According to a recent report by Gawker, if you want to add a Mark Zuckerberg figurine to your pop culture action figure collection, you might just be out of luck.

M.I.C. (Made in China) Gadget, the company behind the “Zuckerdoll” action figure, has ceased Zuckerdoll sales following a legal letter from Facebook’s legal counsel in China.

According to the letter, by selling the figurines on a website, the company used Zuckerberg’s portraiture “for commercial purpose and infringed his legitimate right.”

Facebook’s trademark “F” was also used on the action figures, which has also infringed Facebook’s trademark right.

M.I.C. issued an apology and said they will comply.

Kideo, a creator of personalized and branded video products, has launched its newly redesigned website this week. The new site allows users to create their own customized videos on Kideo.com through online streaming and instant downloading. Kids can star alongside their favorite animated characters including Dora the Explorer, Spider-Man, Barney, Precious Moments, and the Care Bears in an online adventure. Families can also share their customized videos with friends and relatives on social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube through the streaming and downloadable options.

Personalized video streams and downloadables are available for $7.99 and $9.99, while keepsake personalized DVDs retail for $19.99. Additionally, the site offers a new free trial option, which gives parents and children the opportunity to enjoy short clips from each video at no charge.

Scholastic Media has announced that it is bringing its children’s apps from the iPhone and iPod touch to the iPad for the first time. The apps, based on Scholastic brands Clifford The Big Red Dog and I SPY, launched yesterday.

CLIFFORD’S BE BIG With Words is a word game for kids who love Clifford and love to learn. Based on the books and TV series from Scholastic that airs on PBS KIDS, the app encourages early readers to build their skills in spelling, phonics, and vocabulary as they spell words and are rewarded with pictures to show the words’ meanings.

I SPY Spooky Mansion takes players on a hidden object adventure through a scary and mysterious mansion where the only escape is to collect keys by solving I SPY riddles and searching through photorealistic I SPY scenes on the iPad.

Since their launch on the iPhone in fall 2009, both apps have consistently topped App Store lists, with I SPY Spooky Mansion ranking among the Top 10 Paid Kids Games and the Top 20 Paid Puzzle Games categories. CLIFFORD’S BE BIG With Words has been ranked among the Top 10 Paid Educational Games as well as the Top 25 Paid Kids Games since its release.

Ludia and Classic Media today announced the availability of Where’s Waldo? The Fantastic Journey for iPad in HD on the App Store worldwide. The game features new HD graphics and Multi-Touch game play exclusive to the iPad, including the new Party Mode that enables two players to compete on the same device.

Where’s Waldo? The Fantastic Journey for iPad provides an interactive Waldo experience. Players will compete in a hidden-object game, as they scour the virtual globe in search of Waldo and his friends Wizard Whitebeard, Wenda, and Woof, along with Waldo’s foe, Odlaw. There are hundreds of hidden items to be found within 12 magical worlds, and gameplay is enhanced with surprise elements that are designed to challenge and/or help players gain advantage during their search.

This weekend, it was announced that male fairies, called “Sparrow Men,” have been added to Disney’s magical fairy world, Pixie Hollow.

The first male character in Pixie Hollow is named Slate.

Slate is a new avatar on the Pixie Hollow online community, giving visitors the chance, for the first time, to create a male instead of a female character.

PixFusion, which deals with personalized entertainment and composite imagery across all media formats, announced today that it has entered into a patent licensing partnership with Slapstick Sports, LLC, a division of Virginia-based advertising agency Williams Whittle, for its sports fan interaction website. Through the agreement, Slapstick users can “get their game face on” by utilizing PixFusion’s patented photo-personalized video technology to digitalize themselves into the identities of their favorite athletes and coaches. The first sports organization to license the Slapstick application is the NHL’s Washington Capitals, with additional teams to follow in the coming months.

The Washington Capitals’ Slapstick feature will launch during the NHL playoffs in mid-April to help generate online excitement for the players, team, and coaches and enable fans to digitally express themselves in a personal way for both the Washington Capitals and their opponents.
The Slapstick application is easy-to-use; simply upload a photo and select from four sports-centric scenarios including being a ranting player, coaching the team, answering questions from the press, or downloading a still shot. Users can personalize their own photo by choosing from various facial hair options, hats, and headgear, as well as their choice of a home or away jersey. Once the photo has been personalized, Slapstick users have the option of adding a voice to their creation. For 99 cents, users can call a toll-free number to insert their message into their Slapstick photo or video, which can then be shared via email with friends and family or posted on Facebook and Twitter. Fans can also create a free video using the application’s text-to-speech function.
The Slapstick deal was brokered by Big Tent Entertainment, the marketing agent for PixFusion.

Coca-Cola North America has announced a new Facebook campaign to raise awareness of Earth Month and help support Ocean Conservancy, the nation’s oldest and largest marine conservation organization. Through a new Facebook application, users can “oceanize” themselves into a playful underwater photo. For every person who dives into this new app, Coca-Cola will donate $1, up to a total of $200,000, to support Ocean Conservancy’s marine debris program, which helps identify policies and solutions to prevent trash from reaching our oceans and waterways. Additionally, through the company’s MyCokeRewards points program and a direct donation-matching program through LivePositively.com, Coca-Cola will contribute up to an additional $50,000.

Facebook users will be able to use this new application by visiting this website to create fun underwater images, share and embed them within their own profile pages, and also share them via the site’s status update newsfeed. The “oceanized” images can be saved to a “Let’s All Join Fins” photo album, which ultimately can be shared with Facebook friends.

Just for fun, and in case you missed it, here’s the Coca-Cola 2010 Super Bowl commercial, which we love. Talk about connecting with nature.

As you may have noticed, The Licensing Book has been steadily growing our online presence. We’ve been Tweeting, Facebooking, blogging, then Tweeting again. Before Toy Fair this year, we set up a new email address, tweetyourself@licensingbook.com, so that people could send us tweets to put up online live at the show.

We just want to remind you that the email address is still active, and the offer still stands. We’re here 24/7 (ok, more like 9-6) to tweet your news for you! Email us 140-characters or less (or a whole press release if you’re not the Shakespeare of Twitter), and we’ll share it on Twitter and Facebook. And maybe even our blog.

Email tweetyourself@licensingbook.com, and tell everyone else you know to do the same!

Happy Friday!

The Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, a division of NRF, released new research today at NRF’s Retail Innovation & Marketing Conference on the habits of social media users. Comparing social media users to the average U.S. adult, the survey looks at the differences in demographics for each group, including male and female usage as well as age differences in social media users compared to other adults.
The survey, “Social Media: An Inside Look at the People Who Use It,” compares U.S. social media users to the average American adult. Survey highlights include:

·         Seven out of 10 social media users between the ages of 18-34 regularly use Facebook more than other sites such as MySpace, Twitter and Classmates
·         71.8 percent of social media users say that after an online search, they communicate with others about a product or service with face-to-face communication
·         More people who use social media prefer to give advice about a product or service rather than receive it
·         Social media users are more likely to use other new media compared to adults 18+
·         70.6 percent of female social media users regularly use Facebook, compared to 61.0 percent of males
·         More men than women prefer to communicate with others via a cell phone conversation after searching for a product or service online

Where do you fit in with this survey? Is your social media use in line with the majority? How has social media changed your personal, professional, and consumer life? Leave us some comments and let us know!

TLB has just gotten wind that the simple but addicting Facebook app, Social Interview, is coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch. How did we get wind of this? By checking our Facebook while at work, of course! The announcement says the app is available now, and offers this link with game instructions and screenshots.

Additionally, the post we got on our facebook wall says, “We’re working on a version for the game for Android, and possibly an iPhone version of Social Interview for facebook which will be free! Keep answering questions, we love you!”

We love you too, Social Interview.