McDonald’s has developed a new mobile app that is part of their long-term plan focusing on menu evolution and nutrition awareness communication.  The app features a restaurant locator where users can search for the nearest Mickey D’s by entering a zip code.  The location portion of the app also allows users to view employment opportunities, send consumer comments, view a calendar of events and even email the manager.  The app also features nutritional information.

Google has debuted their daily deal site, Google Shopper for iPhone.  The site is a combination of their Google Offers and Google Wallet, products.  The Google Shopper app focuses on nearby offers as well as comparison shopping.  “The Offers tab displays a list, or map view, of nearby offers which businesses have submitted through Google Places,” Google Shopper Product Manager Richard Hung explains. “If Google Offers are available in your city, you’ll be able to view and redeem your purchased offers on the My Offers tab.”

You can download the app directly from iTunes at: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-shopper/id416091721?mt=8

GuideMe is a start-up that helps users build a local to-do list and get deals on places that you care about.  This start-up is similar to other deal sites, but GuideMe allows users to pick the places they are hoping to receive deals from.  Users can create a “GuideList,” made from places you want to go and places you’ve already been to and love.  If you are a Foursquare user, your GuideList can be made up of where you’ve checked-in.  You can also use OpenTable to filter out deal locations and book a table online.   In addition to be a deal site, GuideMe hopes to be similar to Yelp! by helping people find places to eat and things to do and see.

The website is very clean and easy to use, although initial users fear there is no “magical” element to keep people coming back.  There is also no mobile app yet, which does make it difficult for people to manage and reference your to-do list while you are on the go.  The product recently launched in June and is a product of Yahoo and Right Media.  For more information, go to: http://mashable.com/2011/07/24/guideme/

Jell-O pudding wants to make the Twitter world a better place.  Their new Twitter campaign, piggybacks off of their television campaign “Pudding Face.”  Jell-O has started monitoring Twitter emoticons and whenever they see a flurry of sad faces, they will deploy a free pudding to users via Twitter in attempts to bring up their mood and the overall mood of Twitter.  The free pudding coupons are deployed at random when the national smiley face averages dip below 51%.  Users that respond to Jell-O’s pudding tweet with a will be eligible for the coupon.  Jell-O is hoping that this campaign garners enough attention that will become the universal symbol for the “pudding face.”

If you want to check out the national average at any time, just go to the Jell-O Pudding Face Mood Meter,with smiley tweets on one side, frowny tweets on the other.  While Adweek is a bit skeptical of this advertising attempt, people love free stuff and they love using emoticons, so it will be interesting to see if this campaign is a national success or kind of scary like those “Pudding Face” Commercials.

The new inbox social intelligence add-on Rapportive, can either be looked at as extremely helpful, or a bit scary.  The idea behind the add-on is to allow you, as the email sender, to construct better email messages by knowing more information about those you are writing to.  When you begin composing an email, Rapportive, will look up the contact (or contacts if you are emailing multiple people) and display a host of information on the individual(s) in the right-hand side bar.  Information provided includes how you’ve communicated with the contact before and what they are saying on their social networks.

Although this add-on has the intention of jogging sender’s memories to how they’ve communicated with contacts before, it does border on a bit intrusive.  Yes, you can find all of the information they are providing (if you search around for it – as it’s all public), it just seems as though this might be taking things a bit too far.  On the other hand, for those who do business through a gmail interface, this add-on could be a huge advantage to getting personal with prospective or current clients as you will know what’s going on in their lives real-time.

If you would like to test out the Rapportive add-on, go to: rapportive.com/compose.

Or check out this video on how the add-on works: http://youtu.be/ntjhXTXNWyo

What would you do if you saw green boxes, measuring 6.5 feet cubed in hot spots like London, Miami, New York and Rome?  Well, Anheuser-Busch InBev is hoping that you will stop and take a look; since this is the basis for their new event-driven, augmented-reality campaign for Beck’s.   Beck’s has traditionally received a lot less advertising support than AB’s other brands, but the company is hoping that this public art meets mobile technology approach garners some recognition for the brand.

The boxes will be strategically placed in the cities mentioned above, and although there is nothing actually in the box, they do prompt passerbyers to download a special mobile app.  Once the app is downloaded, users point their phones at the box and the special artwork will appear.  The global marketing manager for the brands states, “Every box is filled with a piece of art, fashion, music or design or a combination of those, because we’re talking about those four passion points of our target consumer.”

In addition to this campaign, Beck’s has unveiled it’s new tagline, “Just Part of the Story,” which is meant to pay homage to the beer’s 1873 German roots and long affiliations with art and music acts.

For more information about this specific campaign, as well as AB InBev’s future plans for the beer’s direction, go to: http://adage.com/article/news/beck-s-virtual-green-box-art-campaign/228545/

Google was very busy this holiday weekend (Happy 4th of July by the way).  They quietly launched their new social contest website called Prizes.org.  The site allows users to create their own “contests” and then award cash prizes to those users with the best answers or suggestions to their questions.  The questions can be as simple as trip planning advice, or as social as the best name for a new start up, but whatever the question is, the answer posts are set up to allow for forum feedback and visitor votes.  The user who gained the most votes, wins the money.  The current typical payout is $10-$50.

Currently, Prizes.org requires users to sign in with their Facebook or Twitter accounts, but all users are allowed to view the contest line ups and see the prizes they could shoot for.  For more information, go to: http://www.geek.com/articles/news/google-launches-prizes-org-2011074/