Aiming to attract more big-brand ad dollars, Twitter and the Weather Company have a new deal to create custom content around weather-related Twitter activity.

Twitter users will be able to see video clips of local forecasts, severe-weather coverage or user-generated content. But instead of requiring a link out to other websites, users can view the video within the Twitter stream, using the company’s “Cards” technology.

It’s similar to Twitter’s partnership with ESPN last year, where Twitter users were able to watch instant replays of college football, tweeted out from the official ESPN account. In that case, Twitter sold ad space to Ford, who played a short promo clip for the Ford Fusion automobile before each sports replay.

This time, however, it’s Twitter’s first foray into having non-sports branded-content partnerships, aiming to appeal to a larger audience of Twitter users and advertisers.

“There’s nothing more real-time than weather, and there’s no better real-time communication platform than Twitter,” said Joel Lunenfeld, Twitter VP of global brand strategy.

The idea is that if everyone is talking about a big weather event — like, say, Hurricane Sandy — Twitter can hone in on that flurry of activity and use it to serve up relevant promoted content to users who want to see it.

The trick for Twitter and TWC, of course, is to convince big brands to open those ad budgets up to the type of marketing that Twitter is offering. Twitter’s claim here is that it will boost engagement and reach and increase audience size. But as with any relatively new ad medium, it’ll take some convincing to get the brands to come around.

The Weather Channel, for one, is obviously bullish on Twitter’s ability to sell. “You can only go in and talk about price and ratings so much,” said Curt Hecht, chief global revenue officer for The Weather Company. “The media buying community will see this as a different kind of innovating, leveraging another platform.”

I take it that we’ll see if that’s the case. For now, I’ll be watching for storm clouds.

No coincidence, right?

Well. Maybe. The numbers are still rough, and will morph a bit over time. But here are the basics:

TV ratings are up slightly: CBS says last night’s game earned a 48.1 rating, which means it drew a few hundred thousand more U.S. households than the 2011 Super Bowl, which held the previous record with a 47.9 rating. Each ratings point equals about 1.14 million households, so once you’re done rounding, the audience for both games was right around 54 million homes. The Super Bowl is such a huge event that it’s hard to move the numbers much one way or another.

Social numbers are up a lot: You can take your pick of social metrics here, all of which measure different data sets. Social tracker Trendrr says social activity was up 2.7x, from 17.5 million comments to 47.7 million. Competitor Bluefin thinks comments were up 2.5x, from 12.2 million to 30.6 million. Twitter itself tracked 22.1 million comments, up from 13.7 million last year.

So: A lot more chatter, not many more eyeballs. This actually looks quite a bit like last year’s numbers, which saw chatter go way up while actual viewing dropped a tiny bit. And we’ve seen other examples, like last fall’s MTV Music Video Awards, where social metrics went up a bunch while ratings slumped.

So perhaps it’s time to stop associating increased Twitter and Facebook traffic with increased ratings. Social activity may help the TV guys keep an audience, and that’s certainly a good thing from their perspective.

But my hunch is what we’re really seeing is an increase in the per capita volume of social chatter. That is, people who like to talk about TV on Twitter and Facebook are even more likely to talk about TV than they were last year, or the year before that.

Now we have to figure out what that means for advertisers, programmers and the social networks themselves.

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.

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 …

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:

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.

And maybe a handful of you will want to do that, for some odd reason. CBS, which is streaming the game, figures the rest of us won’t.

“Our firm belief is that when it comes to the Super Bowl, most people are going to choose the best available screen,” says CBS Interactive head Jim Lanzone.

But Lanzone and his advertisers, who are spending something like $12 million on digital ads today, do want to get some of your attention focused on the network’s site during the game.

NBC made the first foray into Super Bowl streaming last year, with mixed results. A bunch of people checked out the network’s Webcast, but many came away underwhelmed.

If you wanted to spend “second screen” time during the game, chances are you did it the way you always spend second screen time: On Facebook and/or Twitter, both of which logged a record number of comments during last year’s game.

This year, the CBS game plan sounds much better, at least on paper. The network has several features ready that seem like they’ll reward viewers who are ready to split their attention among multiple screens.

For instance, there’s an “all 22” camera angle, which will give football junkies a rare look at the entire field of play — something that’s usually reserved for the likes of NFL coaches.

There’s also what CBS is internally calling its “subservient chicken camera angle,” where a roving cameraman will take cues from viewers, and head to whatever part of the field he’s told to go. And CBS’ player will have the equivalent of a DVR that lets you rewatch a play you just missed.

You like watching the Super Bowl ads? Sure, they’ve got that, too. In many cases the ones that appear on the live stream won’t be the same as the ones on broadcast — CBS has sold the streaming ads separately from broadcast, at prices Lanzone says are higher than the network’s standard Web video pricing.

But CBS says you’ll also be able to watch the broadcast ads on its site, immediately after each one airs.

*Want to watch it on your phone? To do it legally, you’ll need to be a Verizon customer, download an app and shell out $5, because the carrier has exclusive mobile rights. But isn’t an iPad or Nexus 10 mobile, too? Well, yes. But mobile sports rights only make sense to lawyers and biz dev people.

And what bizarre magic it is:

Sometimes, it seems like sports are impervious to the Internet.

Long before anyone had heard of social media, sports — both in the stadium and on TV — has been a social experience. That holds true today, even when “live” events can be anything but.

Still, “second-screen” apps, which aim to supplement live television for smartphone and tablet users, could yet have value for sports.

Case in point: Spogo.

The Boston start-up is awkwardly named, but clever in execution. Users download an app to their iPhones (Spogo plans to release an Android app after it finishes a round of seed funding) and use it to wager on what’s going to happen throughout the live game. But instead of betting money — a tricky affair in the U.S. — they bet points that can be exchanged for prizes.

Co-founder Andrew Vassallo said Spogo has a total of 50 prize-awarding partners in its two launch cities, New York and Boston. Most of those partners are sports bars, paying for both exposure through the app’s prizes (e.g. free beer or half-off a hamburger) and for data on the users who redeem those rewards.

It’s a simple gamification-lite twist that seems likely to get new people in the doors … if Spogo can attract an audience, of course.

To that end, Vassallo said he and his partner, David Shack, want to expand into other cities with the “big four” sports of football, basketball, baseball and hockey, starting on the East Coast and eventually moving west.

Right now, the app only covers football and offers rewards in those two Northeastern cities, so here in San Francisco, my betting on the 49ers-Pats game over the weekend didn’t do me much good.

On a broader scale, Vassallo and Shack also plan to branch out into betting on the outcomes of non-sports entertainment like the Oscars. And, of course, the prizes would be tailored for that decidedly different audience.

“Something like movie tickets through a partnership with AMC or a subscription to Netflix,” Vassallo said.

The reality is a lot more complicated, for a lot of reasons, but the upshot is that right now you can only watch a bit of what’s on cable on devices that aren’t your TV. And if the cable guys are going to convince people not to cut the cord, or to sign up for the cord in the first place, that’s going to have to get better.

One nice counterexample to TV Everywhere’s struggles is ESPN’s great WatchESPN app, which really does let you watch whatever you want, on just about any device, anywhere, live or on demand. That’s particularly useful for ESPN, since there are lots of cases where you can’t be in front of a TV but really do want to watch a game.

But even mighty ESPN can’t quite deliver on the TV Everywhere proposition. At left is what happened to me on Monday, when I wanted to check in on “Monday Night Football” on my phone, from my couch, at the same time we were catching up on “Homeland”* on the biggish screen.

The problem, says ESPN PR, is that Verizon has an exclusive on NFL mobile rights, so ESPN can’t deliver the game to me on my iPhone, even when I’m at home, on a Wi-Fi connection (which is the way that lots of mobile video gets consumed).**

That makes sense in a biz-dev sense, but that’s hard to explain to a sports fan who simply takes ESPN’s pitch at face value and expects to watch what they want, when they want.

And it makes even less sense to anyone who tried to do the same thing I did on Monday night, but used an iPad instead of an iPhone. Because that would have worked just fine — for whatever reason, the iPad isn’t considered a mobile device.

Again, trying to argue that some rights apply to a 9.5-inch screen but not a 3.5-inch screen is the sort of thing that makes sense to lawyers and deal-makers, and no sense at all to normal people.

You know, the people you want to keep paying for cable.

*This says a bit about what has happened to “Homeland” this season. During Season One, there was no way I was doing anything but staying glued to the set. Now I still watch it — and pay CBS for the privilege – but it’s become a one-eye program, and I don’t feel bad about checking email, Twitter, etc., while Carrie and Brody are up to their high jinks.

**This is also likely why NBC and Fox can’t deliver football via their new Dyle mobile service, even though that one relies on broadcast TV rights they should already have completely sewn up.

The spot shows PCs and tablets from the likes of Acer, Lenovo and Sony, including touchscreens which are, in part, intended to make the Windows ecosystem more competitive with devices like Apple’s iPad. The ads (see the video embedded below) starts with a countdown, as if for a rocket launch, but gets stuck on the number 8. It ends by showing a young girl “painting a picture” on a PC screen, and then showing the printed result to an adult, with the tagline “Windows Reimagined.”

The ads come 11 days before Microsoft is expected to officially debut Windows 8 at an event in New York, along with its Surface tablet device — which, oddly enough, is not shown in the ad.

It’s going to take the full buzz-generating capabilities of Microsoft and its partners to reverse the slide in the sales of PCs. Just last week, the market research firms Gartner and IDC reported that PC sales that declined by more than 8 percent from the same period a year ago. The slide in sales has been blamed in part on consumers who have held back on making PC purchases, knowing that a new version of Windows has been in the offing. But rarely in the past has a iteration of Windows significantly reignited PC sales by itself.

Corporations, meanwhile, are more conservative, and tend not to buy machines with the latest version of Windows until it has been upgraded once or twice by Microsoft with a service pack or two.

On top of all that, there has been the ongoing challenge of tablets like the iPad, and others running Google’s Android operating system, that have eaten into sales of PCs, particularly notebooks. Ads for those devices were also in heavy rotation during Sunday’s football games.

Here’s the ad:

But it’s a good one!

So: Look what happened at the end of Monday Night Football last night, after the “replacement referees,” brought in by the NFL after the league locked out its regular officials, blew the last call of the game. The move gave the Seattle Seahawks the victory instead of the Green Bay Packers, and kicked off a social media explosion:

This data comes from social chatter tracker Bluefin Labs, which tracks several social outlets, but it’s most heavily weighted toward Twitter. And if you were on Twitter last night you got to enjoy a torrent of entertaining commentary, from both amateur and professional wags.

The two tweets that seemed to resonate the most, though, came from Packers player TJ Lang, who’s going to end up spending a lot of money for these two outbursts, which have been retweeted more than 130,000 times. Avert your eyes if you don’t like cussing!

Got fucked by the refs.. Embarrassing. Thanks nfl

— TJ Lang (@TJLang70) September 25, 2012

Fuck it NFL.. Fine me and use the money to pay the regular refs.

— TJ Lang (@TJLang70) September 25, 2012

The most interesting question for Twitter, and for the media companies it is trying to court, is what all the chatter did for last night’s ratings.

A core part of Twitter’s story now is that its online discussion will end up generating more offline eyeballs for the TV networks, and my hunch is that this happened last night at ESPN.

It certainly did for me — I had lost interest in the game about an hour before, but switched it back on after Twitter exploded, and ended up watching another half hour of outraged post-game coverage while amusing myself online.

I’ve asked ESPN if they’ve got data that backs my theory up, and will update when I hear more.

(Image: Rachel Nichols via Twitter)

The concept is similar to a sportsbook in Las Vegas, where fans drink beer, place bets and watch their favorite teams play on giant screens.

Now, instead of traveling all the way to Sin City, players can tune in to Facebook to check out the odds and place bets while watching the game from their living rooms. And, because sports betting is illegal in the U.S., the free-to-play game doesn’t require players to spend a dime, making it a much more innocent form of entertainment.

The game, called Sports Casino, goes live today, just in time for the NFL’s season opener tonight between the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants.

In the game, players place their bets based on RocketPlay’s odds for a chance to beat the house. Initially, it will cover professional and college football, baseball and soccer games, with other sports, such as basketball, cricket and rugby, coming later.

RocketPlay, which has offices in both San Francisco and Tel Aviv, will be one of the first third-party developers to partner with Zynga. As part of that partnership, Zynga will publish the game on both the Facebook and Zynga.com platforms, and, in theory, direct thousands of players to use it. In return, RocketPlay will share the revenues with Zynga.

Matthew Cullen, president of RocketPlay, said the partnership with Zynga was attractive because of the 40 million users who play Zynga Poker every month, which makes it the second-most-popular game on the social network.

“Zynga Poker is an awesome game and it has a huge following — it hasn’t lost speed for them at all,” Cullen said. “We think sports betting is exactly the same thing, and that it’s going to complement them really well. We had a number of options for distribution, and partnering with Zynga made too much sense not to do.”

Third-party publishing is just one area where Zynga hopes to boost the company’s growth. The second is in real-money gaming, making Sports Casino a good match on two fronts. Last week, AllThingsD reported that Zynga hired Maytal Ginzburg as the company’s chief operating officer in charge of new markets, which includes gambling. Ginzburg was a high-level executive at 888 Holdings, which offers real-money games such as poker, bingo and sports betting online, where it is legal.

Cullen said RocketPlay was founded in 2008 as the developer behind Footbl.com, a social network for soccer fans, which managed real-money games based on fantasy teams. That is legal in the U.S. A little more than a year ago, it got serious about the opportunity on Facebook, given the popularity of virtual casino games, like slots, bingo and poker.

“We sat back and asked ‘why the hell hasn’t someone done sports betting?’” Cullen said, adding that sports betting is bigger than all the other kinds of gambling combined.

Cullen said that in addition to sports bets, Sports Casino will also incorporate other games you would normally find in a casino, like poker and slots, to keep people playing. Additionally, the Sports Casino offers “in-play betting,” which means that people will be able to place bets after a game begins on all kinds of propositions, such as which team will be the next to score, or what are the odds of a turnover.

Next, he said, the company will be bringing the game to mobile, and down the road, it will investigate the opportunity for real-money gaming, especially in Europe, where Facebook is already conducting experiments.

The company, which has 21 employees, is backed by $10 million in funding from Pitango, an Israeli-backed venture capital firm.

Here’s the press release:

RocketPlay Partners with Zynga to Bring Social Sports-Betting to Facebook and Zynga.com

Sports Casino Delivers Engaging Second-Screen Sports Experience with Live In-Game Betting

SAN FRANCISCO — Sept. 5, 2012 — RocketPlay, creators of groundbreaking social sports-betting games, today announced that it has launched Sports Casino, a social sports-betting title on Facebook and Zynga.com. Along with the game’s release, RocketPlay also announced its partnership with Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA), the world’s leading provider of social game services, to bring Sports Casino to the 306 million monthly active players on Zynga’s network of games across Facebook and other platforms. Sports Casino is available to play at www.zynga.com and on Facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/sportscasino/.

“Sports Casino delivers an authentic virtual sports-betting experience to social gaming and sports fans,” said Mani Honigstein, CEO, RocketPlay. “We’re thrilled to launch with Zynga’s support, a company that has set the social gaming benchmark and will help us bring a great game to a wide range of players.”

Sports Casino players enjoy an authentic Las Vegas-style sportsbook experience, placing virtual bets on global sports with real-time odds, while enjoying integrated casino games such as video poker, slots, and blackjack. Players can enjoy in-game, real-time betting while competing with their friends – a perfect second-screen complement to watching live sports on television. Sports Casino arrives just in time for action-packed betting on professional and college football, baseball, and international soccer.

The game appeals to the highly sought-after male gamer demographic on Facebook, particularly as social betting games continue to grow in popularity. Though the game currently uses only virtual currency, RocketPlay has developed Sports Casino to take advantage of the rising importance of real-money gambling in the social space as opportunity arises and legal restrictions are eased.

The Zynga Platform is a social gaming platform designed to give players the most social and fun gaming experience wherever they play, while helping third-party developers of all sizes launch, promote, scale and grow their games and business.

Following the Sports Casino’s release, RocketPlay will continue to update the game with new features and sports, including hockey, basketball, and more.

About RocketPlay
RocketPlay, formerly known as Gamingo, is a leading entertainment and gaming company, bringing sports and casino games to the Web, Facebook and Mobile. Developed by an experienced team comprised of social gaming and iGaming veterans from Betfair, Kabam, 888.com, and bwin.party, the company’s flagship product, Sports Casino, is the first of its kind on Facebook. RocketPlay is funded by Pitango Venture Capital and has offices in London, San Francisco and Tel Aviv.

That would be DirecTV’s “Sunday Ticket” package, which gives football fans the ability to watch every single NFL game, without geographical restrictions.

Normally, Sunday Ticket is exclusive to DirecTV, and I know lots of people who get the satellite service solely so they can binge on football every Sunday.

But this year, for the second year in a row, DirecTV and Sony are letting nonsubscribers pay for Sunday Ticket, via Sony’s PS3 game console.

Sony is promoting this primarily as a way for people who already have Sunday Ticket to watch the games on their console, at no extra charge. But it’s also selling the package to nonsubscribers, for $300 — $40 less than last year.

In theory, you’re not supposed to be able to order Sunday Ticket this way unless you’re physically unable to get DirecTV, presumably because of geographical restrictions. But I’m pretty sure that, just like last year, DirecTV won’t really vet this — you just say “no” when the prompt screen asks if you’re able to receive the satellite service, pay up, and you’re on your way.

Of course, if there are lots of people taking advantage of this loophole, you’d see DirecTV shutting it down, because it’s in the the business of selling monthly pay-TV subscriptions, not a la carte football packages.

But it’s fun to imagine a world where you could do this for everything, all the time. Not holding my breath…

Update: If you don’t want to pay for football but do want to watch it legally on the Web, you’ll be able to do that as well this year — for a single game a week. NBC will once again be streaming its Sunday night games online. And, unlike the Olympics, you don’t need to be a pay-TV subscriber to watch the feed.

If that sales pitch convinces you, the HBO subscriber, to fire up HBO Go and check it out for yourself, then my apologies. You can’t see the show on HBO’s excellent digital service, because HBO doesn’t have the rights to show it there.

That’s because unlike nearly every original show HBO airs, “Hard Knocks” isn’t actually an HBO show.

It’s a co-production with NFL Films, and NFL Films owns the show’s digital rights, including mobile rights. And HBO Go, for the purposes of rights deals, is considered a mobile service.**

So that’s annoying. On the positive side, “Hard Knocks” appears to be the only glaring hole in the HBO Go lineup. So its absence makes you appreciate just how comprehensive the HBO digital catalog is. Digital media in general has been plagued by rights gaps, but they’re getting smaller all the time.

More good news: Even if you don’t pay for HBO, you can see the show’s first episode, online, for free. (But that’s a one-off sample, HBO confirms — you’ll need to subscribe and watch the show on a television set if you want to see the rest of the season.)

And if you’re willing to poke around YouTube, you can watch a good chunk of the series, too. Here’s the highlight of last night’s show — and perhaps the entire series: Former star receiver/current Twitter celebrity Chad Johnson getting cut, following his domestic battery arrest.

*Alternate description, via Bloomberg’s Keenan Mayo: “The best business show on TV.” I’m not sure about that. But it is pretty great.

** Calling HBO Go a mobile service makes sense, of course, because it works on iOS and Android devices. But it also works on any machine with a laptop, which points out, yet again, how the legal definition of “mobile” is becoming less and less useful.

We’ll have a liveblog commenting on the game, the commercials, the apps and more, brought to you by tech-and-sports enthusiast Ina Fried, with possible contributions from other staffers, if they can be pried away from the game.

Our coverage will kick off just before the game does. In the meantime, check out our techie guide to the Super Bowl with info on apps, streaming and more.

2:17 pm: It’s still more than an hour to go until game time, but if you want to watch, NBC is streaming the pregame show. http://nflstream.nbcsports.com/

2:23 pm: Sharing a few of my friends’ comments re: The Super Bowl:

“The Super Bowl … keeping Roman numerals alive for 46 years.”

and

“so I heard there’s a Madonna concert on today, with some strange pre-show and post-show entertainment …”

Feel free to email me your observations on the game, the tech and more to ina@allthingsd.com, and I will add in some of them, as well.

2:32 pm: Here’s what NBC’s streaming of the pregame show looks like:

2:35 pm: The NBC app also allows, among other thing, reviewing the ads and switching of camera angles.

2:43 pm: Getting my gear all ready for the game, and to monitor the apps. So far, I have at the ready a MacBook Air for the blogging and, to see the coverage, a Verizon/Motorola Droid Razr Maxx with NFL Mobile. And an iPad. May dig out one or two more gadgets, as well.

2:46 pm: My colleagues at The Wall Street Journal note that there is a traffic jam with folks trying to get to the game — an air traffic jam. I hate when I can’t park my private jet:

3:07 pm: Another shot of my setup as we get ready for the big game.

Meanwhile, it’s time for the starting lineup. Some guy named Manning is starting for the Giants.

The Patriots have some guy named Brady.

3:11 pm: It’s time to meet the players for both teams. And/or heat up the five-layer dip.

3:12 pm: On the commercial front, meanwhile, it’s an ad for Hulu Plus. No Baldwins or aliens, though.

If you miss a commercial, by the way, NBC says you can rewatch it on their site.

Not sure if the same goes for key plays.

3:16 pm: “America the Beautiful,” with Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton. I missed who was singing on the TV. Luckily, NFL Mobile on Verizon Droid Razr Maxx is running about 10 seconds behind. Homegrown instant replays.

3:18 pm: Meanwhile, “American Idol” alum Kelly Clarkson is singing the National Anthem. So far I’d put “Idol” up by a touchdown over “The Voice.”

3:20 pm: Cut to commercial for Sacha Baron Cohen’s new film “The Dictator,” followed by a Verizon Wireless add for the Droid Razr, which now comes in colors. AJ’s excited: “You know me, I love colors,” he said.

As for me, I’m more excited by the Maxx and its extra battery life. Should have charged it up ahead of time to see if it could make it through the whole game.

Twitter is doing an interesting special Super Bowl page, monitoring how both teams are doing, tweet-wise:

3:26 pm: Meanwhile, on the field, New England won the coin toss and deferred to get the ball in the second half.

3:29 pm: As a reminder to all those enjoying the free livestreaming of the game by NBC, be thankful they have the game rights and not ESPN.

ESPN boss John Skipper told me at our D: Dive Into Media conference that he totally would have charged fans if he had the game rights.

3:38 pm: Quick game update: Giants will have to punt. Patriots will get it back, but deep in their own zone.

3:39 pm: Nice spot for Audi, touting the vampire-crushing power of its headlights.

3:41 pm: Whoa, intentional grounding call. Since Brady was in the end zone, it’s a safety. For you techie, non-sports fans, that’s two points for the Giants, plus they get the ball.

3:45 pm: Twitter is taking note of the fact that hashtags are everywhere in the Super Bowl ads, so far. Hashtags are the new URLs, says Gartner’s Michael Gartenberg.

3:50 pm: It was a catch and a fumble, but more importantly, the Patriots had an extra player on the field, so it’s just a penalty.

3:52 pm: Touchdown Giants, meaning Team Mossberg is off to a rough start, now down 9-0. Sorry, Walt.

3:54 pm: Best Buy just showed their cellphone ad — featuring, among other tech folks, Philippe Kahn, talking about the first cellphone camera. Also featured: Ray Kurzweil, the creators of Shazam, Instagram, Words With Friends and more.

It’s a fun spot.

3:56 pm: Also fun: The spot with a Chevy truck surviving the 2012 Mayan-predicted apocalypse. A bunch of guys in their trucks reunite, along with the Twinkies, which also survived. Not so lucky: The guy driving a Ford.

4:02 pm: Oh boy. Go Daddy at it again.

4:06 pm: Patriots kick a field goal to make it 9-3.

Meanwhile, colleague Joe Brown has dug up some most excellent Super Bowl related tweets, I’ll sprinkle in here:

@TheTweetOfGod notes this will be the last Super Bowl before the Apocalypse; @AndyBorowitz notes that porn sites are seeing a drop in traffic; while @JimGaffigan aptly points out that “The Super Bowl is like the Super Bowl of Super Bowl references.”

Borowitz also hypothesizes that Madonna’s halftime show will provide “a sneak preview of Lady Gaga’s halftime show in 2032.”

See something you like, send it my way to ina@allthingsd.com.

4:15 pm: Nice Volkswagen commercial mixes cute dogs and “Star Wars” to capture two key demographics.

4:20 pm: Aiming for equal time after that Go Daddy ad, there’s one that consists of just David Beckham in his underwear for 30 seconds.

4:23 pm: Interesting playbook for the Patriots, so far. I think it is the BlackBerry PlayBook.

4:28 pm: There are all these apps for making a game out of watching the Super Bowl. Hopefully, there is one that makes the Patriots make a game out it.

4:30 pm: Giants have to punt again, but they pin the Patriots deep again. New England will have it on their own four-yard line.

4:32 pm: It’s retro time, with Lucasfilm touting the 3-D version of “Star Wars,” and NBC touting the 53-year-old version of Madonna.

4:37 pm: Breaking: Teleflora steals ad team from Go Daddy. Then a funny ad from Sketchers, with a dog in tennis shoes.

4:38 pm: Wow, that Cars.com ad was creepy. With a capital “C” and a capital “REEPY.”

4:41 pm: Another tech note: NBC’s livestreaming is being aided by Vertigo, whose CEO, Scott Stanfield, asks everyone to help make the game the biggest streaming event ever.

4:43 pm: Grandma in wheelchair steals back Doritos bag by slingshotting baby to get it. Now it’s Etrade baby and pal “speed dating” in a hospital nursery. Babies are taking over.

4:46 pm: As for that football game thing, it’s almost halftime, with the Patriots in striking distance at the three-yard line, with 18 seconds to go.

4:47 pm: And Mossberg scores. Well, technically speaking, it was one of the Patriots on the field. Anyhoo, touchdown Patriots.

4:51 pm: And it’s halftime.

Or “game time” for many of my friends, who don’t understand why they are playing football at a Madonna concert, anyway.

5:00 pm: Hulu Plus gets another plug. Touts the ability to watch shows on all kinds of devices. Now it’s an evil(er) plan to take over the world.

Meanwhile, Shazam gets a shout-out in a Bud Light ad.

5:01 pm: And now, the moment you have all been waiting for … 1982.

5:04 pm: On the plus side, the wardrobe is fully functional.

5:06 pm: Meanwhile, if you Shazam the halftime show, you get a free LMFAO remake of Madonna.

5:11 pm: Dude, Madonna just stole the football field. We’re going to want that thing back.

5:16 pm: Here’s the Shazam app in action during the halftime show:

5:17 pm: And here’s how Madonna wrapped up her act, as seen on the one screen I haven’t talked about. It’s called a TV — people used to watch stuff on them:

5:23 pm: And, with some final halftime ads from Betty White and Clint Eastwood, we’re back to football. Brady and the Patriots have it just past their own 20.

5:28 pm: Walt carries it in again, as the Mossbergs extend their lead to 17-9.

5:31 pm: Just checked. RIM hasn’t made any personnel moves during this game.

5:36 pm: Some more great tweets curated by our fabulous Joe Brown:

@michaelianblack: Joan Rivers did an amazing halftime show.

@PFTompkins: That oughtta do it. World peace should be here by the next GoDaddy commercial.

@TheTweetOfGod: Patriots 10. Giants 9. Madonna 53.

5:39 pm: Giants did a kick-y thing. Now 17-12 Patriots.

5:39 pm: Update: Fiat also knows how to use sex to sell.

5:42 pm: I want to grab a beer, but I am afraid I might miss a commercial. Or accidentally grab a Bud Light Platinum, whatever that is.

5:43 pm: Meanwhile, NBC is plugging an NBC Sports Talk app.

Madonna gets a shout-out from her peers:

5:52 pm: It’s easy to miss, in all the tweets and ads and Madonnas, but there is actually a pretty good football game going on.

5:56 pm: It’s almost the moment you have all been waiting for … Samsung’s Galaxy Note commercial. It’s kind of like a futchdown.

6:06 pm: Loving the “Ferris Bueller” revamp Honda CR-V commercial with Matthew Broderick. #bueller

First Madonna, now Ferris Bueller. Glad my generation now runs all the companies. Or at least their ad agencies.

6:13 pm: Bud Light gets some “awww” points with its last ad, promoting the beer-fetching rescue dog, “Weego.”

6:21 pm: Woo Hoo. Careerbuilder monkeys. I’ve missed those guys.

6:21 pm: Fourth quarter, 9:24 left to go. You can text your vote to for Super Bowl MVP. Personally, I’ll need another 9:24 to give you my answer.

6:25 pm: Futchdown! Goofy ad for Samsung’s Galaxy Note phablet now on.

Not a lot of stylus fans on Twitter, as Samsung ad is getting roundly panned, as is the product.

6:29 pm: Dow Jones colleague Ian Sherr reports his stream of the Super Bowl is decidedly subpar. “None of the TV ads, and it doesn’t even break at the same time as TV.”

Of course, only at the Super Bowl does one complain there are not enough ads in Internet streams.

“I’ve missed several plays, and they keep playing the same ads with Dwight from The Office and “Act of Valor” over and over again,” Sherr said in a Twitter post.

6:32 pm: Meanwhile, it’s a two-point game, with 3:46 to play.

Giants have the ball, down two on their own 12.

6:34 pm: Throw to the sideline at 50-yard line ruled a catch. Patriots challenge, but looks pretty good. First key use of instant replay this game.

Yep, ruling on field confirmed, and will cost the Patriots a time-out.

6:37 pm: As for that Samsung ad, it was a first-ever commercial for director Bobby Farrelly, who is known for “There’s Something About Mary,” “Dumb & Dumber” and “Kingpin.”

If you need to re-watch it, it’s here.

I recommend doing so now, as there is another Go Daddy.com ad playing.

6:44 pm: Giants score, but likely would have rather used a little more clock.

New England will still need a touchdown, and have less than a minute to get it.

It’s now 21-17, Giants.

Sorry, was watching the game. First down, but clock clicking. Just 17 seconds left, though.

6:51 pm: Just nine seconds left now, with Patriots near midfield.

6:52 pm: Okay. Five ticks left, so this is probably it for both the Patriots and this liveblog. Hope you were at least entertained!

Incomplete. Giants win, 21-17.

6:55 pm: Disneyland or Disney World? That’s the only question that remains.

But if you watch the game on the Web, your eyeballs are worth a whole lot less. NBC, which is streaming the entire thing for the first time ever, will be lucky to get anything near a million dollars for that same ad when it runs online.

So why is Comcast’s broadcast network putting the game on the Web, period? Isn’t this the classic analog-dollars-to-digital-dimes trade that Big Media strives so hard to avoid?

Nope, says Rick Cordella, who runs digital for NBC Sports. The network assumes that nearly every eyeball — and every ad dollar — that it gets from the Web this week will be a bonus, because whoever watches online is simultaneously watching on a big TV, the way football is supposed to be watched.

This is supposed to be the classic “second screen” experience that Twitter’s Dick Costolo and so many other digital folks are excited about.

And that makes plenty of sense to me. Many TV guys have gotten plenty comfortable with the idea of streaming their most valuable live sports events online, for free. In most of those cases, the general assumption is that anyone who’s watching on the Web is someone who can’t watch the game on a TV to begin with — see the CBS/Turner Sports livestreams of the NCAA March Madness tournament.

And in NBC’s case, it is packing the Webcast full of extra camera angles and other goodies, including a feature that will let you rewatch every Super Bowl commercial once it’s aired. The assumption is that you’re holding the TV remote in one hand, and controlling your laptop with another.

NBC already does a version of this with its Sunday Night Football broadcasts during the regular season, and the network says it draws between 200,000 and 300,000 unique viewers per game (that’s the source of that Vikings-Saints screenshot, above).

Meanwhile, those broadcasts are the networks’ best-performing shows by a long shot, so it doesn’t seem to have slowed them down. The NFL, meanwhile, reports that Web companion streams of the Thursday night games it shows on its own channel averaged 450,000 uniques.

So Cordella argues that putting the biggest TV show of the year online, for free, is really no big deal. But I’m pretty sure that this attitude isn’t shared by everyone in the TV business, and we might hear a bit about that today at the D: Dive Into Media conference. Curious to see what ESPN boss John Skipper thinks, for starters.

Electronic Arts is predicting that the New York Giants will defeat the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl, by a single field goal.

For the past several years, the videogame publisher has been using its hit title Madden NFL to simulate the outcome of the Super Bowl — and in six out of the past eight matchups, it has guessed correctly.

But unlike the camel in the New Jersey zoo that has picked the winner of five of the last six Super Bowls, EA breaks down the score quarter by quarter.

EA simulates the Super Bowl by using artificial intelligence and real data from each team. It even includes variables such as injuries. The simulation is powered by Madden NFL and Xbox 360, the official console sponsor of the NFL.

EA replays the game’s highlights in a video, including Giants quarterback Eli Manning being named MVP for completing 25 of 39 passes with two touchdowns, and the Patriots’ Tom Brady throwing for 327 yards and three touchdowns.

Spoiler Alert: To win the game, Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes will make a 40-yard field goal, with the final score 27-24.

I thought this game was never going to end. Not football game. The “Will RIM CEOs ever Step Down?” game.

– AllThingsD‘s Ina Fried, via Twitter

The spot depicts a batch of assembly-line robots busily building cars, as an instrumental version of the 1979 Gary Numan hit “Cars” plays happily. All is well until one of the robots experiences trouble and complains to the others, “I’m broken.” No problem, one of the others says, fixes his stricken comrade, and all is again well. Cue the voice-over, saying something about assembly lines that repair themselves. Then cue the corporate logo, aaaand … out.

The spot — which has exactly 100 percent less Ellen Page than the last series of Cisco TV ads — is part of a significant new advertising offensive that Cisco is launching today on television, in print and online. The TV spots will appear during the NCAA basketball games, the National Hockey League’s All-Star Skills Competition, and on CNBC and other business-oriented programming. However, it notably won’t appear during the Super Bowl.

Those robots will be seen again, disassembling and reassembling sections of certain Web sites as part of a series of “site takeovers,” including CNBC and The Street, among others.

The print portion is a six-page “manifesto” that explains ways that Cisco’s “Human Network” plays important and unexpected roles at banking companies and companies that sell chutney, and helps the National Basketball Association push its video around the world. The manifesto will appear in The Wall Street Journal (which, like this Web site, is owned by News Corp.), the Economist and the New York Times.

There will also be a social campaign via LinkedIn that goes after 140,000 C-level executives registered on that network. It will be the first time that embedded video will be used in a LinkedIn campaign. More TV ads will come later this year, as will localized versions of the campaign for international markets.

Last week, I talked with Blair Christie, Cisco’s chief marketing officer, who said that the manifesto in particular is about using the voice of its customers to show how Cisco’s technology can help companies do things they couldn’t do before. Of course, the point they’re supposed to get is that a Cisco intelligent network is what’s enabling them to do that.

Christie says it’s all part of Cisco’s effort to simplify how it communicates about itself. There’s no more muddling of the message. There’s no more consumer division to eat into the perception that Cisco is anything but an enterprise- and service-provider-focused networking company, so no more need for cute ads that overdo awkward jokes about teleconferencing, or showing a giggly twentysomething woman in a virtual fitting room. Cisco is now about transforming how companies do what they do, either by doing it better, or seeing new opportunities. It’s a big message, and a tricky one to get across in 30 seconds during a football game.

I asked Christie about the state of Cisco’s brand before this campaign, and whether or not there were any perceived weaknesses, given its recent troubles, that this ad effort is meant to shore up. “There was actually a lot that was right with our brand,” she told me. “The opportunity we had was clear and simple. Our customer voice is our talent, and that’s what we’re showing, and it’s consistent with our strategy. We use our customers as a test bed, so why not use them as a reflection of our brand? It wasn’t rocket science. But it was the customer voice that was missing.”

Simplifying and streamlining are themes that Cisco is certainly acquainted with of late. It has been doing a lot of those, and indeed, even shrinking itself as part of a broad-based restructuring. The results of that effort are starting to show up in Cisco’s results.

Time will tell if this new advertising campaign will help Cisco effectively reintroduce itself to its core customers; fight off strong competitive thrusts from the likes of Hewlett-Packard, whose networking division marketed itself aggressively against Cisco in 2010; and perhaps press a perceived advantage against Juniper Networks, which has been having its own problems.

What I find notable, or maybe missing from the campaign, are recognizable names of customers doing innovative things. Yes, there’s the NBA, but in the print manifesto, who’s the bank that’s using Cisco’s video TelePresence to interact with customers? Who’s the small chutney company that turned “browsers into buyers”? And who’s the car company with such smart assembly-line robots? It’s a good message that, to my mind, could be made a lot more effective with more specific examples.

And while I grant it’s often difficult to get customers to agree to be named in ads like this — you could almost hear CEO John Chambers’s frustration about not being allowed to name a certain banking customer, about which he was obviously proud, on a recent conference call — the biggest networking company in the world shouldn’t have such a problem. It should be able to brag that this or that household-name bank is an enthusiastic Cisco customer, and that Cisco networks powered the manufacturing of that popular car everyone is talking about right now. That would add some real oomph, and really serve to remind potential customers that Cisco is still, despite its recent missteps, the networking world’s alpha dog.

Anyhow, my critique aside, here’s the robots spot. Enjoy:

Cisco Robots from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.

Let’s face it, there are plenty of places to read about Steve Ballmer’s CES keynote. And, if you wanted to, you could watch the whole darn thing.

But it’s probably not going to be worth your undivided attention. Fret not — we here at AllThingsD agree. So, here in Las Vegas, we’ve decided to combine Ina Fried’s live blog of the final Ballmer keynote with reports from Lauren Goode, who will be at an ESPN event checking out the BCS National Championship game — in 3-D.

That way, when Ballmer starts yammering on, we can check in on ‘Bama and LSU. And when the football game pauses for yet another five-minute instant replay, you can learn a little something about Windows 8 or Xbox.

And even if not much is happening at either one, count on Lauren and Ina to keep you entertained.

The festivities should kick off around the same time the football game does, at 5:30 pm PT, and keep going until the end of the fourth quarter — or longer, if Ballmer or the game goes into overtime.

5:21 pm: All right, folks. After some issues getting Wi-Fi in the Hilton Theater, I’m getting ready to liveblog the BCS game for you (with a hat tip to Engadget, who helped out with a Wi-Fi code).

(And this is Lauren, by the way, at the theater at the Las Vegas Hotel & Casino — formerly known as the Las Vegas Hilton, home to Elvis and Barry Manilow. Ina’s coming to you from the Microsoft keynote at the Venetian. We’ll be sure to ID ourselves along the way!)

Right now, some ESPN execs are talking about the “true 3-D experience” while we gear up for the game. So in the meantime, I’ll provide some context.

5:25 pm: Here’s what you need to know about this bowl game: 1. It’s Alabama versus LSU. They’re both very good. That’s why they’re in the championship. 2. Disclaimer: I know very little about college football. (I did play collegiate sports, but not football.) I will do my best to keep you posted on the developments of this game. 3. I’m told Tim Tebow will not be playing in this game, which confuses me, because I follow Twitter trending topics and he seems to be a shoo-in when it comes to football game days. 4. This game will be broadcast in 3-D!

Marchon has provided 3-D eyewear for the event. I’ve just put mine on. Big football players now look bigger. Midfield SkyCam hovering above coin toss right now.

And yes, I was joking about Tim Tebow. Sort of.

5:29 pm: So I’m also told — by guy friends who watch college football, as well as by sources close to Google search — that LSU has an incredibly fast team. LSU and Alabama were matched up earlier in the season; it was a low-scoring game, and LSU squeaked by with a W. In the meantime, though, ‘Bama’s offense has improved. Tonight’s should be an excellent game.

Side note: I wonder what Steve Ballmer looks like on a 3-D screen …

The Hilton Theater — which technically may not be the Hilton Theater anymore, since the hotel just changed its name — anyway, the theater is actually pretty full. Everyone is wearing their 3-D glasses. But remember, it’s early. The last time I watched a sporting event in a 3-D theater — hockey at Madison Square Garden — I noticed a lot of people removing their glasses and tiring of the screen by the second period.

5:34 pm: Update: I’ve just been told by ESPN PR that Wi-Fi is down in the whole building here. Just in time for CES!

5:37 pm: So far, of the 10 3-D cameras used in this telecast, the best viewing angles seem to be the ground-level views, especially the one from the sideline. That may be ESPN’s 3-D “Ultra Slo Motion” camera.

5:39 pm: Going to break, with LSU in possession of the ball. I was wondering whether the commercials would be in 3-D as well — and, in fact, they are.

5:41 pm: While we’re in a commercial break, a little info about the kind of 3-D glasses we’re all wearing: They’re known as “passive” lenses, as opposed to active-shutter 3-D glasses, which create the 3-D image by rapidly shuttering the left eye and then the right eye. Passive — a.k.a. polarized — 3-D glasses are cheaper, look a lot like sunglasses, and work by allowing different levels of light into each eye. Note that these are different from the anaglyph cardboard glasses you might have worn at the movies as a kid.

5:39 pm: Ina here. I’m having a quick chat with Nokia CEO Stephen Elop before the Ballmer-note begins.

Indeed, Nokia’s announcement of the Lumia 900 Windows Phone is one of the biggest CES goings-on for Microsoft.

Ballmer appeared twice today already to talk about it, first at AT&T’s event in the morning, and then, just a couple hours ago, at Nokia’s event.

5:43 pm: And we’re back. LSU has made a couple little mistakes here to start, according to the game announcers, but right now, all I’m seeing is a pig-pile of red and yellow uniforms around the 20-yard line.

5:47 pm: Just asked a fellow theatergoer what he thought of the 3-D. So far, so good, he said, but we both noticed that the line-of-scrimmage line at the first down — that yellow line you see move across the screen during football broadcasts — seems to be missing from this one.

Other graphic elements, though, like name chyrons and stat charts, really jump out in 3-D.

Ah, there’s the yellow augmented reality line on the field. But it’s less noticeable.

5:51 pm: Lauren again. Other tidbits about this 3-D game: It’s ESPN 3D’s 188th telecast overall, and 39th 3-D football game over two seasons. The commentary, however, is the same commentary the 2-D “normals” at home are hearing.

ESPN now touting X-Games in a 3-D commercial. Must admit: Snowboarding looks pretty great in 3-D.

5:56 pm: Alabama’s defense looking to squelch Jordan Jefferson. That’s what I can tell from this. (See how much I know about college football?) Alabama seemingly has learned a bit from last matchup.

Jordan Jefferson currently unavailable for comment on what he thinks of 3-D broadcast.

Yet another commercial. These guys get a lot of breaks. I mean, basketball players don’t stop every time they run up the court. Well, some of them do.

6:01 pm: Ooh, a flag thrown!

Doesn’t look any different in 3-D, though.

6:03 pm: Actual game update: LSU’s making a lot of mistakes. Someone on Alabama is currently sidelined with a hamstring injury. Alabama’s up 3-0, with about a minute left in the first quarter.

6:05 pm: First quarter concludes with quite a completion from Alabama, who have a 3-0 lead.

Now the announcers on TV are giving us a shout-out here at CES. Audience cheers — loudest cheers I’ve heard so far here today.

6:08 pm: A little more info about just some of the 3-D gadgetry used to broadcast this game:

There’s a SkyCam that carries both 3-D and 2-D cameras developed for ESPN 3D, a 3-D Ultra Slo Motion camera on a cart that moves along the sideline developed for ESPN 3D, three miniaturized handheld 3-D cameras, and a 3-D game camera on a 28-foot-high mast on a cart that moves along the sideline to stay close to the action.

6:09 pm: People are cheering! Something just happened! Some sort of fake-out, I think, in which Alabama ran the ball. That was crafty.

LSU is challenging the call, it seems. 3-D does not enhance challenged calls, FYI.

Aaaaand another commercial. I wonder how it’s going on Ina’s side, at the Microsoft keynote event.

6:16 pm: Alabama free throw blocked! I mean, field goal. Alabama was kicking.

6:17 pm: What I want to know is: Where are the vuvuzelas at these events?

6:21 pm: Just asked another attendee what he thinks of the 3-D. “Outstanding,” he said. (He also said he doesn’t work for ESPN, when I asked.)

6:26 pm: Lauren again. About nine minutes left in the second quarter, and no changes to the scoreboard.

Regarding my 3-D experience so far: The glasses I’m wearing are comfortable, and I don’t feel the urge to take them off yet. And I’m enjoying the 3-D, although despite the crisp RealD screen and cool depth of field from certain angles, there’s still something dizzying about some shots.

6:32 pm: Jeremy Shelley up to kick a 34-yard field goal … and it’s good!

Nice three-pointer from outside the perimeter! Or something.

Alabama’s now up 6-0.

6:35 pm: According to the announcers, Alabama gave up kickoff returns for touchdowns their past two games. This game is far from over. And it’s still very three-dimensional.

6:37 pm: Still Lauren here. Ina’s having some Wi-Fi issues from the Microsoft keynote event, so we’re going to try to keep you updated as best we can from there.

6:42 pm: ESPN now showing a quick Alabama highlight reel from 2010. Have to wonder whether that was 2-D content (likely) that’s been up-converted to 3-D. There must be a fair amount of old footage converted to 3-D on 3-D channels like ESPN and Discovery.

6:42 pm: Ina just sent an update from the Microsoft keynote: Ryan Seacrest is the event’s celebrity guest host. He’s worked with Bing in the past.

First Kim, Kourtney & Khloe, and now Kinect?

On the college football side, less than a minute left in the second quarter.

6:46 pm: :03 left before we head to the half. This time it’s a 42-yarder for ‘Bama’s Jeremy Shelley … and again, it’s good.

Fans waving multicolored pom-poms at 3-D camera, dizzying close-up, please, no, make it go away.

6:48 pm: At the Microsoft event, Ryan Seacrest has noted that he has to raise his voice — and chair — to be on level playing field with Ballmer.

6:48 pm: They are now talking Windows phone, Ina tells me. Ballmer holds up a phone and notes he has a missed call from Bill Gates.

“Call him back on speaker,” Seacrest quips.

6:50 pm: Ina here — been having lots of trouble connecting. Had to resort to sending iMessages to Lauren, but let me see if this works.

It’s packed here, by the way. They were turning folks away. I arrived a few minutes before the keynote with Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, and we were both initially rebuffed. (I’ll tell you later abut the phone conversation I had, asking if I could bring Stephen in to see the keynote.)

6:52 pm: Back to Ballmer, who is talking about Windows Phone’s partners.

He notes first Nokia phones coming to North America, with T-Mobile starting to sell the Lumia 710 and Rogers and Telus offering the Lumia 710 and 800 in Canada. (One is carrying one, and the other, the other, I think.)

Microsoft will also start selling the Nokia Lumia 800 unlocked in its stores.

6:54 pm: Halftime here at the (formerly) Hilton Theater. I’m now watching golf promos in 3-D. That little white ball isn’t any easier to see.

Of course Ballmer is really excited about the new LTE Windows Phones coming to AT&T — the HTC Titan II, with its 16 megapixel camera; and the Lumia 900, which is coming to AT&T, though no dates have been given for either.

“We’re clearly on the right track,” Ballmer said.

6:56 pm: Talk turning to Windows 8. Seacrest notes that Microsoft faces increasing competition there, clearly from Apple, though he didn’t use the A-word.

“Nothing better than good competition,” Ballmer said. “It’s a great thing, and I’m glad we’ve got Windows.”

6:56 pm: Lauren here. In terms of 3-D sports broadcasts, football may be a relatively easy sport to shoot and produce in 3-D, given all of the space on the field.

With hockey broadcasts, the NHL in the past has had to remove rows of seats in order to squeeze 3-D cameras in at the right angles. Same with basketball: I’ve been told that to shoot basketball games in 3-D, camera ops have to squeeze in at the corner angles next to the “regular” broadcast cameras, and in some instances the sideline “Jack Nicholson” seat gets blocked.

Back to Ina at Microsoft: But things have changed, Seacrest notes.

Of course, Ballmer says. Change is a constant. Ballmer promises Windows 8 will offer a no-compromises operating system with good battery life, performance, etc., etc.

By the way, one reason it is hard to get into the keynote is all the seats clearly taken up by Microsoft’s product teams. You can tell, because whenever a product or feature is mentioned, you hear loud cheers coming from one specific section of the room.

7:00 pm: We realize our posts are running together. We’ll work to be more clear about who’s who.

7:01 pm: Hey Lauren, what’s the score, by the way?

7:02 pm: Hey Ina! It’s 9-0, Alabama. Bunch of field goals. If these guys wanted to kick all day, why aren’t they playing soccer, is my question.

7:04 pm: How’s it going at Microsoft? I’d offer to switch, just so you could get a glimpse of the 3-D, but the cab lines at CES are so long you probably wouldn’t make it in time.

7:03 pm: Good question. Sorry I am missing it. We’re getting a demo of Windows 8 here, but it’s the same stuff we saw at the Build conference, and even at D9 before that.

It’s like watching last year’s BCS game.

7:07 pm: Ina, at last year’s Microsoft keynote ,you might remember they called upon the double-rainbow Internet meme. Here at the BCS game, the ESPN announcers are all about the Honey Badger meme. Oy.

7:12 pm: Lauren here. And we’re back from the half of the BCS championship game.

Third down at five! Not 100 percent sure what that means, but it seems like Alabama has come back from halftime with a vengeance.

7:16 pm: Jeremy Shelley with another field goal for Alabama. And I am increasingly convinced that this football game is soccer, and I don’t mean in that way that it is outside of the U.S.

7:17 pm: Meanwhile, from Microsoft, someone should throw a flag for delay of game. Ina’s having Wi-Fi issues again, but here are her updates …

Fortunately, or unfortunately, this is basically the same Windows 8 demo we’ve seen before.

Now, moving to stuff you can currently buy: Microsoft is showing an HP ultrabook and Samsung’s Series 9 laptop (Correction: We originally said it was a tablet).

7:20 pm: Lauren here. LSU has been all over the map, offensively. They’ve got the ball again now. Crowd thinned out about during halftime, but it looks like most people returned to their seats.

We’re all still wearing our 3-D glasses.

7:21 pm: Alabama’s defense wins first down again, just a few minutes into the third quarter.

7:24 pm: For boxing fans, if you’re curious about 3-D, and you’ve got 3-D capabilities at home: ESPN says it plans to televise Friday Night Fights in 3-D, live from the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino this Friday night. I won’t be here for that one. Um, darn.

7:26 pm: Back to Microsoft: There is an honest-to-goodness gospel choir, called the Tweet Choir, singing out what people have been tweeting about during the keynote.

Now the talk is moving to Xbox. And a new number: 18 million Kinect sensors shipped. Seacrest has asked Ballmer if he expected it to be where it is today when the company started.

Ballmer: “I was optimistic. I was bullish. I was patient.”

7:30 pm: ESPN announcer references “Honey Badger” again. This time, I figure out he’s talking about LSU’s Tyrann Mathieu.

7:33 pm: Ina here. Hey, Lauren, our worlds briefly collided: They demoed the ESPN app and showed the game. 12-0, huh?

7:34 pm: Microsoft is back to running laterally with a demo of voice search on Kinect — a feature that debuted last fall.

7:34 pm: Lauren here. Meanwhile, LSU and Jordan Jefferson literally give the ball away to ‘Bama. Mosely hurt by Jefferson’s tackle following the interception.

7:35 pm: At the Microsoft keynote, a few new partnerships are announced, including one with AllThingsD‘s parent, News Corp., which is bringing Fox, WSJ Live, IGN and Fox News Channel to Xbox.

More exciting to me (Ina), though, is a partnership with Sesame Workshop to make “Sesame Street” interactive.

In the demo, kids can throw coconuts to their favorite monsters, who then count them.

7:38 pm: Ina here. “Elmo’s World” is also made interactive, allowing kids to enter a crayon-drawn world. It’s coming later this year, Microsoft said, as are the News Corp. apps.

7:40 pm: This is just the beginning, Ballmer said, adding that Kinect will revolutionize far more entertainment.

Kinect is coming to Windows on Feb. 1, Ballmer announced.

7:42 pm: So, is that all Microsoft is up to? Seacrest has asked, handing off the ball to the Ballmer.

Not by a long shot, Ballmer says. He touts Ford’s Sync, Office, Skype. Bing, he notes, has reached 30 percent market share in the U.S., if you count Yahoo.

7:43 pm: Lauren here, back to the game. LSU is 0 for 6 on third downs, and that’s where they are right now. People are whooping. LSU down at the 17-yard line.

7:44 pm: At the Microsoft event, Ballmer is stressing that Windows 8 is what’s next. There is nothing more important at Microsoft, he says.

We’re at the two-minute warning, and Ballmer is running out the clock …

7:44 pm: And with that, we’re out. Microsoft keynote has wrapped.

7:45 pm: Here at the Hilton Theater, the score is 12-0 Alabama with about two-and-a-half minutes left in the third.

And Alabama’s got a first down at the 36.

7:46 pm: Lauren again. I’m going to keep the liveblog going until this game has wrapped.

7:49 pm: Another field goal for Alabama, with their go-to guy Shelley getting ready to kick. These really are happening as frequently as free throws, it seems. This time, it’s a 44-yarder. And it’s good.

I bet Jeremy Shelley was always picked first for kickball as a kid.

I wonder why there isn’t a 3-D camera from behind the goal posts, instead of in front of it. The pigskin might look cooler as it’s flying toward the crowd.

7:51 pm: Score update: 15-0, with Alabama in the lead and 20 seconds left in the third quarter. LSU’s got to turn up the fire. They need Steve Ballmer screaming in their faces, maybe.

7:53 pm: What did you guys think of the news, and non-news, from the Microsoft keynote? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

7:56 pm: Fourth quarter has kicked off. Amazingly, no one has fouled out or gotten a technical yet.

7:58 pm: When is Ryan Seacrest going to show up at the Hilton Theater to help promote 3-D? I’d welcome a Justin Timberlake appearance, too — he was part of an earlier announcement today from Myspace and Panasonic (my colleague Peter Kafka has the story on that.)

8:03 pm: Man sitting next to me just told me me he has a 3-D TV at home. Pretty sure I looked at him like he has wings and a magical horn sprouting from his forehead.

Back to the game: Alabama is getting pumped up. I know this because there’s lots of chest-bumping. Time is ebbing away — with 9:44 left in the fourth quarter — and ‘Bama’s defense is stopping LSU in its tracks.

8:08 pm: LSU’s Jefferson shows some spark — crossing the 50 for the first time today.

LSU needs touchdowns. Badly. About 6:30 left in the fourth quarter.

A Hail Mary pass to Landry, but it’s a miss.

8:13 pm: Pigskin loose on the field! (Jump ball?)

8:15 pm: Another shout-out from ESPN announcers to us folks in Las Vegas who are watching this in 3-D. Now ESPN is showing us still images in 3-D. Some are rendering the effects better than others.

8:17 pm: If Alabama wins this one — and it’s looking this way — it’s the first shutout in any BCS bowl championship game.

Second down, with Alabama working on the clock now. About six minutes left in the game.

8:20 pm: Alabama runs it into the end zone for a 34-yard touchdown!

Alabama up 21-0 now, four-and-a-half minutes to go.

8:21 pm: Jeremy Shelley misses the field goal this time. I’d still pick him first for kickball.

Readers, any questions about the 3-D broadcast? Any comments? Leave your remarks in comments below.

8:23 pm: All right, we’re winding down our FootBallmer dual-blog. LSU rushing down the field, but it’s almost futile.

8:26 pm: Announcer just said Jordan Jefferson has been made invisible this game. Now that’s the technology we should talk about. Where’s their booth at CES?

There are still a good amount of 3-D viewers here in the Hilton Theater, but it’s hard to know whether that’s for the game, or for the free beer and food.

There are about two minutes left. And ‘Bama’s got it in the bag.

8:29 pm: Final thoughts on the BCS championship series game: I’m still wearing the glasses. They’re not irritating, but I’m also in a dark theater, and not in my living room. The 3-D broadcast provided some interesting depth of field from some angles, while others were a bit of a strain on the eyes.

Alabama wins the BCS championship, behind coach Nick Saban and the young AJ McCarron.

Final score: 21-0.

8:34 pm: There’s the essential Gatorade dumping over the coach, this time in 3-D. Alabama celebrates, and the theater here is thinning out. I’m still wondering where the vuvuzelas are. And that Tim Tebow guy.

Until next time …

The Green Bay Packers beat the Minnesota Vikings last week, which prompted a classic football fan reaction from the losers.

Well, maybe not so classic, since this video of one of the Vikings’ younger fans will break your heart over the agonies of cheesehead hegemony.

And, apparently, there is crying in football:

Phew! The NFL kicks off tonight, on schedule, on NBC, when the Saints play the Packers. Which means that some of you, for various reasons, are going to watch it on the Web.

And you can! Even better, you can do it legally, for free: Comcast’s broadcast unit is offering a complete stream of the game, via NBCSports.com, along with additional camera angles and other digital goodies. From the press release:

Sunday Night Football Extra employs a full HD-quality player, which includes a draggable picture-in-picture feature for any of the online-only cameras, plus full DVR functionality allowing the user to pause and scroll back-and-forth – even review plays in “slo-mo.”

After tonight’s game, NBC will offer the free streams for every game it broadcasts this season, every Sunday night.

It’s the fourth season in a row that NBC has done this, and I’m always surprised that more people don’t make a big deal out of it. NFL TV rights are the most valuable thing in video, and they only get more expensive each year — Disney just agreed to pay nearly $2 billion a season for Monday Night Football rights.

So the notion that a broadcaster would put this stuff up for free on the Web at the same time seems counterintuitive. (Note that Monday Night Football, for instance, is one of the only things you can’t watch via ESPN’s excellent new iPad/iPhone app.)

The only conclusion I can draw is that there just aren’t that many people watching the live streams — because really, if you have the option, you want to watch this on your big HD set, right?

OK. So what about the rest of the season? Well, you can watch that on the Web, legally, too. But it will cost you: Head over to DirecTV to see how much they’re charging for access to their “Sunday Ticket” package, which now includes unlimited access on your laptop, as well as iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, etc.

(FYI: If you’re willing to shell out for Sunday Ticket but don’t want a two-year DirecTV commitment, and you have a Sony PS3, try out the game device’s new service, which will let you order a season’s worth of football for $340. Pricey, but it will give you more flexibility and you don’t have to worry about installing a dish. Hint: When it asks you if you are able to receive DirecTV where you live, say “no.”)

I don’t condone stealing this stuff off the Web, of course, and those of you who want to do that don’t need my advice, anyway.

I will note, however, that readers who live outside the U.S. and want to stream the games can buy what appears to be a very reasonably priced package directly from the NFL. It looks like $150 for a basic package with all the games, though that may change depending on what country you live in.

*I’m not supposed to do this, because it violates some serious ethical rules, but here goes: Go Pack Go! Except when you’re playing the Vikings. And if you think I’m the only Minnesotan with conflicted Wisconsin loyalties, well — you’re wrong.

The sponsorship is the first example of how EA expects to monetize demos of games going forward. The technology it built to do so is called EA Signal, which allows for advertising in demos, including the ability to insert videos of celebrity appearances and developer interviews or other tutorials into the game.

Brands and marketers can also conduct contests and sweepstakes inside games.

In the case of Madden NFL 12, EA is trying a little bit of everything the first time around. Along with the chance to win a car, the demo lets players watch videos and learn new elements of the game.

The videos feature Van Bernardino, who goes by the name “Prodigy” and is known in gaming circles for being a champion Madden NFL videogame player. In the video, he drives a Chevy Cruze down California’s coast to meet up with former New Orleans Saints halfback and Super Bowl champion Reggie Bush.

Together, Prodigy and Bush demonstrate how to play the game, and give specific instructions on how to run an “audible.” That’s when the quarterback decides to run a different play at the last minute and calls it out to his players.

If a player uses an audible to score a touchdown, he or she will receive a special code. The code must be entered on the Madden NFL 12 Facebook fan page for a chance to win a 2011 Chevy Cruze.

Most of EA’s big console releases have a demo, so this will only be the first of many brand partnerships.

Last year the Madden demo was played by more than two million gamers. Overall, EA says it reaches about 70 million users on both Xbox and PlayStation through its demos. That’s a sizeable audience.

“In the console environment, one of the great places to identify value is in the demo,” EA’s SVP Dave Madden said. “They are in a buying mode. It’s the right mind-set.”

The full version of Madden comes on Aug. 30, and the contest ends Sept. 30.

The program, called EA Sports Season Ticket, had been expected for some time, but the company is officially announcing the details today.

For $25 a year, sports fans will be able to download complete versions of Madden NFL Football, NHL Hockey, FIFA Soccer, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and NCAA Football to their consoles and play them for three days until the game is on sale.

At that point, the users will have to pay full retail to continue playing the games, but will be able to continue their achievements in the game.

Other perks will include 20 percent discounts on downloadable extras, including accelerator packs and gear upgrades; free online content, such as the ability to create special teams for FIFA Soccer 12 (normally about $5); and membership recognition through recognition badges.

The subscription service, the first of its kind for Electronic Arts, will result in savings for hardcore players, but at the end of the day it is about giving players early access to the games.

“This is pretty groundbreaking,” said Peter Moore, the president of EA Sports. “We’ve been working on it for over a year now and we are finally ready.”

Market research revealed that far and away the thing people wanted most was early access and to “look at the game prior to the general population, and start getting the controls down,” Moore said. “It’s like they get to training camp three days early.”

EA Sports Season Ticket, which will be available on Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation, will kick off on Aug. 30 with the release of Madden.

The one hitch about this program is that EA will have to ensure that the three days of free access will talk the players into buying the game — not out of it.

I’ve taken a quick tour and can report that it’s more or less what you would expect: A filtered stream of tweets about next week’s Packers-Steelers game. Quite astutely, the biggest emphasis on the opening page is on tweets from NFL players themselves, who have embraced the platform even as the league has struggled to make sense of it.

And there are also some cool graphics that show off trending Super Bowl topics, sorted by time, geography, etc. I’m a little surprised to see Steelers talk so widespread throughout the country, but I guess that’s just my Midwestern bias poking through. (Seriously. Everyone’s rooting for Aaron Rodgers, right?)

Twitter did something similar last summer for the World Cup, but that effort didn’t seem to have been thought through very well, and very quickly became overwhelmed with spam and random chatter. I have a hunch Twitter has worked some of that out this time.

Also worth noting is that in the past, this kind of site might have had a hard time attracting much attention, but now Twitter’s ad platform can give it a real shot in the arm: A link to the site is today’s “Promoted Trend.”

For one thing, once I gave out my new number to a handful of friends, I had this one goofy friend for whom I recorded a custom greeting. Every time he would call, I’d let it go to voicemail and he’d start every message laughing at some silly in-joke I’d leave for him in the greeting. Okay, I grant you not many people would go to the trouble to do that, but if you knew this guy, you just might. Update: A few readers pointed out in the comments that this feature is re-enabled in Google Voice, and they’re correct though it’s not exactly easy to find.

Ever since GrandCentral became Google Voice, it’s been a lot less fun to use. That custom-greeting feature is gone, as are some of the funnier Web calling buttons that GrandCentral had offered. Maybe that’s one of the reasons behind today’s acquisition by Google of SayNow.

Details are scant about what Google has in mind, but a source close to the deal tells us that the intent on Google’s part is to make Google Voice “even better in a world of Skype and Facetime,” which implies that the next step for Google Voice is some form of video calling.

SayNow made a name for itself by giving celebrities like Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers (remember them?) and the cast of “Glee” a phone number for fans to call and hear the occasional message. And at the start of the football season, ESPN used it to send the message embedded below from former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka to some 1.6 million fans on Facebook. Another feature gave celebs a way to hold live conference calls that fans could dial in and listen to. The biggest SayNow client was the rapper Soulja Boy, who racked up 50 million calls totaling some 100 million minutes of call time. If nothing else, Google can learn from the team at SayNow how to promote the service and get people interested in using it.

SayNow also has a serious side, an enterprise application called Big Call, aimed at making conference calls for businesses easy. The company says it was built by an intern in a week.

The deal for SayNow comes on the same day that Google made its long-awaited number-porting feature official, suggesting that Google Voice is going to be the focus of a lot more time and attention in the coming months.

Ditka’s season-opening greeting for Facebook users is below.