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We’re giving away a limited edition Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 bundle!

We are kicking off our holiday giveaways with a bang! We’ve teamed with our friends at shoot it! to bring you this Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 limited edition console, a $400 value. The bundle includes a custom Xbox 360 console with exclusive design, a 250GB Xbox 360 hard drive, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, a pair of black controllers, and more. It hits stores on November 10th, and we’ve pre-ordered one that we’re giving away to one of you. Be sure to check out the giveaway rules to see how to enter!

Contest: Win a trip to New York, $1,500 shopping spree, more!



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Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Announcements, Features

MAGnificent makeover

Yes, we realize we are in the midst of our awesome Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 limited edition console giveaway, but hey, it’s the season for giving and we are taking part in yet another fantastic contest that we need to tell you about. Here’s the deal:

We, along with 24 other sites, have partnered with MAGHOUND and People StyleWatch to bring you the MAGnificent Makeover sweepstakes. Up for grabs is a grand prize that includes:

  • Roundtrip Airfare for two (that would be you and a guest!) to New York City, NY on a Thursday through Saturday
  • Airport Transportation to and from the NYC airport to the hotel
  • Hotel Accommodations for a Three-Day/Two-Night stay at a NYC hotel of the Sponsor’s choice
  • An afternoon of pampering at a People StyleWatch Recommended Salon, which will take place on the Friday of the trip. Guy or girl, be ready for a salon consultation and treatment that’ll have you walking out feeling like a new person.
  • A $1,500 Shopping Spree with a People StyleWatch Editor (on that Friday) who will advise on trendy outfits and wardrobe suggestions at a retail store of the Editor’s choice

Oh, did you think that was all? We’ve also got three first prizes as well. That’s right, three people will be chosen to receive a $100 gift card to either Macy’s or Sephora, your choice.

Here’s the kicker - the contest ends on December 15th, and you can enter once per day! Seriously, go back daily and you increase your odds of walking away with this amazing prize package. Head on over to the entry page to enter and get full details, and be sure to select “Gear Live” in the “How did you hear about this?” pulldown menu.

Read More | MAGnificent Makeover Entry

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Show us your Pwned Face and win a Limited Edition Xbox 360 Modern Warfare 2 console!



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Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Announcements, Cell Phones, Video Games

We love the holidays. Why? Because it puts us in a giving mood, and we know how much you guys like receiving from us. That’s why we’ve teamed up with our friends at shoot it! to bring you this awesome promotion. If you’re a gamer, you probably know that Microsoft is set to release a limited edition Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 console. It hits stores on November 10th, and we’ve pre-ordered one that we’re giving away to one of you. In case you’re unfamiliar with the console, here’s what’s in the box:

  • Limited edition Xbox 360 Console with exclusive design
  • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Standard Edition.
  • 250GB HD
  • 2 black wireless controllers
  • 1 black Xbox 360 wired headset
  • 1 Ethernet cable
  • 1 Standard Xbox 360 Composite A/V cable

Yeah, did you see that? A 250GB hard drive. That is more than twice the size of any other Xbox 360 hard drive that you’ll find. This is a serious piece of kit! So, how do you win? Simple. We want to see your “pwned face.” This is where shoot it! comes in. We want you to take a pictures of the face you make when you just pwned a n00b straight out of existence - but we also wanna see the sad pwned face you make when you get straight-up schooled by an 6-year old Halo prodigy. Entertain us, make us laugh, and strike fear into our hearts. We’ve got a few ways that you can enter the contest:

  1. If you don’t have the shoot it! app: You can register for the shoot it! app and they’ll email you a link to download the app for either your BlackBerry 8900, Bold, Tour, or iPhone. They’ll also add 3 FREE postcard credits to your account. All you need to do is snap your photos and send them off using shoot it! to the Gear Live mailing address listed below.
  2. If you already have the shoot it! app on your phone: Enter the promo code “gearlive” to receive the 3 FREE postcard credits. All you need to do is snap your photos and send them off using shoot it! to the Gear Live mailing address listed below.
  3. If you don’t have any of the shoot it! compatible phones: Take a photos of your pwned face, send them to the Gear Live mailing address listed below.
  4. On Twitter, send the following message:
    “Hey @gearlive - I’m sending you my #pwnedface with @shootitmobile. That Xbox 360 is mine! http://bit.ly/pwnedface”
    (Click here to tweet this now)

You should be following the Gear Live Twitter account. Be sure you put your email address and Twitter handle that you used to enter in the message area so that when we get your shoot it! postcard, we can contact you if you win! We will be picking a winner on Monday, November 30th. You can enter as many times as you like, so if you wanna send us fifty different shoot it! images, go for it. The more, the merrier. Here’s the address:

Gear Live
PMB 443
914 164th St SE Ste B12
Mill Creek, WA 98012

Of course, there are always rules to keep things legal. In this case, you’ve gotta be 16 years old or older as of November 1, 2009 to qualify, and you’ve gotta be a US resident. Good luck to all!

Read More | Gear Live shoot it! Xbox 360 giveaway

GIveaway: Win a One Year MAGHOUND Membership



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Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Announcements, Features, Internet

Free Maghound Membership giveaway

We’ve been using MAGHOUND for a couple of months now on an evaluation basis, and we must say, we like the concept. The easiest way to describe it is to say it is like for magazines, but even that isn’t quite right. In a nutshell, when you join MAGHOUND, you choose a number of magazines that you’d like to receive each month. Let’s say, 3. Unlike traditional magazine subscriptions, though, if it turns out you don’t like a magazine, you just log in to your MAGHOUND account and replace it with something else.

Even better, if you subscribe to a magazine that only publishes every other month, then you also get to specify what substitute magazine you want to receive in the off months. You see, you are paying for three magazines per month, period. So if a magazine doesn’t print that month, you get to choose something else. It’s very cool, especially if you know there is an upcoming issue of a magazine that you definitely want. You can take a look at their complete magazine offerings to see what I mean.

Want in on the action? We are giving away TWO one-year subscriptions to the 3-per-month MAGHOUND plan, which would normally cost you $4.95 per month. Entering is simple - we will give one subscription away on Twitter, and the other on Facebook:

To enter the Twitter giveaway, be sure you are following Gear Live on Twitter, and tweet the following:

Hey @gearlive - Count me in on the MAGHOUND giveaway! http://bit.ly/maghound #gearlive (Click here to tweet this now!)

To enter the Facebook giveaway, just become a fan and leave a comment on the Gear Live Facebook page.

Feel free to enter both. Winners will be selected at random, and if you enter both, you will only be able to win one. The contest runs from today through September 11, at 11:59 PM PDT. We will announce winners on Monday, September 14th, and you must be a US resident to enter.


Contest: HP dv6 notebook, HP Mini 110 netbook, Timbuk2 bag, more!



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Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Announcements, Features, Hot Deals, PC / Laptop

HP Back To School Better Together GiveawayWe realize that it’s been a few weeks since our last giveaway, so we are back with a vengeance this time around. As part of HP’s Back to School: Better Together campaign, we are a part of 25 different sites that are giving away a bunch of portable computing technology to one lucky winner. So, what’s up for grabs? Take a look:

  • One HP dv6 notebook: Intel Core 2 Duo P7350, Windows Vista Ultimate, 4GB RAM, 500 GB Hard Drive, drive
  • One HP Mini 110 netbook: Intel Atom 270, Windows XP, 1GB RAM, 10-inch display
  • A customized Gear Live Timbuk2 bag
  • Syncables software pre-installed on the notebooks, for hassle-free synchronization between the two

Sounds good, right? We’ve made entering super-easy. Here’s how to throw your name into the hat:

That’s it! Our contest runs from today through August 20, at 11:59 PM PDT. As long as you’ve completed the above requirements by that time, you are entered. The winner will be picked randomly, and contacted through Facebook messaging, and will need to respond within 48 hours, or else another random entry will be selected as the winner. This contest is open to anyone, as long as you live on planet Earth, so you non-US residents, feel free to play along.


Facebook buys FriendFeed



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Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Acquisitions, Social Media

Facebook Acquires FriendFeedThe social media Internets are all up in arms this afternoon with the news that FriendFeed has been acquired by Facebook. The full details were announced on the FriendFeed blog, and according to the press release, “all FriendFeed employees will join Facebook and FriendFeed’s four founders will hold senior roles on Facebook’s engineering and product teams.”

A lot of the recent Facebook feature additions have been borrowed from, or inspired by, FriendFeed, so the move only makes sense. It brings Facebook directly into the real-time web scene, as they take aim for Twitter.

There is a lot of speculation right now as to what exactly will become of the FriendFeed product, since there is quite a bit of overlap between what FriendFeed does and what Facebook does. Fans of FriendFeed fear that all the features will be rolled into Facebook, while FriendFeed ceases to exist. All we know for now is that “FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being. We’re still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product with the Facebook team.” Kind of ominous, I know.

Still, if handled right, Facebook may become the standard for both connecting and real-time sharable status updates. Full press release after the cut.

Click to continue reading Facebook buys FriendFeed


What the F*ck is Social Media?



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Posted by Drea Avellan Categories: Marketing, Social Media

What the F*ck is Social Media: One Year Later, is a presentation by Marta Kagan depicting the impact of social media on our current culture. A great starting point for anyone just jumping into the social media bandwagon and a perfect way convince businesses to start taking social media seriously. The presentation explains that social media is about dialog with your consumers—it’s no longer a monologue. Filled with statics, metrics and tips, What the F*ck is Social Media One Year Later is a great presentation that gives some insight into the social media world in a clean, easy to understand manner.


Amazon acquires Zappos



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Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: News

It has just been announced that has purchased the vastly popular Internet shoe retailer Zappos for $850 million. The sale, confirmed in a letter sent from Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh to his employees, was for $807 million in Amazon stock, plus $40 million in cash and restricted stock.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has also given some feedback on the acquisition as part of a video that he put out today, embedded above.

You can check out the full press release, after the break.

Click to continue reading Amazon acquires Zappos


TripIt Introduces TripIt Pro Premium Flight Monitoring Service



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Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Business Tools, News, Product Offers, Productivity

TripIt Pro

Make no mistake, we are huge fans of TripIt, and have been using the trip managing site for two years now. I’d always wondered when I would be able to pay for the excellent service, and that answer came with today’s launch of TripIt Pro. TripIt Pro, first and foremost, stays on top of your flight plans and sends you text messages about flight delays, cancellations, and even gate changes (which is awesome.) In the event that a delay will mean you missing a connecting flight, TripIt will even let you know of alternate flights that will get you to your destination, including flight status and what seats are available. As you can see, TripIt is definitely trying to bring it with TripIt Pro.

According to the company, another much-requested feature has been added, that being a point tracker that keeps track of frequent flyer miles and hotel points that you rack up during travel. It’s nice to have that in your travel dashboard. Lastly, there is the Inner Circle, which basically let’s you set other specific TripIt members as contacts who can always view any of your itineraries, helpful for those of us with spouses or office assistants, where it would be helpful for them to just get those details without any action needed to be taken on your own.

TripIt Pro will cost $99 per year, and at that price, is well worth it if you travel often. Even better, though, is that from now through July 31, you can sign up and pay just $49 per year. If you sign up now, you will stay on a $49 per year price for every renewal period, until you cancel the service.

Read More | TripIt Pro

Gear Live Turns 5, gets to wear big boy pants!



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Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Announcements, Cell Phones, Features, Handhelds

Gear Live

Whoa! Gear Live is now five years old—can you believe that? I sure can’t. It seems like it was just yesterday that I started up this little blog, to share my thoughts on consumer electronics in my spare time, and eventually getting a friend to help me post some news. Before we knew it, this become my full-time gig, and we were adding writers, and sections, left and right. Today, Gear Live has over 20,000 articles spread across our various sections, headed up by some of the best writers in the blogging game. We’ve got video shows, giveaways, and a social network that we are building as well. Regardless of how many things we’ve got going on from the past, we will always have some neat tricks up our collective sleeves in the future.

So how are we celebrating? Well, how about if we gave you presents? Since it’s our fifth birthday, we decided we would give away five Mophie Juice Pack Airs. After all, people are all over the if our numbers are correct (they are,) and what better way to celebrate than by doubling the battery life of your iPhone 3G or 3G S?

How do you enter? Simple. Just leave a reply in our ‘Gear Live Turns 5’ forum thread, letting us know what your favorite Gear Live story of all time happens to be. It can be a text update, or one of our videos. Just leave a link and tell us why you liked it. Once you’ve done that, head on over to Twitter and tweet the following:

“@gearlive Turns 5, and I just entered to win a Mophie Juice Pack Air! http://bit.ly/mophie-air” (Click here to tweet this now)

We will choose five random entries as our winners, and they’ll receive the Mophie Juice Pack Air for their troubles. Why should you want one? Check out our Mophie Juice Pack Air review. Now to start comparing kindergarten programs…


Contest: Zune HD giveaway! (Final Round!)



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Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Announcements, Features, Handhelds, Hot Deals, Internet, Microsoft, Portable Audio / Video

Platinum Zune HD giveaway

The Zune HD is real, and we are going to be giving one away to one of our readers. You want in? All you need to to do enter to win the is help us win the I’m a Blogger Get me Out of Here contest. If we win, we will be bringing you content straight from the set of I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here. Seriously, I had to taste some of the most vile flavors I’ve ever put in my mouth, and you’ll probably get a few laughs out of it.

Here’s how to enter to win:

  1. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) - make the subject line “Vote for Andru Edwards” and hit send.
  2. If you don’t have one already, sign up for a Gear Live account
  3. If you don’t have one already, sign up for a Twitter account
  4. Add the Gear Live Twitter account to your follow list
  5. On Twitter, post the following tweet about our contest:

    “I just entered to win a Zune HD from @gearlive! http://bit.ly/zune-hd” (Click here to tweet this now)

  6. Once that is done, leave a comment in this forum thread with a direct link back to your Tweet, or a screen capture showing you voted. Be sure you are signed in to your Gear Live account before you leave the response.

Im a blogger get me out of here

BONUS ENTRIES: Want more chances to win? Share the link to our contests on the following sites, and leave us a comment linking to those as well:

  • Post a screen capture in the forum thread showing that you voted
  • Facebook: Shared Link
  • Del.icio.us bookmark
  • FriendFeed: Use Post a Link
  • Your blog: Have a site? Link to our contest on it!

Remember: The bonus entries are just that - bonus. In order to be eligible to win, you must complete the core Twitter requirements.

As we (hopefully) make it through each round, you get another chance to Vote all over again, giving you even more chances to win. The contest starts today, and is open to US residents only. You have until 11:00 PM PST on June 11th to enter your votes. We will then announce our winner, chosen randomly out of all valid entrants and bonus points, on June 12th. The winner will be sent a Zune HD right after the product launches. Remember, you have three chances to enter a vote!


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