added more credibility to this rumor with a tweet (via TFTS) that he will be getting the new Motorola Tablet to kick off 2011. Chad Ochocinco plays for the Cincinnati Bengals and has been promoting Motorola already at the Super Bowl 2010 with the OCNN network. Ochocinco is a very "connected" NFL player. His Twitter account has over 1.5 million followers.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Ochocinco brings Motorola Android Tablet to Super Bowl 2011
Motorola will unveil an Android Tablet at the CES 2011. The company is teasing the new tablet already ahead of CES. The Motorola Tablet is seen as the first real competition to the dominating Apple iPad. We already reported that the rumored Motorola Super Bowl 2011 ad is featuring the new Android Tablet. Now NFL player Chad Ochocinco added more credibility to this rumor with a tweet (via TFTS) that he will be getting the new Motorola Tablet to kick off 2011. Chad Ochocinco plays for the Cincinnati Bengals and has been promoting Motorola already at the Super Bowl 2010 with the OCNN network. Ochocinco is a very "connected" NFL player. His Twitter account has over 1.5 million followers.
NFL Playoff Schedule: Wildcard Weekend : Road to Super Bowl 2011
Hopefully your team is one of the Lucky 12 that navigated their way into the playoffs because the popcorn will taste that much better. As we all have come to learn, It’s a new season and anybody can win … except for Seattle. We will give credit where credit is due though. Congratulations Seattle, you became the first team in the NFL to make the playoffs with a losing record (7-9). Be proud Seachickens!
Check out the four games on tap for this weekend.
Saturday, January 8
No. 5 New Orleans Saints (11-5) at No. 4 Seattle Seattle (7-9) at Qwest Field, 4:30 p.m., ET, NBC
The defending Super Bowl champion Saints will travel to Seattle to take on the Seahawks, which we noted earlier, is the first team to make the NFL playoffs with a losing record. Tampa Bay and New York both had a better record than Seattle but because the Seahawks won the NFC West title, they get an automatic bid to the playoffs. Drew Brees and the Saints offense will roll in this game.
No. 6 New York Jets (11-5) at No. 3 Indianapolis Colts (10-6) at Lucas Oil Stadium, 8 p.m. ET, NBC
The Indianapolis Colts haven’t played anywhere near the caliber that we’ve come to expect from under the tutelage of Peyton Manning, but they’re in so it doesn’t matter now. Peyton has looked rattled at times this year, especially against the blitz, so look for the Jets and coach Rex Ryan to exploit that fact with some creative blitz packages.
Sunday Jan. 9
No. 6 Green Bay Packers (10-6) at No. 3 Philadelphia Eagles (10-6) at Lincoln Financial Field, 4:30 p.m. ET, FOX
Green Bay played their way into the playoffs with a 10-3 win over Chicago in Week 17, while Philadelphia put it on cruise control knowing that it would have the No. 3 seed regardless. The Packers will go into Lincoln Financial Field looking for an upset over Michael Vick, who has had an MVP-type season. The Packers beat the Eagles earlier this season, but at that point Vick was still playing behind Kevin Kolb. Seriously, how long ago does that seem?
No. 5 Baltimore Ravens (12-4) at No. 4 Kansas City Chiefs (10-6) Arrowhead Stadium, 1 p.m., ET, CBS
The Kansas City Chiefs are the biggest surprise of the NFL season, but they will have a tough welcome-to-the-playoffs moment when they host Ray Lewis and the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday. Ray Rice, Joe Flacco and Anquan Boldin power the Ravens offense, while Matt Cassel has his own star target in wideout Dwayne Bowe. Arrowhead might be one of the toughest places to play, but I doubt the term “tough environment” is even in the Ravens vocabulary.
NFL DIVISIONAL PLAYOFFS
Saturday, January 15
AFC: 4:30 PM (ET) Indianapolis or Kansas City or Baltimore at Pittsburgh (CBS-TV)
NFC: 8:00 PM (ET) St. Louis/Seattle or New Orleans or Green Bay at Atlanta (FOX-TV)
Sunday, January 16
NFC: 1:00 PM (ET) Philadelphia or St. Louis/Seattle or New Orleans at Chicago (FOX-TV)
AFC: 4:30 PM (ET) Kansas City or Baltimore or New York Jets at New England (CBS-TV)
NFL Playoff : Green Bay Packers 10-3 win over the Chicago Bears, New York Giants Eliminated
While the Giants beat the Washington Redskins 17-14 on the final day of the NFL’s regular season, they needed a loss by the Packers to claim the second of two wild-card berths in the National Football Conference.
Green Bay was held scoreless until the third quarter before rallying for the home win against Chicago, which had already locked up the No. 2 seed in the NFC and a bye in the first round of the playoffs.
The Packers’ game ended minutes before the Giants held on for the win over the Washington Redskins in Landover, Maryland.
Eli Manning threw a 92-yard touchdown pass to Mario Manningham and the Giants’ defense forced four turnovers.
Packers’ Edge
The Packers, Giants and Tampa Bay Buccaneers all finished with 10-6 records. Green Bay gets the final playoff spot by virtue of tiebreakers. The Packers will visit the Philadelphia Eagles in the first round of the NFL’s postseason, which begins Jan. 8-9. The Giants and Buccaneers are the first NFC teams with 10 or more wins to miss the playoffs since 1991.
Seattle claimed the NFL’s final playoff berth with a 16-6 win over the St. Louis Rams.
The Seahawks won the NFC West title with a 7-9 record and will host a first-round game at 4:30 p.m. New York time Jan. 8 against the defending Super Bowl-champion New Orleans Saints, who lost today to the Buccaneers 23-13. Seattle is the first team to reach the NFL playoffs with a losing record in a full season.
The Atlanta Falcons locked up the NFC’s No. 1 seed today at 13-3 with a 31-10 win over the Carolina Panthers. The Falcons will have a first-round bye and would host home playoff games up to the Super Bowl, while the Bears will be at home in the second round as the No. 2 seed.
The Indianapolis Colts took the final playoff berth in the American Football Conference today, winning the AFC South when the Jacksonville Jaguars lost to the Houston Texans 34-17. The Colts then beat the Tennessee Titans 23-20 to claim the third seed in the AFC. Indianapolis (10-6) will host the New York Jets next week at 8 p.m. on Jan. 8.
Jets Win
The Jets (11-5) beat the Buffalo Bills 38-7 while resting starters after clinching a playoff spot last week.
The Pittsburgh Steelers (12-4) secured the AFC’s second seed today by winning 38-7 in Cleveland.
The Steelers won the North Division title over the Baltimore Ravens in a tiebreak and earned a bye in the opening round of the playoffs. The Ravens matched the Steelers’ 12-4 record with a 13-7 win over Cincinnati.
Baltimore is the No. 5 seed in the AFC and will visit the Kansas City Chiefs next week, with kickoff at 1 p.m. Jan. 9.
The Chiefs (10-6) missed a chance to gain the AFC’s third seed with a 31-10 home loss to the Oakland Raiders. The Raiders are the first team since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970 to go undefeated in its division and miss the playoffs.
The New England Patriots (14-2), who had previously locked up the No. 1 seed in the AFC and home-field advantage throughout the postseason, defeated the Miami Dolphins 38-7.
Eagles Lose
The Eagles, locked in as the NFC’s No. 3 seed, rested most of their starters in a 14-13 loss to the Dallas Cowboys. They will host the Packers at 4:30 p.m. on Jan. 9.
It was San Diego 33, Denver 28; Detroit 20, Minnesota 13; and San Francisco 38, Arizona 7 in other games.
The Packers snapped a 3-3 tie at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, when Aaron Rodgers threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to tight end Donald Lee early in the fourth quarter.
The go-ahead score came one play after Rodgers connected with Greg Jennings on a 46-yard pass to the Bears’ 1-yard line.
The Packers, who trailed 3-0 at halftime, were held to a field goal on their previous possession after a Rodgers pass to Jennings got them inside the Chicago 1-yard line.
Green Bay clinched the victory when Nick Collins intercepted a pass from Bears quarterback Jay Cutler in the final minute. Chicago falls to 11-5.
NFL 2011 Playoffs: Match-ups and Times for Wild Card Weekend
Of course the NFL postseason isn't predictable, just ask the New England Patriots, set to go the entire season undefeated by winning Super Bowl XLII (42) in 2008.. Someone forgot to give Eli Manning and the New York Giants the script though and the Giants shocked the football world by beating Bill Belichick, Tom Brady et al, 17-14.
Wild Card Match-Up: Seahawks Sport Losing Record
The defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints lost their final game of the regular season, at home, to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers but finished a strong 11-5. It was not enough, however, to repeat as divisional champs as the Atlanta Falcons had a great season at 13-3. This sets up a bit of an oddity.
Drew Brees and the Saints travel to Seattle to play the Seahawks, the first team out of some 350 divisional champs to win their division with a losing record. The finished 7-9 and four wins behind their visitors. Their game against the Saints back in week 11 saw them lose 34-19 and they have one of the worst defenses in the NFC so this is the one that could be a blowout. The game starts at 4:30 p.m. E.T. on NBC.
Saturday Wild Card Match-Up Extraordinaire
The Indianapolis Colts had a great win in the last game of the regular season and last year's Superbowl losers finished at 10-6 and grabbed home-field advantage in the first round despite going through some bumps this season. They're up against Mark Sanchez and the 11-5 New York Jets.
The two teams didn't meet this season and it might seem with their 6-2 home record the Colts edge their way into the favorites column. But the Jets are 6-2 on the road and the time has come for Mark Sanchez to truly arrive with a big game against a big opponent at the right time. Can he outduel Peyton Manning and Reggie Wayne? It goes at 8 p.m. E.T. on NBC.
The Pack is Back But Vick is Slick
Bad rhyming aside, the second match-up on Sunday Jan. 9 is certain to be a dogfight. The Green Bay Packers only got into the post-season on the last day with a less than impressive 10-3 win over the Chicago Bears, who were playing a meaningless game. But their offense can score points and so can their defense.
Aaron Rodgers taking Green Bay to the Super Bowl the year Brett Favre really retires? It could happen but it'll have to be all on the road and start by going into Philly and getting a win over a superb Michael Vick. Vick has not allowed his recent past to stop him from getting back his game, big-time, and if it weren't for Tom Brady he'd be this season's MVP It goes Sunday at 4:30 p.m. E.T. on Fox.
Early NFL Play-off Game Sunday Jan. 9
The early game Sunday this week between the Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs starts at 1 p.m. E.T., which translates of course to 10 a.m. for football fans on the west coast. The Chiefs have not been in the post-season since 2006, haven't hosted a game since 2003 and have not won a playoff game in 18 years.
Baltimore has been made postseason play the past decade more often than nott. They didn't win the division title over Pittsburgh despite having an identical record because of a worse divisional record than the Steelers. But at 12-4 and with Ray Lewis healthy they pose a might big challenge for the Chiefs. The game is on CBS.
2011 Super Bowl XLV Daily Deal Predictions
However, just to keep us honest, let’s take a look at how our predictions from 2010 are faring:
2010 Predictions Report Card
Prediction: We won’t see a roll up in Daily Deals
Verdict: Mostly true. There have been a handful of small acquisitions as the large sites enter new markets, but for the most part, the Daily Deal space has remained completely fragmented, with hundreds of Daily Deal startups operating around the US. We’ve seen only one investment group is form to pursue a roll-up strategy, and it’s not clear yet whether they are serious.
Prediction: New Entrants will gain rapid scale.
Verdict: Mostly false. Groupon, LivingSocial and BuyWithMe are still the only three pure play startups who have gained significant US traction.
Prediction: Gilt City will become a serious player.
Verdict: True. Gilt City is quickly becoming a leader in the deal space, thanks to substantial scale provided by Gilt Groupe, unique deal offerings, and focus on the luxury niche. They currently operating in a half dozen US markets, and most recently, Tokyo.
Prediction: Regulatory Risk was the root cause of why Google-Groupon fell apart.
Verdict: True.
Prediction: Existing Publishers will become Groupon’s biggest threat.
Verdict: Mostly true. Travelzoo, OpenTable and Yelp regularly outsell Groupon in their markets. Thrillist and DailyCandy look to be serious up and comers. Dozens of traditional print media companies have rolled out deal offerings, to varying degrees of success.
Yipit’s 2011 Predictions
There will be more than a thousand of Daily Deal sites in the US. The cost of launching a Daily Deal offering will continue to fall, while white-label platforms, exchanges and Daily Deal APIs lubricate the market. This will allow Daily Deals to serve as ad units (e.g., Huffington Post) or even as offer marketing in social gaming (i.e., a local version of this).
Groupon and/or LivingSocial will run a Super Bowl ad. More of a hunch than anything, but here’s the math for how it makes financial sense:
* GoDaddy CEO Bob Parson’s estimated his $2.7 million Super Bowl advertisement resulted in 1.5 million visits. That works out to $1.80 per visit.
* Daily Deal subscribers can generate $30-$50 per year in profit, meaning the service will recoup their investment after a year with a 4-6% conversion rate.
* That conversion rate is well below average, though given the lack of truly national presence, potentially in line.
* As a benchmark, the Google Keyword Tool reports CPC for “daily deal” at $1.45 per click.
Groupon will spend more on marketing this year than AOL did on CDs ever. During the 90s, AOL spent around $300 million acquiring subscribers by mailing out CD-ROMs (at one point producing half of all CDs worldwide). We think Groupon is going to spend more than that in 2011:
* Groupon added 3 million users the first week in December. If we reduce that to a 2 million a week run-rate, assume zero growth, assume only half of all subscribers are paid, and assume a $6 CPA, then Groupon’s 2011 spend is $300 million.
* Assuming Groupon hits its $2 billion in 2011 revenue forecast, $300 million in marketing is 15% of gross revenue, which would seem low for a startup so focused on building massive scale.
Daily Deal Credit Cards Will Arrive. Currently, there couldn’t be more friction for redeeming Daily Deals. The user has to (i) wait for a promotion to end, (ii) print out a physical certificate, (iii) bring the certificate to the merchant, (iv) convince the clerk to accept the voucher (potentially in front of friends, or worse, a date). Groupon, LivingSocial, Scoutmob, Village Vines and others are reducing this friction with mobile apps and advance reservations, but the ideal redemption experience would be provided via the credit card transaction. Expect Groupon to release a branded card, and major Credit Card to dip their toes into the space as well. In fact, MasterCard and Citi are already working on the periphery.
New services launch to focus exclusively on behalf of the merchant. We outlined the opportunity in an earlier earlier post, but essentially a tension will emerge where large daily deal sites cannot simultaneously represent both the merchant’s interest for profitability and consumer’s interest for massive savings. And as Daily Deals continue to swell into a multi-billion dollar market, a new layer of merchant services will form.
Yipit’s 2011 Skepticisms (hype we disagree with)
Daily Deals will go social. There are at least as many barriers to creating a successful social experience with Daily Deals as there are with local services in general. Yelp, Google, Facebook and countless others have been inching away at the social-local opportunity for years, and there’s still along way to go. We believe there will eventually be a compelling social layer to Daily Deals, but doubtful we will see it in 2011.
Daily Deals will go self-serve. Many are betting that the Daily Deal space will evolve into lower cost, self-serve offerings to merchants, where they can run deals at their leisure. Groupon Stores, Facebook Deals, Yelp Check-in Offers and Google Offers provide merchants the ability to have their customers “follow” them for offers.
However, the vast majority of merchant value in running a Daily Deal offering lies in the creation of new, repeat customers. The deep discount and commission paid to the deal site can make profitability of the actual promotion close to breakeven. Not to mention that discount-focused CRM may not be the ideal context for merchant-customer dialog – most merchants probably want their loyal customers focused on something else than discounts.
Super Bowl 2011: Predictions, Odds for Who Will Make It Through NFL Playoffs
These two teams, who are tougher than tough at home, are your top seeds, the odds-on favorites to square off in Dallas, any other scenario will involve upsets of major proportions. Atlanta has been installed as a 7-4 NFC favorite by scoresandodds.com and it certainly didn't involve going out on a limb to favor the Falcons. Matt Ryan is 20-2 as a starter in the Georgia Dome. You have to like those numbers. The second-seeded Chicago Bears (11-5) are 2-1 but after watching Jay Cutler against Green Bay, where Cutler displayed his penchant for inconsistency, you know that this guy can be so very good and at times look so very bad. The Bears will have two weeks to get the bad taste of the loss to Green Bay out of their mouths and will have a nice cold-weather home game.
The third-seeded Eagles (10-6) are 3-1 and their hopes certainly revolve around Michael Vick. Sixth-seeded Green Bay (10-6) is 4-1 and the type of team that is getting more respect than your average sixth seed. The New Orleans Saints (11-5) are the defending Super Bowl champions and they are limping into the playoffs after getting de-pantsed at home by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the season finale. The Bucs finished with 10 wins but that wasn't good enough to get them in the tournament. And yes, there are those Seattle Seahawks (7-9) from the NFC Worst, er, NFC West, nifty 75-1 long shots and that's probably generous. Would anyone bet two cents on those guys?
Predictions:
The Saints crush the Seahawks next Saturday in Seattle and, drum roll please, the Packers pull the upset in Philly. The Pack moves on to play in Atlanta and the Saints head to Chicago to face the Bears.
NFC title game: Chicago at Atlanta.
NFC Super Bowl rep: Atlanta.
The AFC has a similar scenario but should be a tougher road for the eventual winner. The New England Patriots (14-2) are an overwhelming 5-8 favorite to head for Dallas. The P-Men are 8-0 at home and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that this guy Tom Brady is damn good at playoff time. Pittsburgh (12-4) is 5-2 and the Steelers would probably win the NFC if they were over in that neck of the NFL woods, but alas they're not. The fifth-seeded Ravens (12-4) are in a 5-1, the fourth-seeded Jets (11-5) at 8-1 with the third-seeded Colts (10-6) and then there's Kansas City (10-6) getting no respect at 10-1.
New England has the home field. That's huge.
Predictions:
The Jets take the oil out of Indy at the House of Oil on Saturday. The Chiefs upset the Ravens in KC on Sunday. The Patriots struggle but edge the Jets in two weeks. The Steelers crush the Chiefs. AFC title game: Steelers at New England. AFC Super Bowl rep: New England.
SUPER BOWL XLV Champion: The New England Patriots.
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