Demander à un fan d'écrire une chronique sur l'album de « son » dernier groupe, c'est un peu comme demander à un Italien de dire qu'il n'aime pas les pâtes. Même si c'est le cas, il ne vous l'avouera jamais. A moins qu'on ne vienne vous envoyer un mail avec comme objet « Défi ». Sur ce coup-là, j'ai l'impression de m'être faite avoir. Faut que je perde l'esprit de compétition musicale, moi. Ou pas...

Arid, groupe gantois, révélé en 1999 avec Little things of Venom, nous revient avec son quatrième opus, deux ans après un All things come in to waves qui m'avait laissée totalement accro.

Je vous plante le contexte : samedi 27 février, je cours ventre à terre chez mon disquaire préféré, limite second chez-moi depuis près de quinze ans. L'album est là ! Le pire, c'est je sais pertinemment bien que je ne saurai pas l'écouter avant le lendemain pour cause de planning chargé. Ouais, tu parles ! Lorsque je rentre enfin dans mon « Home Sweet Home », il est trois heures du mat' et je ne résiste pas. Résultat : le soleil pointe à l'horizon et je l'ai déjà passé trois fois. C'est vous dire.

A la première écoute, je n'ai évidemment pas pu m'empêcher, comme bon nombre de fans, de rapprocher Something brighter du son de Keane. De la même façon, Lock and chain aurait tout aussi bien pu être chanté par le regretté Jeff Buckley. D'autres bonnes surprises ne demandent qu'à être découvertes : si Custom gold et son entraînante rythmique donnant envie de taper du pied, la mélodie de All that's here is all that's left devrait rentrer sans problème en tête tant musique et voix sont en harmonie l'une avec l'autre.

La seule inquiétude, c'est que si Come on, premier single, est un très bon morceau, il ne reflète pas forcément l'esprit musical général de l'album. Un novice d'Arid qui entendrait le morceau risquerait donc d'être fort surpris de découvrir les autres pistes dès la première écoute.

La plus belle surprise est sans aucun conteste la plage qui clôture l'album, petit bijou musical comme je les aime : on commence léger, juste le synthé et la voix de Jasper Steverlinck et puis la mélodie va crescendo, rejointe d'abord par la batterie de Steven Van Havere et ensuite par la guitare de David Du Pré. Fan-tas-ti-que. Sincèrement, à la première écoute, j'en ai chialé de bonheur. Parce que c'était beau. Et parce que c'était déjà fini. Car là réside une des faiblesses de cet album : comme son prédécesseur, il est VRAIMENT trop court. Mais bon, c'est vrai qu'à tout bien considérer, je préfère passer trente-neuf minutes de bonheur que de me dire que la moitié des chansons est tout juste bonne à jeter

Donc finalement, l'émancipation (forcée ?) du groupe par rapport à sa maison de disque après la sortie du second album et la prise en main de sa propre musique lui réussit plutôt bien. Les choses s'étaient déjà amorcées lors du précédent album et se confirment ici. Mieux encore, il me semble que le groupe a évolué mélodiquement encore un peu plus. Il y a fort à parier que le soutien de Luc Weytjens, producteur-claviériste-ingénieur du son qui a par le passé travaillé avec Zap Mama et K's Choice, a dû jouer dans cette évolution. Le fait que le groupe ait passé pas mal de temps en pré-production en investissant un centre culturel pour préparer les chansons avant l'enregistrement studio doit également avoir eu une incidence.

Au final, le titre a beau vouloir dire « Sous les lumières de la rue froide » (qui perd sacrément de son charme lorsqu'il est traduit), l'album m'a laissée tout sauf froide. Quand à l'écoute d'un morceau, tu sens un frisson te parcourir l'échine et atteindre le bout de tes doigts, tu sais que ça touche le cÅ“ur. Oui, j'aime la voix de Jasper qui jamais ne m'a déçue. Oui, j'aime entendre les riffs de guitare de David et oui, j'aime taper des mains sur les cuisses au son de la batterie de Steven. Alors oui, j'aime musicalement ces trois-là et je suis fan d'Arid. Et tant pis si ça ne plait pas. Que celui qui n'a lui-même jamais été séduit de la sorte par un groupe me jette Under the cold street lights à la figure. Amen.

When companies are dying, it’s rarely a quick and painless process. Even so, the demise of Blockbuster has felt like an especially drawn-out and painful one. The latest development came late Tuesday when the company submitted an SEC filing warning that it may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which read in part,

Our future viability is dependent on our ability to execute these plans successfully. If we fail to do so for any reason, we would not have adequate liquidity to fund our operations, would not be able to continue as a going concern and could potentially be forced to seek relief through a filing under U.S. Bankruptcy Code… It is possible that a successful and efficient implementation of an exchange or any of the other strategies we are pursuing will require us to make a pre-packaged, pre-arranged or other type of filing for protection under Chapter 11.

That couldn’t have been a very fun moment for Blockbuster. Still, if you’ve been following the company, you’ve seen the white flag of surrender raised a few times before. It was there in the company’s last earnings call, when CEO Jim Keyes talked about how Netflix grew market share while his company focused on its balance sheet. It showed again when Keyes appeared on CNBC and, in response to rapidfire questions about Blockbuster’s strategy, he kept putting on a hard-luck smile and insisting it wasn’t too late. And again when Blockbuster re-introduced late fees in the stores — that is, in the stores it’s not planning to shut down.

But informing investors of the possibility of bankruptcy is the law, and so Blockbuster is filing to formally notify the SEC of what many investors already know. Of course, filing for bankruptcy is hardly synonymous with corporate death. It simply means you seek court protection from debt-holders while you restructure. In Blockbuster’s case, the move is seen as part of a debt exchange with its creditors.

But once Blockbuster does emerge from bankruptcy, its larger problems will still remain. It operates a chain of expensive brick and mortar stores in a world turning digital. It tried and failed to price Netflix out of the DVD-by-mail business, and sat back as Netflix built a loyal audience for its streaming movies. It passively let Coinstar corner the DVD-rental-kiosk niche that further weakened its stores.

Now, according to Bloomberg, the company is exploring a consignment-sales model where Blockbuster will, instead of buying DVDs from movie studios, rent them shelf space in its stores. The move is aimed at cutting costs, but it will also lower revenue. And revenue has already been in decline for the past several quarters. The company has also been experimenting with new ways to deliver movies, but lags behind Redbox’s rental kiosks and Netflix’s instant streaming.

Blockbuster says it’s in discussions with movie studios about allowing its customers to rent movies through Blockbuster Express (its answer to Coinstar’s Redbox kiosks) on the same day that the movies are available for sale on DVDs. Currently, Netflix and Coinstar must wait four weeks after the movies go on sale. But it’s not clear why studios will want to award special privileges to a company that may be approaching bankruptcy.

Or possibly liquidation. Because if a restructuring doesn’t work, then Blockbuster might be forced to shut sown and sell off its assets to pay its debts. Some vulture investors will lick their chops over the prospect of a distressed retailer because of the value of the real estate it owns. But Blockbuster is likely to disappoint here as well. As Keyes pointed out on the CNBC interview, it owns only 3,500 of its 6,500 stores, and rents the rest.

Related content on GigaOM Pro:

Who Wins When Movies Are Available Everywhere? (subscription required)

The world's shortest walking man, 21-year old He Pingping from Inner Mongolia, died this past weekend from heart complications. Sadly, we do not know much about his life aside from the fact that he was a 27-inch tall chain smoker who spent much of the last few years traveling to Japan, the US, and Italy after being recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2007. I wish people focused more on what kind of person he was and how he coped with the constant stares and media attention instead of just displaying him as a freak show. He's pictured here with the world's tallest man, Bao Xishun, who is also from Inner Mongolia....

Would you buy a healthy snack to eat in the cinema or is half the fun of the flicks the terrible food?

This week, the CEO of Sony Pictures, Michael Lynton, urged cinemas to offer healthier snack options to movie goers.

Lynton was promoting the idea at the ShoWest convention of cinema owners in Las Vegas, encouraging the industry to help fight obesity - a large portion of sweet popcorn contains around 1,800 calories. He cited results from a survey showing that two-thirds of people said they'd be likely to buy healthy snacks if they were sold at cinemas. Suggestions apparently include fruit cups, vegetables with dips, yoghurt, granola bars, baked crisps and unbuttered, air-popped popcorn.

Let's leave aside the fact that the survey was taken in only 26 cinemas (or theaters, given it was in the States), and that there's often a gap between what people say in such surveys and what they do in reality, and give the idea some consideration.

Lynton doesn't so much want to banish popcorn and nachos from the auditorium (hardly surprising given that in the US cinema popcorn yields profits of 90 cents on the dollar) and would rather add healthier options, but this calls into question several aspects of the whole cinema experience.

Isn't shirking buttered popcorn and ice cream at the flicks a bit like shirking dessert at a Michelin-starred restaurant "because you're slimming"? In other words a complete waste of the treat? The point of big multiplex cinemas, surely, is that they offer spoonfed entertainment - big chairs, a big screen and a bit of quiet time. A trip to the cinema isn't supposed to be good for you, is it?

Is it now cultural law that what you eat should be so bad, it's good? Actually, I think environment has a lot to do with it. It's a real treat to find yourself in one of the smaller independent cinemas munching on cakes and sipping tea in a big comfy seat in a character-filled velvet-clad cinema. This might be partly because of the novelty or real food in such surroundings, or perhaps it's the winning fact that some of them let you take beer into the auditorium.

The Curzon chain, probably Britain's finest mini-chain of cinemas showing accessible art-house, leads the battalion with its offerings of popcorn, Maltesers and Coke alongside homemade cake from their Konditor & Cook concession, proper cocktails (a recently launched venture), wasabi peanuts and posh crisps. Sheffield's Showroom Workstation is an institution, showcasing Oscar-winning, art-house and auteur-led cinema, with a delightful café which allows you to take your choice of the traybakes, Derbyshire hot dogs and tea on offer into the cinema. Or my local, Richmix in Shoreditch, which serves up a very limited array of pic'n'mix and popcorn outside the screens and by default places an emphasis on the salad bar and fresh panini stands which are placed strategically right by the front door, thus winning the custom of the majority of punters. It's almost as if the sweet stand is there for diplomacy (if I'm really on a health drive I do the dirty and sneak in my own foodstuffs in a bag. Oh come on, you've all done it).

What do you prefer? Do you resent paying through the nose for fizzy ice or do you think half the fun of the cinema is the terrible food?

• Food & drink

Morwenna Ferrierguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

We've pointed to numerous studies, at this point, that have all found that, when done right, free ebooks can greatly increase the sales of physical books (and, in some cases, even of ebooks). Here's another empirical example of that in action. Chris Anderson points us to a blog post by someone at a mid-list niche publisher, talking about how successful its experiments with "free" ebooks have been. In this case, the publisher would offer up the first book in a series as a free ebook, and found that it drove massive increases in sales: One of our free titles was the #1 download on Amazon for the entire month of February. The subsequent sales of books 2 and 3 in the series increased by a rate of 20 to 1. For this series, digital sales are approaching 20% of the total product sales distribution and growing. With the visibility of the digital sales on Amazon, we have seen a substantial increase in print sales to the brick and mortar book chains. In this one instance, digital is driving print sales. Basically, what this publisher realized is that with most books, obscurity is a greater threat than "piracy," and free helps deal with that: Much of the talk by the big 6 publishers has been stress over cannibalization of print sales, or the idea of replacement sales, by ebooks. For midlist publishers such as ourselves, I believe we fight against substitution. We capture the "browser" market. If our title is not available or visible, a customer will simply substitute for another one in the genre. Free gave us the visibility that we could not purchase.

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Le tant attendu jeu d’action / Aventure, God of War III est maintenant disponible aux US. Suite des God of War: Chains of Olympus, God of War, God of War: Betrayal, et God of War II, ce nouvel opus sera le cinquième et dernier chapitre de la Série.
Les autres pays ne devraient pas tarder à suivre.

Eight years ago, the federal government faced a hot-button cultural policy issue as online retail giant Amazon.com, which was already selling millions of dollars of books to Canadians from its U.S.-based site, sought entry into the Canadian market.  Canadian investment regulations posed a significant barrier, however, since the law required government approval for foreign investment in the book publishing and distribution sectors.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that Amazon was ultimately granted a form of non-entry entry.  The company established Amazon.ca, but did not set up shop in Canada.  Instead, it outsourced distribution to Canada Post, enabling the government to rule that the company’s plans fell outside the book distribution restrictions.


Amazon.ca is now well-entrenched in the Canadian e-commerce landscape and seeks to create its own Canadian distribution channel.  The plan requires government approval, which recently led to predictable outcries from the Canadian Booksellers Association.  The CBA wrote to Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore - who must decide the issue - to urge him to reject Amazon’s application.  

It argued that Amazon’s entry would "detrimentally affect independent businesses and would raise serious concerns over the protection of our cultural industries. Individual Canadian booksellers have traditionally played a key role in ensuring the promotion of Canadian authors and Canadian culture. These are values that no American dot.com retailer could ever purport to understand or promote."

The CBA’s attempt to cloak the issue as a matter of Canadian culture is unsurprising, but Moore should recognize this for what it is - a transparent attempt to hamstring a tough competitor that ultimately hurts the Canadian culture sector.

Evidence of the benefits of major retailers to Canadian culture comes directly from a 2007 Turner-Riggs report commissioned by Canadian Heritage on the Canadian book retail sector.  It pointed to a Quill & Quire study that found that consumers were far more likely to find Canadian titles in the large chains than in smaller independent stores.  

Moreover, a second study of sales from eleven small Canadian literary presses found that online sellers represented the largest source of sales growth, while both chain and independent booksellers experienced relatively static sales.

Neither of these findings should come as much of a surprise.  The scarcity of space in brick and mortar bookstores has long been a key concern for Canadian authors and publishers, who fear that their titles might get squeezed off the shelves.  

Big chain retailers alleviated those concerns to some degree by offering up far more space for titles of all origins (though at a cost of greater reliance on those chains and a weaker bargaining position on commercial terms). Online sellers such as Amazon removed the scarcity concerns altogether, since the number of books the company can offer is unlimited.  

That undoubtedly means more competition, yet it also ensures that fears consumers will be unable to access Canadian titles have disappeared.  Indeed, the report concludes "the visibility of Canadian titles - and Canadians' access to them - in online book retail rose significantly with the launch of Amazon.ca and its considerable selection of Canadian- sourced inventory."

In 2000, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage conducted hearings on the Canadian book market.  The resulting report - The Challenge of Change: A Consideration of the Canadian Book Industry - recommended that the government "ensure that no foreign investor is allowed to take over a Canadian firm in the book industry unless credible assurances are made that the investment will increase the availability of Canadian-authored books."

The experience of the past decade has demonstrated that greater retail competition does increase the availability of Canadian books. While the book industry may still require support to bring Canadian books to market, restrictions on who may sell or distribute those books represent a harmful barrier from a bygone era.

Long awaited action-adventure video game God of War III is available in the US as of yesterday.
Being released after God of War: Chains of Olympus, God of War, God of War: Betrayal, and God of War II, it is the fifth and final chapter of the story.

Fiji emerged from the shadow of Tropical Cyclone Tomas on Wednesday, with officials reporting one death and widespread damage to the South Pacific island chain.

Fiji emerged from the shadow of Tropical Cyclone Tomas on Wednesday, with officials reporting one death and widespread damage to the South Pacific island chain.

The Google Public Policy Blog recently posted a summary of a speech by Chief Economist Hal Varian on newspaper economics. Alongside the we-are-not-your-enemy message that Google is hoping newspapers will someday listen to, it contains useful insights on the challenge of succeeding as an established print publication in the digital world. Varian suggests a few potential courses of action, but the real value of the piece is that it highlights the obstacles in a way that can be tackled by experienced insiders—especially marketers and salespeople, which newspapers employ in abundance but often fail to set free on experimental strategies.

One of the first things Varian establishes is the volume and value of online news readers, and then he looks at the difficulties of turning that value into revenue. The numbers may be discouraging for newspapers, but they could also become the basis of several important short- and long-term goals in an online strategy:

"Visitors to online newspaper sites don't spend a lot of time there. The average amount of time looking at online news is about 70 seconds a day, while the average amount of time spent reading the physical newspaper is about 25 minutes a day. Not surprisingly, advertisers are willing to pay more for their share of readers' attention during that 25 minutes of offline reading than during the 70 seconds of online reading. So even though online advertising has grown rapidly in the last five years, it appears that somewhat less than 5% of newspapers' ad revenue comes from their internet editions, according to the most recent Newspaper Association of America data.

There's a reason for the relatively short time readers spend on online news: a disproportionate amount of online news reading occurs during working hours. The good news is that newspapers can now reach readers at work, which was difficult prior to the internet. The bad news is that readers don't have a lot of time to devote to news when they are supposed to be working. Online news reading is predominately a labor time activity while offline news reading is primarily a leisure time activity."

Varian talks about the need to increase leisure involvement with online news, and in the full speech, he lists ways this might be done: leveraging new technologies like smartphones and tablets, developing more engaging formats for journalism (like Google Living Stories, which recently went open source), and creating multimedia experiences.

These are all important ideas, but to some extent, they miss an opportunity by focusing on ways to get people reading at home instead of work: namely, don't at-work readers have value too?

For a long time, newspapers have used "business purchasing influence" as a prominent reader statistic in media kits. But we now live in a world where business purchasing influence is a much more distributed thing, hardly limited to managers and IT folk: employees at every level in every field make use of online services to expedite their work. Web services subvert the top-down model of corporate IT, allowing workers to seek out the tools that work best for them. These services usually have freemium models, with prices that suit small departmental budgets, and since there's no software installation there's no need to involve IT staff.

Think web blockers (plenty of companies still have laughably low email attachment limits). Think Flash-based presentation tools (graphics departments hate PowerPoint). These are bottom-up business services: a few employees get free accounts, a few more get on board, and before you know it a whole department is more than happy to pay a monthly fee for such a useful tool. These are the companies that want to reach people at work, during those 70 seconds they spend reading a news story while wondering how to transfer a 50-megabyte PDF.

There are some other excellent parts of Varian's post, including a look at the goldmine vertical markets which have traditionally sustained newspapers: automotive, travel, home & garden and the like (he oddly fails to mention real estate, which is a biggie). These are the same verticals that sustain Google's search advertising—the problem is that the end market is now specialty sites, not news publications. Though Varian doesn't discuss the possibilities, this is an area where newspapers still have a chance: they should be leveraging their community respect while partnering with specialty purchase sites through advertising and affiliate programs, ensuring that they continue to be an important link in the chain. TechCrunch recently reported on a Forrester Research study that estimates that web-influenced offline sales in the U.S. (purchases where the consumer made their decision online then went to a retail store) are worth nearly a trillion dollars, and news websites should absolutely be a part of that.

It's well worth reading Varian's post in full, but in the end, his core piece of advice is what counts:

"In my view, the best thing that newspapers can do now is experiment, experiment, experiment. There are huge cost savings associated with online news. Roughly 50% of the cost of producing a physical newspaper is in printing and distribution, with only about 15% of total costs being editorial. Newspapers could save a lot of money if the primary access to news was via the internet."

That really is the core of it. Newspapers must experiment with new ways to report the news, new ways to engage their readers and new ways to get advertisers on board, while embracing the fact that their readers are switching to a medium that costs them less. There are over 70-million Americans reading news online—if newspapers can't turn those eyeballs into money, someone else will.

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As far as we’re concerned, March means Madness of the basketball variety, and keeping up with all aspects of the NCAA tournament is an absolute must. If you feel the same way, then we think you’ll find our complete guide to all things college basketball on the social web indispensable.

A recent survey revealed that this year, more Americans than ever are going to be turning to the web and social media for their NCAA fix. Although traditional TV comes out on top, 54% of those quizzed are planning to catch the action live online, 10% via a mobile device, and 18% through various social networks. If you’re one of the many participating online this year, check out these resources.

Facebook Fast Break

Facebook is a popular destination for NCAA fans. Not only can you catch up on the latest news, but you can get your fellow basketball-loving buddies involved too — whether it’s for some trash talking, or to celebrate the win of a mutually fave team.

The Official NCAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Facebook Fan Pages will allow you to connect with nearly 10,000 others (4,000 on the Women’s page) on the social networking site.

As well as having info on the NCAA with links to sites of interest, the Pages offer informal commentary from the NCAA teams, fan comments and insight, ticketing info, and comprehensive events data.

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a bracket system that’s available within Facebook, then Bracket Challenge by Citizen Sports is a popular option. The free Facebook app will get you making your picks in no time at all, and offers the chance at a $5,000 grand prize. Bracket Challenge also has the option to create pools with your friends.

Mobile Madness

Citizen Sports also offers a free companion app (to their aforementioned Facebook application) for the iPhone or iPod touch with customizable push notifications for your favorite teams.

More mobile options include the 99 cent Pocket Bracket for the iPhone and Android devices that allows you to create unlimited brackets and organize pools from your phone. You can compete against thousands of users on the PocketBracket Network, as well as your friends, family, and coworkers.

The Baseline Fan series of apps, available for the iPhone and iPod touch, offer basic team-specific data for 99 cents a pop, while fans of free should take a look at Talk Hoops, another dual-platform app, offering aggregated news in one place.

Web-based Winners

Facebook and phones certainly aren’t the only places to get your bracket challenge fix. There is a wealth of online options, many offering larges cash prizes, should you be astute enough to pick the perfect bracket. Of course, the odds of that happening are a whopping 9.2 quintillion to 1. Still, the contests below are all great places to make your picks and each (excluding Applebee’s) come from sites that offer a dearth of tournament news, scores, opinions, and analysis, as well.

The 2010 Yahoo! Sports Tourney Pick’em game offers a whopping million dollar prize for a perfect bracket, while having the next highest scoring bracket will nab you $10,000. This gives you the option to join the masses or create a private group with invites that can be sent via e-mail, Facebook or Twitter.

If you don’t have a Yahoo! ID or care to create one, there’s also ESPN’s 2010 Tournament Challenge, as well as another chance at a $1 million prize from restaurant chain Applebee’s.

Also getting in on the online action is Fox Sports with their bracket challenge, and CBS, which is offering the enticing grand prize of a 2011 Infiniti M for the top bracket champ.

The biggest prize this year, though, has to be from AOL’s Fanhouse, with the SoBe Lifewater Zero Inhibitions Bracket Challenge that boasts a $9 million jackpot for anyone with a perfect bracket. (Again, though, good luck with that.)

Video Slam Dunk

With your bracket picked, you need to find somewhere to watch the action, and while the NCAA’s official YouTube channel offers a good overview of the organization, the better destination for live coverage is the NCAA March Madness on Demand website.

Powered by CBS, this website offers free live streaming video of every game in the 2010 championship. That means, the only things you’ll need to watch the entire tournament is your computer and an Internet connection. In addition to the live streams, there will be game highlights for those that need to catch up in a hurry, and full game archives for any poor sucker that missed a must-see match. A “High Quality” player option offers a widescreen view with a better quality feed.

If you can’t get yourself in front on a computer in time for tip-off, then the CBS Sports NCAA March Madness On-Demand app for the iPhone and iPod touch is a great option. It’s also perfect for those who don’t want to be tied to their desk or television screen during the tournament.

For $10, this app will give you live streaming video of all 63 games via either Wi-Fi or a cellular connection, from the first round through the finals. The app also offers game previews, a real-time tournament bracket, scores and headlines, and the option to comment and trash talk via Facebook and Twitter.

Twitter Tip-Offs

As with any other topic you could possibly name, Twitter offers a great way to keep up with what’s happening in the world of NCAA basketball, and there are a few Twitter accounts you should follow if you want to stay in the hoop… sorry — loop.

The main NCAA Twitter account offers all sorts of official news from the world of college sports. But if you’re only after hoop-specific NCAA news, the basketball account is where it’s at.

Elsewhere, you can grab news snippets from the Twitter home of the “ubiquitous college basketblog” Rush the Court.

If you like getting your basketball news from sources who can add a bit of commentary to the game, then there’s a ton of sports journos tweeting who can offer just that.

Tweeple that cover the NCAA basketball championship for various media outlets include 12 New York Times reporters and editors at The Quad, and a team of Sports Illustrated writers and photographers as well.

ESPN fans can follow longtime college basketball analyst Dick Vitale, senior writer and college basketball reporter Andy Katz, college hoops reporter Dana O’Neil, and Jimmy Dykes, who works for ESPN and also offers analysis on ABC.

CBS meanwhile comes in with Seth Davis, as well as columnist Gary Parrish, who should offer you some good insight into the Big Dance.

Conclusion

If we’ve overlooked a service you use, be sure to shout it out in the comments. Or, if you have an idea for an even better way to use social media to keep up-to-date with the March Madness, then Coke Zero wants to hear from you as part of their clever, basketball-themed social media promotion.

The fizzy drink company is currently asking for ideas to improve the NCAA fan experience. A winning idea could net you $10,000 and tickets to the 2011 Final Four. So get your thinking caps on!

More sports resources from Mashable:

- 5 Reasons Every Sports Fan Should Be On Social Media
- 5 Social Media Lessons the NBA Can Teach Businesses
- When Social Media Gets Athletes in Trouble
- How the PGA Tour Uses Social Media to Connect with Fans
- Social Media Analysis: The 2010 Winter Olympics

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, http://www.istockphoto.com/user_view.php?id=185191

Tags: basketball, facebook, iphone apps, List, Lists, march madness, NCAA, sports, twitter

A new study suggests that fighting climate change by seeding the ocean with iron could result in algal blooms that produce a neurotoxin, killing marine life and eventually working its way up the food chain to humans.

Accounts of Chemical Research, Volume 43, Issue 3, Page 357-367, March 16, 2010.