bird

Those Angry Birds will soon be facing the dark side of the Force in the next installment of the popular game series.

Scheduled for download on November 8, the new game for iOS, Android, and computers will see the birds square off against the pigs but in the familiar "Star Wars" galaxy.

In Angry Birds Star Wars, the birds will take on the personalities of the intrepid heroes, with the red bird assuming the lead role as Luke Skywalker. The evil piggies will be playing for the dark side of the force, taking on the roles of Darth … Read more

A new service aiming to help media and PR companies determine which influencers can best amplify their messages launched today, with Mark Cuban as lead investor.

Known as Little Bird, the San Francisco startup was founded by former ReadWriteWeb reporter Marshall Kirkpatrick. Cuban led the $1 million round, along with additional investment from the Social Leverage Group, Hubspot co-founder Dharmesh Shah, and former Twitter engineer Blaine Cook.

For now, Little Bird is in private beta. In an e-mail to CNET, Kirkpatrick explained that the service is mainly used to help companies with their social-media or content-creation strategy. "For example, … Read more

Twitter launched a new star during the presidential debate on Wednesday, but he wasn't wearing a suit and tie. Big Bird from "Sesame Street" was the subject of an explosion of tweets after the topic of cutting funding to PBS came up between President Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney.

There was a point during the debate where the phrase "Big Bird" was tweeted 17,000 times a minute. That's some serious action for a fictional creature. He also spawned a slew of satirical accounts. This all just goes to show how Twitter … Read more

Rovio, owner of the popular Angry Birds franchise, today updated its Tumblr blog with an animated image of a something -- presumably a very Angry Bird -- wearing a Jedi robe and holding a lightsaber.

The post says the company will have "behind-the-scenes content, animations, comics, and much, much more" on the page over the next few weeks.

Rovio didn't provide many details, besides hinting at something happening in New York's Times Square at 10 a.m. ET on October 8. The … Read more

Mitt Romney ruffled a few feathers during the first presidential debate with suggestions that days may be numbered for Big Bird of "Sesame Street" fame, hatching a social media backlash and in turn illustrating the power of sites like Twitter in politics.

A number of satirical Big Bird accounts popped up on Twitter after the Republican presidential nominee implied the famed yellow bird would meet an untimely demise, along with PBS subsidies, if he were elected president.

"100 Retweets and I'm going to make my nest outside Romney's bedroom window," read one tweet from … Read more

Twitter memes can come out of nowhere and take the world by storm. Such was the case last night with the creation of @FiredBigBird, an account started in apparent protest of Mitt Romney's promise in the presidential debate to axe PBS' funding.

Quickly rocketing to more than 20,000 followers, @FiredBigBird was the Big Bird-related ID of choice for "Sesame Street" fans upset at the Republican presidential nominee's threat to the TV network and the tall, yellow feathered star of that hit kids show.

But today was not such a good day for @FiredBigBird. Only hours … Read more

Proving a point that Twitter made yesterday that the microblogging service gives brands a powerful way to build loyalty and find new customers, PBS today purchased a promoted tweet tied to one of the hottest terms to come out of last night's presidential debate, "Big Bird."

According to BuzzFeed, the purchase comes as a response by the network to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's suggestion that he would cut funding to PBS as a way of reducing government spending, despite his personal affinity for Big Bird, one of the main characters on the hit PBS children'… Read more

If you were monitoring the presidential debate between Mitt Romney and President Obama in Denver last night via Twitter, you might think that Big Bird and Sesame Street were the sole topic of conversation.

In the midst of pledging to cut federal funding for PBS if elected, Romney apologized to moderator Jim Lehrer -- who hosts the PBS Newshour -- saying, "I like PBS, I love Big Bird. Actually like you, too."

Almost instantly, satirical Big Bird accounts like SadBigBird, Fired Big Bird, and BigBirdRomney sprung up on Twitter and gathered thousands of followers over the next hour. At one point during the debate, the phrase "Big Bird" was being tweeted 17,000 times a minute.

Portland-based activist Sam Chapman took it a step further and posted a campaign on Indiegogo after the debate titled "Keep Your Mitts Off of Big Bird!" The flexible funding campaign will send all funds raised -- regardless of whether the $100,000 target is reached -- directly to PBS.… Read more