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World Cup mania is about to begin and that means one thing: it’s a social media branding opportunity! On Friday, in time for the first kickoff, Bing is going to release a World Cup badge on Foursquare which can be unlocked by people who follow Bing on the service.

The badge, which is a Bing soccer jersey (see leaked image), will be tied to bars and other venues in select U.S. cities such as New York, Atlanta, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Seattle where fans will gather to watch the games. Some of the bars and restaurants will also have tips, which will come from Thrillist, and people who follow Bing and check into those places may be offered specials regardless of whether they earn the badge. (Incidentally, earlier this week Thrillist launched it’s own iPhone app, filled with its own reviews of bars, restaurants and shops sprinkled on a Google map. It was downloaded 10,000 times in the first 24 hours, and is currently one of the top free Lifestyle apps, although it would be better if it used the Foursquare API to allow you to check into places too).

So how do you find these soccer bars? Glad you asked. Bing will also be introducing a new Bing Map App on Bing Maps called HomeTurfFinder which will show you where you can watch World Cup matches in those select cities (see screenshot below), along with surfacing related Foursquare checkins and tips.

Bing is not the first brand to get a World Cup badge from Foursquare. CNN announced two badges on Tuesday in the image of a CNN soccer ball.

Sponsoring a World Cup badge is an easy way for big brands like CNN and Bing to get people to follow them on Foursquare. At least they are not trying to sell us anything. They just want us to like them. Who’s next for the hat trick?

Soonr, a company that allows you to sync and store files on your mobile phone and other devices, has raised $4.5 million in funding from HighBAR Ventures and existing investors. This brings the startup’s total funding to over $20 million.

Soonr syncs your files to cloud storage via a downloadable client that runs in the background of both mobile devices, Macs and PCs. When you’re on the go, you can access these files with the web browser in your mobile phone. Soonr also offers an iPhone app and works on Netbooks.

The new funding will be used to expand the product into new markets and to support sales and marketing efforts. Soonr offers a free and paid version of its syncing application and is also sold through partnerships with resellers, service providers and OEMs. Soonr faces competition from SugarSync, ZumoDrive and Dropbox.

Short Version: A long, long time ago, I can still remember, how the MyTouch 3G’s touchscreen used to make me cry. And I knew that if they had their chance, that T-Mobile could add a keyboard, and maybe we’d be happy for a while. And how May/June made me shiver because T-Mobile has delivered – a MyTouch with a keyboard as useful as a Sidekick’s.

T-Mobile has been on an Android roll lately. With a number of great devices – including the Granddaddy, the G1, and the older uncle, the MyTouch, the company essentially owns the Android space, at least in terms of handset availability. Obviously other folks – ahem Evo cough Droid – own the mindshare, but T-Mo is plugging away like a champ.

The introduction of the MyTouch Slide gives Blackberry and, more importantly, Sidekick lovers something to lust after. The device, which looks like the standard MyTouch 3G, slides down to reveal a small but usable keyboard.

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Too funny. According to The Awl, The New York Times standards editor Phil Corbett yesterday reportedly sent out a memo (below) to NYT writers asking them to severely cut down on the use of the word ‘tweet’ outside of “ornithological contexts”.

Corbett has been overseeing language issues for the paper’s newsroom since September 2009, and was previously in charge of revisions in the newsroom’s style manual as deputy news editor.

Update: Dave Itzkoff, who blogs for the Times, tweets that the report is indeed not true. Which makes it a perfect satirical piece worth sharing anyway. Update 2: Another New York Times staffer tells us privately that the memo is “100% real” and Itzkoff clarifies that it is not the memo’s existence he was denying, but that some journalists inside the NYT recognize “tweet” as a word and there is an internal debate ongoing about it.

Basically, Corbett supposedly argues that the word ‘tweet’ is silly and – at least not yet – standard English, and that many people, particularly those not on Twitter, have no idea what the word means. But NYT writers have apparently used the word as noun or a verb 18 times in articles in the past month, across various sections, he adds.

Yes, it’s kind of amusing that someone would actually keep count of that sort of thing, but it’s not that bad a point, in my opinion. I mean, I assume it’s fine for TechCrunch to regularly use the word tweet without having to wonder if our readers will grasp what we’re trying to say, but it might indeed be harder for your average Times reader.

Anyway, here’s the full memo (which we’ve independently obtained a copy of ourselves):

How About “Chirp”?

Some social-media fans may disagree, but outside of ornithological contexts, “tweet” has not yet achieved the status of standard English. And standard English is what we should use in news articles.

Except for special effect, we try to avoid colloquialisms, neologisms and jargon. And “tweet” — as a noun or a verb, referring to messages on Twitter — is all three. Yet it has appeared 18 times in articles in the past month, in a range of sections.

Of course, new technology terms sprout and spread faster than ever. And we don’t want to seem paleolithic. But we favor established usage and ordinary words over the latest jargon or buzzwords.

One test is to ask yourself whether people outside of a target group regularly employ the terms in question. Many people use Twitter, but many don’t; my guess is that few in the latter group routinely refer to “tweets” or “tweeting.” Someday, “tweet” may be as common as “e-mail.” Or another service may elbow Twitter aside next year, and “tweet” may fade into oblivion. (Of course, it doesn’t help that the word itself seems so inherently silly.)

“Tweet” may be acceptable occasionally for special effect. But let’s look for deft, English alternatives: use Twitter, post to or on Twitter, write on Twitter, a Twitter message, a Twitter update. Or, once you’ve established that Twitter is the medium, simply use “say” or “write.”

Don’t forget to rechirp this post.

Content delivery and web services giant Akamai has acquired mobile web development company Velocitude a mobile services platform. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Velocitude helps companies with mobile web development in commerce and marketing applications. The startup’s technology helps deliver mobile content to websites in a variety of devices. The Velocitude Mobile Platform allows a consumer to purchase products, sign up and view accounts, see product information textually or by video, interact with social media sites and/or be alerted via SMS. Velocitude will be folded into Akamai’s mobile content delivery service.

Akamai just scored a huge deal to deliver streaming content for Netflix, with business steadily improving. And as more businesses are looking to bring content to the mobile web, Akamai is wise to boost its mobile content delivery platform.

Logitech just announced its C line of webcams including the C910 ($100) with two mics for noise cancellation and 720p video calls. It ships in August. The C510 is more portable and folds up on itself for travel – it’s $60. Finally, you have the C310 and C270 ($50 and $40) that stream at 720p and little else. These last three ship in June.

I tried the webcams with Logitech’s new VidHD platform and made a video call with Logitech’s headquarters. The software is still in beta so I froze up a bit during the call but overall the experience was quite interesting. Compared to calling my parents over Skype, the resolution was surprisingly high and I could actually see my contact’s hair instead of a blur of pixels. The software is Mac and PC compatible.

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Cloud-based storage and sharing application Box.net is getting into the syncing game today. The startup is unveiling Box Sync, an extension of the Box.net platform that connects users’ desktops to Box.net’s cloud-based content management and collaboration platform.

With the Box Sync desktop client, users can sync Box.net folders with their desktops. The new feature is intended to help businesses allows employees to seamlessly sync and share content. The startup is essentially trying to bridge the desktop and the cloud with Box Sync.

Microsoft Europe’s communication team has used its Twitter account to make fun of Google’s latest search page feature: the ability to add background images to said page, a feature that has characterized Microsoft’s Bing search service since its debut.

Google yesterday temporarily added a default background image to make more people aware of the new feature, which apparently prompted Microsoft Europe to tweet: “We’ve lost a background image, if found please return to bing.com ;)”.

Phoenix Technologies today announced that Hewlett-Packard has agreed to purchase the assets related to its HyperSpace, HyperCore and Phoenix Flip instant-on and client virtualization products.

The consideration for the transaction is $12 million in cash and the closing is expected to occur this month.

This Saturday England will play the USA in the South Africa World Cup 2010. Personally, I’m hoping England won’t be as complacent as it was in 1950.

Back then, the first World Cup saw after the Second World War saw the two teams face each other for the first time. After winning 23 of its preceding 30 games, England was feeling pretty confident. What did the Yanks know about football anyway? When the match kicked off on 29th June, the USA took the lead in the 38th minute. They won 1–0 (that’s “One Nil” BTW).

So we present for you our handy list of iPhone apps and sites to follow the World Cup action, and a taster of what it would be like if the two Englishmen on the TechCrunch team (myself and Paul Carr) faced-off against TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington, Erick Schonfeld and MG Seigler.

Elsevier, a juggernaut of a global publisher of scientific, technical, and medical information products and services, announced today the acquisition of assets from Collexis, a developer of semantic technology and knowledge discovery software.

The acquisition is effective immediately and terms of the agreement are not being disclosed.