Ina Fried

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The Super Bowl of Super Bowl Liveblogs

There are many reasons why one would want to watch the Super Bowl. Some people like the football, others the halftime performances, and many tune in just for the commercials.

We’ll be weighing in on all of these — as well as the Twitter reactions to each, in our second annual Super Bowl liveblog. For a taste of what to expect, here’s a link to last year’s liveblog.

Things should get started just before kickoff. On the football front, its the battle of the Harbaugh brothers, while the tech front will feature rival ads from BlackBerry and Samsung, as well as spots from Best Buy and others.

So pull up a chair, flip on the TV (or view CBS’s live Web stream on a second device) and get ready for some football.

3:20 pm: OK, it’s almost kic-off time. The Sandy Hook Elementary School just backed up Jennifer Hudson in singing “America the Beautiful.”

So, who do you have in the pool? Political numbers expert Nate Silver is going with the 49ers.

3:22 pm: Alicia Keys is — as some on Twitter had surmised — on the keys, playing the piano for a subdued version of the national anthem.

3:28 pm: Heads or tails. It’s a coin toss.

The 49ers will start with the ball, while Hyundai has possession of the next commercial, and Alicia Keys is getting some flack on Twitter for that rendition of the anthem. At least she wasn’t (or maybe she should have been) lip-synching.

3:38 pm: Some technical difficulties here have forced the laptop to the sidelines. Luckily, the iPad has been waiting for this opportunity all season.

3:40 pm: Back on the field, Baltimore is out to the early lead with a touchdown.

3:45 pm: Uh. Oh. GoDaddy.com commercial time. They usually manage to offend.

And they deliver… Lots of kissing in commercials this year.

3:55 pm: Amy Poehler is rocking the Best Buy spot. BTW, marketers, the word “dongle” is always funny.

If you missed it, here’s a link to the spot. We’ve also got the scoop coming up on a mobile-specific follow-up ad that Best Buy plans to run.

In the mobile ad, Poehler again quizzes the Best Buy sales rep, this time asking if they have the latest phones (they do), if they have all the plans (they do), and if they make commissions (they don’t).

Best Buy is touting the fact that it has all the major providers, as well as a new promotion that gives customers $50 in credit if they buy their next phone at the retailer.

4:28 pm: Cable Internet is failing me here, too, by the way. Thank goodness for iPad with LTE.

4:34 pm: As for the mood in the San Francisco Bay Area, Anand Iyer summed it up pretty well on Twitter. “The entire city is deflated.”

I’d expect a serious decrease in Silicon Valley innovation this week if things don’t turn around.

4:36 pm: Some racist ad for VW. Hmm. Maybe they are trying to compete with Go Daddy for the most offensive crown.

4:37 pm: The most offensive moment, followed by the cutest so far. An NFL commercial with Sam Gordon, a 9-year-old girl, running down the field against her presumably all-male Pee Wee peers.

4:43 pm: Meanwhile, if you want a really alternative take on the Super Bowl, check out the Portlandia on Twitter.

4:45 pm: Okay. The starters are back. My laptop and cable modem, that is. Hopefully that will mean faster updates, if not wittier.

4:47 pm: In the strangest commercial yet, Taco Bell has a bunch of older folks running around acting like hipsters.

4:49 pm: Ravens score again. Halftime can’t come soon enough for 49ers fans. Or Beyonce fans.

4:52 pm: Sorry, my wittiness is failing me. Not as much as the 49ers offense is failing them, though. Hopefully both will be better in the second half.

4:56 pm: For another perspective, check out this page from moment.me that sources different perspectives from within the Super Bowl crowd.

4:58 pm: Did the Niners QB just trip over the blue line of scrimmage? I thought that was only on TV.

5:01 pm: One thing that is a bit weird: If you watch the livestream, you see some of the same companies advertising — but generally not the same ads. But all the ads are themselves available online.

5:03 pm: Scientology ad. Guess it’s not just for Atlantic readers anymore.

If you need to replay any of the first half, here they are. The commercials, that is.

5:07 pm: Important analysis. If the 49ers don’t improve, they will lose.

5:09 pm: Time for the Pepsi Beyonce concert, Pepcifully brought to you by Pepsi.

5:11 pm: I can already predict the final score. Beyonce 1, Alicia Keys 0.

That said, it’s nice Keys was able to get time off from her job as BlackBerry Chief Creative Officer to perform at the Super Bowl.

5:16 pm: Here’s how the first quarter ads stacked up, according to Poptip.

5:25 pm: If you like our troops, apparently you have to go buy a Jeep.

5:29 pm: GoPro just had a cute baby commercial. Though, even with a rugged camera, I am still not sure you are supposed to throw your baby.

5:34 pm: The Ravens have come back on the field for the second half.

5:39 pm: It’s lights out for the 49ers. And the Ravens.

Seems like a blackout of some kind.

5:40 pm: And with that, it’s the BlackBerry commercial.

5:41 pm: Power’s still out.

Maybe CBS pulled the plug so they could show more commercials.

5:45 pm: 49ers have finally found a way to contain the Ravens.

5:57 pm: Bloomberg News is reporting that it was a power surge that caused the blackout. It sure didn’t come from the 49ers.

6:00 pm: Score one for PBS.

Screen shot 2013-02-03 at 5.59.24 PM

6:02 pm: Ravens expected to resume playing in seven to 10 minutes. No estimate on when 49ers might start playing.

6:03 pm: CBS briefly showed a clock counting the outage. It was at 27 minutes.

6:08 pm: And in case you are wondering, of course, the Super Bowl lights have their own Twitter account.

6:10 pm: Lights back. 49ers offense not.

6:12 pm: Hmm. Maybe not the best thing to be touting …

Screen shot 2013-02-03 at 6.10.34 PM

6:15 pm: When the lights went out in New Orleans, a lightbulb went on over at Oreo.

6:21 pm: Anti-poverty group One Campaign notes that 500 million people in Africa have never had power.

6:29 pm: BuzzFeed has a nice collection of Super Bowl blackout tweets.

6:33 pm: Power now restored to the 49ers, too, as they cut the Ravens lead to single digits.

6:37 pm: My Super Bowl math: One-minute commercial costs $3.7 million. So a 33-minute power outage equals $122.1 million worth of free advertising for Twitter.

6:40 pm: I thought they would restore power and play would resume. Never thought there would actually be a game.

6:42 pm: This.

From Kevin Mitnick:

Screen shot 2013-02-03 at 6.44.18 PM

6:49 pm: Breaking: Superdome to be renamed Enron Field.

6:56 pm: Meanwhile, Samsung just got some nice free advertising for its Galaxy Camera from Martha Stewart.

7:21 pm: That Sodastream ad aired. Anyone know the full story?

Oh. I guess the original had the Coke and Pepsi logos

7:29 pm: Samsung’s fourth-quarter ad placement, which looked like a bust earlier, turns out to be pretty good.

7:39 pm: Don’t the 49ers still have one blackout remaining?

7:41 pm: And that’s the ball game. I’d say that fans, CBS and advertisers got their money’s worth.

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First the NSA came for, well, jeez pretty much everybody’s data at this point, and I said nothing because wait how does this joke work

— Parker Higgins via Twitter