Today marks one of the best days of the year: Major League Baseball Opening Day. I love baseball, but I realize there are many who do not. Statistics show MLB interest is on the decline. This is largely due to the slower nature of the game and our increasing inability to sit still for more than 5 seconds.

A new app, GameSlam, hopes to speed up the feel of watching baseball by introducing a bit of interactivity. GameSlam aims to let you predict what will happen next during a MLB game. The game uses virtual currency, and allows fans to compete with their friends by placing live-action bets.

GameSlam is currently in public beta with desktop applications for Windows and Mac with Facebook integration as well. Their beta won't go live till the first game of the season later today, so I wasn't able to play around. The site also indicates that they will be releasing iPhone, iPad, and Android apps soon.

GameSlam allows you to create groups of friends up to 100. Each member begins with 10,000 credits to bet as they choose. Each game is updated in real-time with a 3D animation of each play (think ESPN GameCast). The goal of the company is to make baseball a less passive experience, and by doing so hopefully attract back viewers to the game.

I'm excited to try out GameSlam when it goes live. I rarely watch TV without my phone or iPad close by and I could see this sparking some intense competition between...

Forget about snakes on a plane. This week, it's all about a snake on the town. The snake is of course the Bronx Zoo's Egyptian King Cobra that's been missing for a few days.

New Yorkers and visitors to the city have been a little anxious about the missing venomous snake. So what better opportunity to poke a little fun at the situation with the kind of faux Twitter fun I like to call Twiction? Just follow the Bronx Zoo's Cobra on his big city adventures.

The cobra has also been Tweeting with Charlie Sheen and another faux account with particular relevance to the situation: @BronxZookeeper.

These types of Twitter accounts pop up regularly. Consider last summer's @BPGlobalPR. They're noteworthy for a few reasons. They're of course fun and can bring some lightheartedness to a serious situation. In some cases, they can also drive awareness around a cause or happening. They're also a statement on media and storytelling. The role of story has evolved over time with technology and sites...

We spend a lot of time talking about Android & iPhone around the BFG office, so much so that we almost completely ignore the BlackBerry world. For some it is devotion to all things Apple, others pick Android to spite Apple (or previously to pick Verizon over AT&T). In all honesty the lack of focus is mostly because BlackBerry doesn't offer as much fun as the others. Fun always wins around here!

That may shift in the future. Last week RIM made the announcement that their, soon to be launched, PlayBook tablet will be able to run Android apps. These Android apps will be made available via the BlackBerry App World. It would also seem that any future RIM devices running on the tablet OS would have the same functionality.

BlackBerry is almost always the last to get any of the cool apps that iPhone & Android users enjoy. For marketers, this means if you launch a campaign that is app dependent you may not be reaching a segment of the market due to their technology limitation. It is too soon to tell if this move will help BlackBerry's fall from smartphone grace, but it is a huge step for them. The survival of their devices may depend on it.

QR codes. It seems like everyone either loves them or hates them.

From poor execution of codes at SXSW to clients asking if they're relevant and Home Depot embracing them, this has been a hot topic in my world lately. There are the complaints that they're not mainstream enough, which all too often come from the same people who are trying to reach influential early adopters. Well, look no further. At this moment, the use of QR codes in the United States is by an early adopter. This will start shifting but codes need to show value to truly take off.

The issue with QR codes isn't so much how many people are scanning them but rather how marketers are using (and misusing) them. When they're misused, this runs the risk of turning off the general public in the future.

If you're thinking of using a QR code, here are some simple steps to follow:

1. Use a code when it makes sense. Don't use it just to use it.

2. Consider the mobile experience and make sure it works.

At SXSW, the AT&T network was slow and crashing. The brands at SXSW who relied on a QR code to share information or get people to enter contests flailed. The Fader party and execution was overall super cool but their QR code approach didn't work because the network didn't.

Or consider Jet Blue's use of QR codes in...

*No one loves buzzwords like I do* (*…* = sarcasm), so you can imagine my delight in discovering that agency Modea actually tracked the buzzword usage at SXSW and put it all into a handy interactive pie chart (there's even an app for iPhone/iPad). Using the timeline navigator at the bottom, you can scrub through the entire conference and see what buzzwords were being most tweeted at any point in time.

Now that you know the shiny new buzzwords that were used by all the cool kids at SXSW, try working at least three of them into your next coffee shop meetup or presentation deck. Pair your new vexing vocabulary with a black t-shirt and snazzy sneakers and you can officially refer to yourself as a social media expert, ninja, Jedi, douchebag or rock star. And don't forget to include your clever new job title in your Twitter bio.