Natalie Portman and Christine Aylward announced the launch of MakingOf.com, a behind-the-scenes web portal that provides an intimate, fresh look into the process of creating entertainment by the insiders themselves. MakingOf.com went live during the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.

“When friends visit me on film sets, I am always reminded how intriguing and lucky it is to experience filming up close,” said Co-founder Natalie Portman. “At MakingOf our goal is to bring that up-close experience to everyone, including the ever-increasing number of self-taught filmmakers, who find audiences for their films using new opportunities for video-sharing online.”

PBS announced the beta launch of the PBS Video Portal, featuring full-length videos from PBS. The offerings span all PBS genres and the system’s most renowned award-winning programs, as well as content from local PBS stations, and will ultimately include feature-length films and documentaries, and live events and performances, with more content arriving literally every week.

The new video portal will provide improved navigation capabilities, allowing users to search and find their favorite shows by theme, episode, host and date and watch full-length programs on demand. In addition, local PBS stations now have easy access to signature programming for their websites, as well as the ability to share their own locally produced content with the national audiences on PBS.org and with other PBS stations. This will provide increased opportunities for local producers to be discovered by national audiences.

Coupons, Inc. announced partnerships with top retailers CVS, Walgreens, Kmart and H-E-B to supply printable coupons powered by Coupons.com to their web sites. These retailers represent over 14,000 stores and 20 million online unique monthly visitors, extending the reach of the Coupons.com retail network to further benefit consumers, brands and retailers alike. The Coupons.com retail network is the largest online digital trade promotions platform, spanning more than 28,000 stores generating over $250 billion in annual revenue.

Coupons.com’s distribution network already includes the Web sites of Kroger, Safeway and Wakefern, as well as over 160 other supermarket chains through its partnerships with Grocery Shopping Network and My Web Grocer. Millions of consumers printed approximately $57 million in savings from the Coupons.com digital network in March 2009, an increase of 192% from the same period in 2008.

AdMob is setting its eyes on the rapid growth of the Android and iPhone platforms in its March 2009 Mobile Metrics Report. Growth in requests from devices running the Android and iPhone Operating Systems continued to outpace other platforms in March, despite the relatively limited number of devices in market.

The application stores for both platforms have significantly influenced this growth; in March, more than half of Android and iPhone requests came from applications. In the first five months following the launch of the Android Market in the US (November 2008 to March 2009), Android requests increased an average of 47 percent per month. In the first five months following the launch of the App Store in the US (July 2008 to November 2008), requests from the iPhone increased an average of 88 percent per month.

Other highlights from the March 2009 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report:

• The HTC Dream (G1) generated 72 million requests, giving it 2 percent share of the overall US Market in March.
• In the US in March, the HTC Dream (G1) was the number 10 overall device and the number 4 smartphone, after the iPhone, BlackBerry Curve, and BlackBerry Pearl.
• The Android OS now has 6 percent of the US smartphone market and is tied with Palm as the fourth-largest OS.
• The iPhone generated 8 times more US requests than Android in March. The iPhone platform in total (iPhone and iPod touch) worldwide generated 23 times more requests than Android.

The comparison of Android to iPhone in the March 2009 AdMob Mobile Metrics report is based on requests for AdMob ads on the mobile Web and in applications from the HTC Dream (G1) and the iPhone in the US. The launch dates of the two application stores roughly correspond to the launch of AdMob’s in-application ad units.

Knight Rose Productions has launched Lunchtaker.com, a site dedicated to helping promote healthy eating. Lunchtaker offers hundreds of ideas for healthy lunch foods, which registered users can combine into their own lunch combinations. In addition to suggested lunch combinations, the site contains an innovative lunch food “lottery” that provides users with entertaining random combinations. It also contains articles and discussion groups to help users connect with each other and share their ideas about healthful eating.

Lunchtaker can help people get more creative in planning their lunches, for themselves or for their school-age children. You can register for free, and then create and save different lunch combinations. The community will grow over time, too, as registered users can add their own lunch items to the site and opt to share them with other users.

NASA has launched an expanded version of an interactive online program that allows users to discover some of the many NASA technologies that positively impact everyday life. The interactive “NASA at Home” and “NASA City” sites are enhanced with many new features, including green-related information to coincide with Earth Day 2009.

NASA at Home and NASA City take users on an illustrated tour of the commercial technologies and products that trace their origins to NASA’s investment in space and aeronautics research and development.

Visitors can scroll more than 100 technologies grouped by themes such as home, airport, grocery store, sports arena, hospital, public safety and manufacturing. After entering an area, users can experience the impact NASA has on their lives and find descriptions of such technologies as temperature-regulated clothing from materials designed for astronaut suits and gloves, wireless headset telephone technology pioneered to transmit the first words from the moon, fire-resistant paint and steel coatings from NASA’s heat shield technology, and remote-controlled ovens based on technology used aboard the International Space Station.

Among the new features on the sites is Spinoff Challenge, a metagame that offers users NASA Home and City graphics, wallpapers and screen savers. NASA Billboard gives visitors up to date information about what is new at NASA. Audio and streaming video for each of the technologies enhance the visitor’s learning experience. Vibrant visuals enable users to see the showcased technologies in new ways, such as during the manufacturing process or their intended use. Users can share the experience and knowledge with others with the send-to-a-friend function.

In honor of Earth Day, Evite has partnered with Bravo Media to create a special, celebrity-designed collection of online invitations that are not only tree-free, but also give back to the environment in a new way. From now until May 31, each time a design from the collection is used, Evite and Bravo will donate $1 to the National Audubon Society, one of the country’s longest standing organizations supporting ecological conservation.

The special “Go Green” collection, featured on both Evite.com and BravoTV.com, showcases invitation designs contributed by a variety of Bravo celebs, with stylish invites for a variety of occasions – from dinner parties to birthday celebrations, from brunches to girls’ nights.

TheDailyPuppy.com is releasing an application for the iPhone that delivers users their daily fix of puppies with the touch of a button.

The Daily Puppy application, available for $.99, features a new puppy every day, fully stocked with their biography and picture. The application enables users to add favorite puppies to their library, as well as share puppies with friends and family via email and Facebook. Users can also browse by past featured pups and grown up dogs, and even shake the device to view a new random puppy.

The Daily Puppy Application also serves as gateway to the unique website where users can access articles on everything from how to train your puppy to how to treat tapeworms. Additionally, users can view instructional puppy videos on house breaking, training and grooming, or participate in forum discussions with other dog owners.

Children’s Hospital Boston’s Generation Cures movement, (www.generationcures.kid.org), where kids change the world through fun and games, launched the country’s first “Game for Good” game-a-thon. The groundbreaking two-month competition lets tweens use their gaming powers for good to fuel the discovery of cures and treatments for serious childhood diseases.

As more and more kids turn to the Web to make a difference, the Generation Cures “Game for Good/Make it Better” Challenge puts tweens in the giving driver’s seat. Just like they do in traditional fundraising initiatives like walk-a-thons, kids raise money by securing sponsors to reward their efforts in support of a good cause. However, with the game-a-thon model, kids can change the world right from their own homes as adult sponsors support their progress in an educational-adventure game on the Generation Cures site. While they have fun and learn, tweens are making a big difference for peers who are facing serious health issues.

Kids can enter the Generation Cures Game for Good challenge by registering for free on the Generation Cures site. Once registered, kids can reach out to parents, relatives and family friends, asking them to sponsor their game play by making a “Game for Good” pledge of any dollar amount.

The economy has not dampened the green commitments of most U.S. consumers, according to a recent national poll by Harris Interactive in which more than two thirds of those who purchase “green” products or services said their “green” buying habits are unchanged and one quarter said they’ve actually increased their purchase of “green” goods or services. Only 8 percent of “green” purchasers said the economy has reduced their buying of “green” products and services.

Among the 73 percent of those who reported buying “green”:

67 percent, reported buying the same
26 percent, buying more
8 percent, buying less

Asked how knowing that a store or restaurant focused on being “green” as part of their business would impact their likelihood to visit, 49 percent said they would be equally as likely to visit, regardless of extra distance or effort. Another 26 percent said they would be more likely to visit if it involved no extra distance/effort, and 8 percent would be more likely to “go green” and visit even if it required extra distance/ effort. [Full poll results]