#5 The Official YouTube Blog lists a few interesting channels to subscribe to, and it’s a safe bet to say YouTube will the be number one destination online for match highlights and interviews.

#4 If you are interested in real-time updates on your team or live matches, what’s better than Twitter? The hashtag spam fest has already begun, as you can see from the screenshot below.

#3 I must confess that the Google football gadget for iGoogle could become my favorite during the next weeks. It seems to offer a convenient way to access information on group standings, fixtures, results and news about the World Cup.

#2 Yahoo! will focus on content and has a dedicated portal for the 2010 World Cup news coverage. The Dirty Tackle soccer blog will offer frequent daily posts filled with humor, nonsense and sarcasm.

#1 If you are into football tactics and appreciate match previews and a well thought post-match analysis with informative graphs and diagrams, Zonal Marking is the football blog you are looking for. The 32 teams playing in the 2010 World Cup have been analyzed in their strengths and weaknesses; we can expect high quality match reports (and many user comments) in the days to come.

Do you know any other good websites or Twitter accounts to follow during the World Cup? Connect with Facebook and share a link in the comments below!

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Moderator on YouTube can be a great way for crowdsourcing ideas, enabling real-time feedback. Google Moderator has been already used by YouTube to submit questions for interviews with USA President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Twelve YouTube channels have implemented Moderator: See how Foodwishes integrated the module to ask users to submit video recipe requests on the image above. In the video below, Howcast is asking users’ ideas for their next “how-to” video.

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Blockbusters are not part of the movie catalog yet, but independent movies and Bollywood productions could satisfy a great audience.

The Buy Song button and download link to iTunes are the most relevant ads YouTube could embed in a music video, in the future we can expect prominent calls to action regarding the latest dvd releases.

Is YouTube’s integration with iTunes at risk? Google’s partnership with Apple shows how online videos can benefit the music industry, and since YouTube is taking baby steps in movie rentals, nothing will change in the short term.

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Power also highlights the game that is on, essentially between Google and Facebook, to become the main attention holder online, and “sell them everything and help them buy or source products better.” Such as the ‘group buy deals’ on just about all products that could be possible through Facebook. The winner of this game, he claims, “is the one with all the names.”

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Agreed.  It is simply brilliant. What it does for me is show the importance and endless opportunities of multi-channelled, well synergized ad campaigns. Not to mention the massive viral impact. This integrated approach saw 200 accomplices convince over 1000 unsuspecting Italian football fans to attend a fake opera and poetry event on the night of the AC Milan vs Real Madrid match. The event was also televised on SkySport. It turned out to be a private viewing of the match, but its delivery saw a shift in mood from guys on the verge of revolt, to a feeling of sheer relief and joy, making Heineken an absolute legend. That alone is masterful execution of planning, guerrilla and TV marketing efforts. But what followed is the real genius of this approach.

To sum up the video, 1136 people were coaxed into this stunt, 1.5 million viewers saw them on SkySport and 10 million people heard about it on the news the next day. That’s already a huge amount of free publicity. But the real impact came on the web, with a staggering 5 million unique visitors to the website over the next 2 weeks and an inestimable amount of coverage on blogs, forums, and social networks. Since I have come across the video, I have seen it pop up in several places. A search for Heineken Viral on Twitter will demonstrate what I mean. With each blog comment, re-Tweet, or Facebook ‘like’, Heineken is getting some great free publicity. It will be interesting to see how many views the YouTube video will receive (currently 49,508), but I’m sure this chunk of advertising gold will continue to spread.

The bottom line is that it is one giant notch on the belt for JWT/Italy and another addition to a history of great Heineken ads. This campaign hit its target perfectly and highlighted the notion that men are losing the ability to relax and watch the game with friends.  With a clear respect for the ability of social media and the internet in general to gain mass exposure, it appears this campaign is actually the same as Heineken in one respect: ‘Made to Entertain’.

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