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It doesn’t matter if you were rooting for Spain or if you were rooting for the Netherlands, yesterday’s World Cup Final match had one hero: Paul the Psychic Octopus.

Paul’s incredible feat of bookie-busting clairvoyance in correctly predicting the outcome of Germany’s seven World Cup matches, and then the final result, in which Spain proved victorious, has fans worldwide in an uproar … dare I say, salivating.

>>>Read the full post at Mediaite.

Paul the psychic octopus, everyone’s favorite animal oracle who’s guessed the outcomes of Germany’s 2010 World Cup matches with 100% accuracy, has made his selection for the winner: While his owner has cautioned that Paul’s expertise is in German matches, Paul has come to the conclusion that Spain will ultimately beat the Netherlands.

With a perfect record so far, there might just be something to this tentacled teller of fortunes. And that’s why we’ve decided to ask Paul five more pressing questions that need an official answer. Which choices will Paul ooze his way into? Only Paul knows. And with some of the world’s most important debates presented before him, Paul will have to summon the full power of the cosmos. Or however the flip he does it.

The United Arab Emirates’ General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowments has the guts to do what FIFA never would: In response to a craze that will doubtless live long beyond the World Cup, the Authority has decreed a fatwa against overly loud vuvuzelas. Fatwa #11625 declares vuvuzelas “haram,” or forbidden by Islamic law, if their volume exceeds 100 decibels, beyond which point studies have shown that noise can damage human hearing.

Achtung, Deutschland: The so-called “psychic octopus” that’s thus far predicted the outcomes of Germany’s 2010 World Cup matches with 100% accuracy, most recently calling the German victory against Argentina, has a rather more gloomy prediction for Germany’s quarterfinal match against Spain, which takes place tomorrow at 2:30pm EDT: He’s predicted that Spain will win the match. But there’s still a glimmer of hope for Germany’s fans:

There’s an undeniable and indefinable charm to classic pinball tables. Something about the flashing lights, the squeaky, stuck flippers, the irritatingly loud bumpers and the feeling that you never know if you’re doing well just makes for an addictive experience. I’ve lost several hours of my life to various pinball machines, both real and computerized, over the years, and I don’t regret a minute of it, except the specific minutes wherein I lost those games.

Now I’m not one to be traditional or nostalgic, but I think there’s something about the classic arcade pinball experience that can’t be replicated. That said, being able to play any number of different, unique pinball boards on a single machine would be pretty darn cool. And that’s just what Nike has provided with its World Cup promotion pinball table.

The “psychic octopus” who accurately predicted Germany’s victory over England this past weekend still has a perfect record predicting the outcomes of German matches this World Cup, and it just picked Germany again in the coming match against Argentina. But it wasn’t easy:

Contested ref calls are a part of the game, but this past Sunday, soccer fans watching the World Cup were treated to two major displays of referees’ incompetence: First, when England played Germany, England was down 2-1 when they got the ball into the goal, as seen in the above picture — but because the ball bounced out before the referee ‘saw’ it, they didn’t get the goal. Arguably, had they finished the first half tied 2-2, they might have played the second half differently and not lost 1-4. That afternoon, when Argentina played Mexico, Carlos Tevez scored Argentina’s first goal when he was wildly offsides (see below), but the ref didn’t overturn it. Argentina went on to win 3-1.

Now, FIFA president and arch-traditionalist Sepp Blatter has announced his plans to reconsider the tech solution that had long been out of the question for him: Video replays.

We’re not sure where to begin with this one. So the Oberhausen Sea Life Aquarium in Germany has an octopus named Paul. When they want to know if Germany will win a football game, they lower a couple of flag festooned boxes with mussels in them into his tank. Then they see which one he eats out of first.

Actually, the thing that made us really angry about this one is that Psychic Paul doesn’t alliterate, but apparently in German it does.

So. From the BBC:

Paul has so far correctly predicted all of Germany’s results in South Africa.

His keepers say he correctly predicted 80% of Germany’s results during the 2008 European Championship.

I just… I… Hrg.

After purchasing the second ever promoted tweet, Coke saw astounding results. In just the first 24 hours after the promoted tweet went online, the ad saw over 85 million impressions. Not only that, but the ad saw a 6% engagement rate, as opposed to the usual .02% estimated with other web-based advertising. That’s over 5.1 million people who interacted with that ad in just a 24-hour span.

This could be just what Twitter needs for advertisers to see that it’s a useful medium for getting the word out; Twitter just has to be cautious not to let it get out of hand down the road, as too many promoted tweets could spoil the microblog for everyone.