Posts tagged become
Why Facebook Will Become a Food Porn Kingdom
Feb 3rd
On the same day that Facebook announced its IPO, the FoodSpotting app dished up a few new offerings. Now it creates a personalized picture menu for you, the FoodSpotting user, delivering “smart dish recommendations” based on what you like. The “filter wheel” categorizes food into dishes that you want to try and have already tried, and those you hope to never eat again; you can also see how your friends feel about various dishes. FoodSpotting connects to your Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Foursquare and Instagram accounts so you can immediately share any food photo you’ve taken. You can also cruise through nearby locations.
If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably already downloaded the app for your iPhone, Android, BlackBerry or Windows phone, and are contemplating not reading the rest of this because you’re too busy salivating over your next meal. Get ready for the complete food-pornification of Facebook, curated by you.
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I’ll be the first to admit that I downloaded the FoodSpotting app before I even finished reading the announcement. I am starving and it’s almost lunchtime. I use the “Explore” tab and scroll through photos of food, landing on this one particularly unappetizing-looking roast beef sandwich from City Provisions, an upscale organic market. I’d jump on the train and rush down to eat that sandwich immediately if the photo didn’t make it look so unappetizing. Instead, I think I’ll stay home and make myself a sandwich.
FoodSpotting is calling itself a “Pandora-like interface for discovering and rating dishes around you.” Except the difference here is that Pandora would never spam your Facebook Timeline like FoodSpotting has the ability to do.
Eating is Social. Period.
Despite all our whining about food porn on the Web, there’s something charming about FoodSpotting. As a user, I do want to know what my smart, interesting FoodSpotting friends are eating, why they’re eating that, and if I should eat it, too. Eating is one of those inherently social activities. And the FoodSpotting app isn’t creepy like many of the other 60-or-so Facebook social apps. The social aspect of food might overshadow the negative impact food porn photos could have on the social Web, and specifically Facebook. But do you really want your Facebook kingdom to look like this?
Photos courtesy of AmateurFoodPorn and Shutterstock.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Why Facebook Will Become Food Porn Kingdom
Feb 2nd
On the same day that Facebook announced its IPO, the FoodSpotting app dished up a few new offerings. Now it creates a personalized picture menu for you, the FoodSpotting user, delivering “smart dish recommendations” based on what you like. The “filter wheel” categorizes food into dishes that you want to try and have already tried, and those you hope to never eat again; you can also see how your friends feel about various dishes. FoodSpotting connects to your Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Foursquare and Instagram accounts so you can immediately share any food photo you’ve taken. You can also cruise through nearby locations.
If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably already downloaded the app for your iPhone, Android, BlackBerry or Windows phone, and are contemplating not reading the rest of this because you’re too busy salivating over your next meal. Get ready for the complete food-pornification of Facebook, curated by you.
Sponsor
I’ll be the first to admit that I downloaded the FoodSpotting app before I even finished reading the announcement. I am starving and it’s almost lunchtime. I use the “Explore” tab and scroll through photos of food, landing on this one particularly unappetizing-looking roast beef sandwich from City Provisions, an upscale organic market. I’d jump on the train and rush down to eat that sandwich immediately if the photo didn’t make it look so unappetizing. Instead, I think I’ll stay home and make myself a sandwich.
FoodSpotting is calling itself a “Pandora-like interface for discovering and rating dishes around you.” Except the difference here is that Pandora would never spam your Facebook Timeline like FoodSpotting has the ability to do.
Eating is Social. Period.
Despite all our whining about food porn on the Web, there’s something charming about FoodSpotting. As a user, I do want to know what my smart, interesting FoodSpotting friends are eating, why they’re eating that, and if I should eat it, too. Eating is one of those inherently social activities. And the FoodSpotting app isn’t creepy like many of the other 60-or-so Facebook social apps. The social aspect of food might overshadow the negative impact food porn photos could have on the social Web, and specifically Facebook. But do you really want your Facebook kingdom to look like this?
Photos courtesy of AmateurFoodPorn and Shutterstock.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Will 2012 Become the Year of Mobile SEO? – Marketing Pilgrim
Jan 30th
 Marketing Pilgrim |
Will 2012 Become the Year of Mobile SEO?
Marketing Pilgrim But thing is, while some Internet marketers are very excited about the Web going mobile and all that, a big portion of SEO's are still rather skeptical about mobile taking over the “normal” search, which is well-illustrated by the fact that only 21% of … |
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Could Jailbreaking Your iPhone Become a Crime Soon?
Jan 25th
Whether or not jailbreaking or rooting one’s smartphone is a legal act isn’t something most of us in the U.S. have had to think about for some time. That’s because, in 2010, the U.S. Copyright Office declared that jailbreaking devices is not a violation of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Fine, said Apple, but it will still void your warranty and we bet it will screw up your phone.
Despite the company’s official disapproval, jailbreaking iOS is still big among a certain subset of users, as evidenced by the popularity of the A5 Absinthe tool that was released last Friday. But should people in the jailbreak community continue to rest easy, assured that freeing their devices will forever remain legal? Probably not.
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That’s because the notion that jailbreaking is legally acceptable wasn’t established by, say, a Supreme Court ruling and all of the weight of legal authority that that would entail. Instead, it was a directive from the U.S. Copyright Office. So the thing can expire. That could happen soon, warns the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The only way to ensure that this doesn’t happen, says the EFF, is for everyone to let the Copyright Office know that they would prefer to see jailbreaking remain legal, and why. There’s a comment form that lets them do that.
In addition to smartphones, the EFF wants the Copyright Office to add exemptions for tablets and video game consoles as well. Two years ago, the tablet market simply wasn’t what it is today, let alone the jailbreak community around it.
Video game consoles have been hacked and modded for years, but more recent tinkering with Microsoft’s Kinect in particular has brought the true potential of the technology to the forefront. Even though Microsoft itself has embraced Kinect-hacking, the EFF doesn’t want to let this kind of user-modification of game consoles slip through the legal cracks.
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Another Reason To Become Facebook Friends With Strangers
Jan 17th
A few weeks ago, I found myself at Chicago’s New Wave Cafe in the very hip, artsy neighborhood of Logan Square. After ordering my requisite sandwich and coffee, I searched for a table. It was the lunchtime hour, and the place was packed. So I did what any normal person does: I walked up to a girl who was sitting by herself at a two-top table, and I asked if I could join her. She sat behind her laptop, with a smartphone and KindleFire on either side of her. “Sure,” she said, removing her headphones only slightly. As I went to sit down, I noticed that she, like many folks at this cafe, had Facebook open. But the profile she was viewing belonged to me.
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Creepiness turned to intrigue, and I decided to inquire. “Hey, um, that Facebook profile you’re looking at…is me,” I said, laughing awkwardly. Turns out that we’re Facebook friends. She’s a Facebook friend I had added when I was covering art in Chicago and frequently received friend requests from local artists. We had mutual friends. I soon found out that her name was Jen, she was an artist, and she lived in the neighborhood. She told me that my stories frequently appeared in her news feed. We chatted about the local art scene, I ate my sandwich, and then we parted ways. A few weeks later, at that very same cafe, I ran into Jen again. We sat across from each other – I read emails, she googled images of hearts. I shared a few links of art that I thought she might like to her Facebook wall. I checked out her Facebook wall and discovered a great New York Times article about the new “groupthink” and how solitude inspires creativity. The next day, Jen started showing up in my Facebook news feed. I hope I run into her again.
Today the Facebook Data Team released a curious new study called “Rethinking Information Diversity in Networks”. The Facebook data scientists found that even though people were more likely to consume and share information from people they interacted with frequently (close ties), most information came from people they didn’t actually know well (weak ties). They tied this study to economic sociologist Mark Granovetter’s 1973 paper, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” which suggests it’s easier to find a job through weak ties than strong ties. That’s because, in such close-knit social circles, information travels quickly and opportunities are snatched up fast. New opportunities arise in the least likely of places.
The data scientists mention homophyly in their report, nothing that individuals with similar characteristics associate with one another. In online social networks such as Facebook, people with strong ties tend to have the same interests and visit similar sites, whereas people with weak ties explore different sites. Weak ties, however, spread information that people wouldn’t normally see – which can, in turn lead to new types of knowledge. Taken collectively, weak ties offer information that’s different from the homogenous information shared by strong ties in one’s immediate social network. So what if more weak ties started popping up in your Facebook news feed?
Which brings me back to Jen and the importance of friending strangers. For all intensive purposes, Jen is a weak tie. Even though we have 58 mutual friends, she is did not become a frequent popper-upper in my news feed until after our random run-in.
Not long ago, Colbert declared National Unfriend Day on Facebook. Social network haters loved it. I argued against this idea, precisely because, for most, Facebook is not a social network of close ties – it is a web of people one has known through various parts of their life.
If the news feed improves its sorting algorithms and people stop stalking their ex’s, Facebook could expand from a space people use to be themselves and feel a part of something to a truly phenomenal way to discover news and information. But it will only work if you start friending strangers.
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Could Facebook Become The Internet’s Top Video Site?
Jan 17th
Facebook wants to win the race for the Internet. But one frontier that it hasn’t yet mastered is video. If Facebook can capture the video-viewing Web audience, its users will stay on the site longer, sharing more with each other and to their Walls.
As the concept of social TV continues growing, Facebook has an opportunity to reinvent social sharing around frictionlessly sharing full-length television shows and movies rather than just YouTube channels and clips.
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Currently, Facebook is not the Internet’s top video site. A new report from ComScore report confirms that as of December 2011, Google Sites, driven mostly by video views on YouTube, are still the top destination for online video watching. Google sites are closely followed by VEVO, Viacom Digital and then Facebook. What would it take for Facebook to be number one?
The majority of user-generated content videos begin on YouTube, eventually ending up on Facebook. When a video maker thinks about creating content, they’ll create a video, upload it to YouTube and then share it to Facebook. Videos rarely go to Facebook first. To truly surpass YouTube, Facebook would have to create a reason for users to make videos for it.
YouTube also partners with outside networks, hosting videos from music and other types of channels. The ComScore report shows VEVO @ YouTube as the channel with the most total unique viewers, followed by Warner Music and gaming channel Machinima. The partnering aspect of the report does not include any user-generated content.
Facebook recently announced social sharing apps that would allow users to share what they’re watching when they’re watching it, but this is just the beginning. To become the Internet’s top video site, Facebook will have to convince users that frictionless sharing is not wrong. And that’s no easy feat.
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Gartner: Next, Social Networks Will Sell Insurance, Become Banks
Jan 4th
A recently published business development analysis by research firm Gartner looked into social networks’ need for a more structurally sound revenue stream, and came to the conclusion that to maintain viability and competitiveness, they will soon enter the financial services industry. One Gartner analyst, Juergen Weiss, went so far as to predict that by the end of 2014, one of the major social networks – by implication, Facebook – would enter the business of property and casualty (P&C) insurance.
“Offering insurance products to their communities would be a natural extension of social media providers’ financial services strategies,” reads Weiss’ conclusions, “and would allow them to capitalize on their extensive set of information they constantly collect about their users.”
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The predictions appear in the latest of a Gartner series of “Top Industry Predicts 2012″ reports, using data compiled late last November. The report’s editor, Kimberly Harris-Ferrante, cited “radical shifts in customer behavioral changes and buying habits… challenging many industries to reinvent their product development and sales and services processes to align with customer expectations and technology use.”
The train of logic begins with Gartner analysts Stessa Cohen and Peter Redshaw, who cite a rapid increase in the number of online banking transactions. This increase has already driven banks to accelerate the establishment of their social presences through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and yes, if you can believe it, Flickr. (Banks share their family photos with their customers. No joke.)
“Traditional banks risk being disintermediated by social media websites that are increasingly looking for additional revenue streams beyond advertising,” Redshaw and Cohen write. “This is a natural extension of the rise already seen in comparison and aggregator sites, especially for more commoditized products such as small loans, general insurance and credit cards. Examples of recent activity include the social payments startup Twitpay, the virtual currency Facebook Credits and the acquisition of the U.K. price comparison site BeatThatQuote by Google.”
This “disintermediation,” as Gartner’s analysts put it, includes the enablement of online debt management services and peer-to-peer loan pools, all of which happens by way of social networks more than by stand-alone Web sites. To stay competitive, traditional banks (Gartner cites Citibank as the leader here) have launched services that reach their customers through Facebook, and enable them to conduct transactions through a social network rather than a Web site.
Here’s where Juergen Weiss takes over. Weiss notes Facebook’s Timeline feature as conducive for users to share their everyday events – getting married, getting a new job, entering retirement. Financial institutions are already using tools like Salesforce.com’s Radian6 to search for these events as social net users share them. Weiss believes this could become the social net proprietors’ opportunity to pre-empt those institutions from stealing away their own customers. Within just the next few years, he predicts, the social networks themselves (again, implying mainly Facebook, though perhaps Google also) will offer banking services, and then “naturally,” insurance services as well, perhaps initially through joint ventures with existing financial institutions but not necessarily the bigger firms.
The Gartner analysts perceive this as a genuine threat to the existing insurance industry. In their report, they advise insurers to plan now for the commoditization of their products and services, implying that they should perhaps be sold through portals the way cloud service customers purchase bandwidth and virtual machines today. A ripple effect from this seismic shift could impact government regulators worldwide, whose inability to adjust to changing circumstances has already been blamed for such events as the collapse of the Central Bank of Ireland, and the sub-prime mortgage loan crisis in the U.S.
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PayPal President Likely To Become New Yahoo CEO
Jan 4th
AllThingsD reported late yesterday that PayPal president Scott Thompson will likely be named CEO of Yahoo. So far there has been no independent confirmation of this. AllThingD’s Kara Swisher said that a formal announcement could come as early as this morning. Assuming the accuracy of the…
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Issues for 2012 #4: What Should the Browser Become?
Dec 29th
It was NCSA Mosaic that introduced the world to the Web. Since that time, the browser has become the principal software-based element in all the world’s digital communications and transactions. It is the harbinger of a very powerful new class of dynamic language interpreters, making JavaScript the unlikely, though undisputed, vehicle for conveying interactive functionality. And for some manufacturers, it is the center of an apps ecosystem unto itself.
So the browser is in no danger of disappearing. But as the Web expands into a delivery mechanism for all forms of applications and services, is a stand-alone, exclusive window into the Web, complete with bookmarks and toolbars and add-ons, truly the most sensible usage model for a system that may yet embrace all of computing? This is a question Mozilla began asking last summer, and whose answer remains inconclusive.
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Either the new form factor is here, or it’s not
As Mozilla Foundation Chair Mitchell Baker announced last July, “I think of apps as a new ‘form-factor’ for the Web.
“The browser is no longer the only way people access the Internet. People also use more focused ‘apps’ to do discrete tasks, and often feel a strong sense of attachment to the apps and the app model,” Baker wrote. “This is an exciting addition. Mozilla should embrace some aspects of the current app model in addition to the browser model.”
But Baker’s announcement points to an evolving, wiki-like document elsewhere on Mozilla’s Web site, the latest version of which seems far less willing to abandon the browser-centric Web as Baker’s original inspiration. “The next generation of innovation on the Web,” it reads, “will be anchored by a browser that is an honest broker committed to the interests of the individual user and developer, providing amazing experiences that match those offered by proprietary platforms; and user control and developer reach and freedom that is superior to proprietary platforms. As Firefox has transformed the browser landscape before, it must do so again.”
To that end, Stephen Horlander, who rearranged the contents of the browser for Mozilla Firefox version 4 in 2010, has been busy rearranging them yet again for a future version, as yet unnumbered. Under consideration is an adaptation of menus to include captioned tiles, like the home screen on an iPhone.
While this goes on, the organization has renewed its ongoing deal with Google for the next three years, which had been the principal source of the free Firefox browser’s revenue. The deal retains Google’s place as the search engine of choice in Firefox’s search box, while Google continues to develop the competing Chrome browser that doesn’t even have a search box – its text search capabilities are shared with the address bar.
Though the notion of Google Chrome as an OS for laptops and netbooks hasn’t yet caught on with consumers, it has succeeded thus far at advancing the vision of the browser as an environment for real-world work. It’s like a guiding star for the product line, a clear direction. So one should keep in mind how clever Google has been with its product strategy when assessing its motives behind extending its default search agreement with Mozilla: an agreement which presumes that for at least the next three years, Firefox will maintain a prominent window adornment called a search box. This while Microsoft, in establishing its bold, new direction for Windows 8, begins publishing an entirely window-less build of Internet Explorer 10, exploiting minimalist design ideas ironically pioneered by Mozilla’s Aza Raskin (who will, incidentally, have officially left Mozilla at the first of the year).
If Windows 8 succeeds in the PC and tablet markets in 2013, the browser that most users will find themselves using will, once again, be the one that users start by default. (As some users would say during the heyday of IE5, “Isn’t the Internet the one with the blue “e?”) On the other hand, if Windows 8 fails, then the healthy and growing tablet market will most likely be led by iOS, followed by Android – neither of which have proven fertile fields for Firefox to flourish.
Are Web apps not really the Web?
The rise of HTML5 has advanced the myth that applications run outside the browser are somehow “not the Web.” Thus users find themselves defending the sanctity of the browser-based environment without really knowing why.
To be the Web, RSS pioneer Dave Winer suggested in December, one has to provide links. “I don’t care how ugly it looks and how pretty your app is, if I can’t link in and out of your world,” Winer wrote, “it’s not even close to a replacement for the Web.” (This from the fellow who, ten years earlier, advocated an all-out defense of Java.)
Winer’s argument holds some water in that no network is truly viable without connections. The Web was originally conceived as a network of contextual connections between related topics; it gave rise to a delivery system, HTTP, which became ubiquitous thanks to the popularity of the browser. That ubiquity opened up a path for a new class of distributed applications that was not beholden to any one company’s or organization’s proprietary strategy.
If that class of apps is not really the Web, though, as Winer suggests, then the browser truly does have a place in our future – just a limited one. Articles with hyperlinks are nice, but their utility is limited. The role that Mitchell Baker foresees of an “honest broker” of functionality sounds less like a newsreader and more like an operating system.
For the browser to truly evolve – to fulfill all of Mozilla’s many goals and obligations simultaneously – it could conceivably become a kind of language platform. Think of an “inner iOS” or “inner Android” inside the operating system (I believe someone once coined the term “virtual machine”), within which the role of reading articles in a hyperlinked web falls to just one of many “apps.” And here, Google search may be featured prominently in accordance with the agreement.
To that end, however, Google may already be further along with its advent of Dart, a kind of “JavaScript++” that incorporates the full scope and object support features of Java while maintaining compatibility.
However, if we’re really considering HTTP as a kind of pipeline that enables end-to-end functionality, where the Web as we’ve come to know it is but one of many channels, then one could argue Microsoft is quite far along, at least with respect to its roadmap for Windows 8. The WinRT runtime would implant not a virtual machine subordinate to the OS, but a real machine that is a principal OS function, alongside its existing .NET Framework. Neither Google’s nor Microsoft’s development strategy is open to contribution from the community, like JavaScript. But the community has yet to reveal, or perhaps even coordinate, a counter-strategy – something which accelerates the evolution of the browser beyond yet another round of add-ons.
Can a browser be a reader?
HTML5 – the lingua franca du jour of the future Web – is already planning for a browser-less library, with its CSS Generated Content for Paged Media. This system envisions a Web without browsers alongside the Web with browsers, with the former being full of fine literature, long-form articles, and educational matter – a Web that speaks directly to the dreams of Dave Winer, full of links, references, and relationships.
But unlike a blog, and unlike the Web as it’s currently realized in browsers, W3C envisions more of a reader. “There is nothing in Web specifications that prevent browsers from adding a page-based mode today,” the draft reads. “However, most Web content is authored and styled with a continuous presentation in mind. This could change if it becomes possible to describe paged presentations in style sheets.”
For anyone who presumes that conventional browsers are the Web, the W3C effectively proves with the very drafting of this module for HTML5 that they are not. It foresees a Web beyond the browser, in a new and perhaps richer context, full of new research and discovery tools that simply don’t fit the old mold. While there are browser-based apps today for Amazon’s Kindle and other literary contexts, the books in that environment are worlds unto themselves, without any links in or out with which Winer may escape.
For Mozilla or anyone else to get ahead of the game at this point, perhaps it may be agreeable to concede that the Web, such as it has been, is only a segment of a broader, more functional, more usable realm of information.
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ArtSpotter Aims To Become Largest Arts Venue Database In The World
Dec 9th
Picture this: You’re in a new city and forgot to research its art scene before arriving. Does your iPhone have a solution to this first world problem? Thanks to the new app, ArtSpotter, it just might.
ArtSpotter was created by UK-based Raphaëlle Heaf, who has worked in the contemporary art world for more than 10 years. This ambitious new app marries her love of mapping, architecture, tech and art. Thus far, ArtSpotter has picked up funding from Ignite100, the largest accelerator program in Europe, one angel investor and two founding galleries.
ArtSpotter just launched in the Apple App Store on December 1, so it’s still new and growing. For now, the top ArtSpotter cities are London, Berlin, Paris, Munich and New York because these are cities that Heaf herself knows best. ArtSpotter is also working with events in the UK (the London Art Fair is one of them), and also speaking with others in Europe and the U.S. If ArtSpotter can aggregate data and content from the right places, this app has a chance at reaching its goal.
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One of the biggest problems that any hyperlocal arts community has is trying to build a completely comprehensive guide to art openings that encompasses both smaller artist-run spaces and larger commercial galleries. This is something I’ve experienced first-hand in my previous role as a Chicago art critic. As arts budgest dried up, hyperlocal publications have had to cut down on art show listings. I brought this up with Heaf, who said it was definitely “one of my big pain points from both sides.” That’s why she decided to make user-generated content a big part of the ArtSpotter app. Every time someone adds new information to ArtSpotter, whether it’s an event or a photo of the exhibition, the gallery receives an email.
Right now, she says that her and her team are working on the website to make sure that content from the gallery and from users is valued equally. Heaf is also working on a feed from partnerships in addition better general search. For now, Heaf selects picks in the “top picks” section, but she tells me that her and her team are in talks with curators and critics, who will make the selections more credible.
Thus far, London is one of the main cities on ArtSpotter.
ArtSpotter has yet to hit St. Louis – it could use some help from users.
The homescreen defaults to Spot, a feature that pinpoints all the nearest galleries based on the user’s current location (you must turn location on in order to use this app). Users sign up for a profile and are able to “follow” each other for similar recommendations. To see what other users have selected as their top picks from different cities, go to the “Collections” feature. Like any app, this one depends on regular use.
Personalization plays a large role in further ArtSpotter developments. Next year, Heaf and her team will be tweaking the “follow” feature so that it understands what artists interest you based on your interactions with the app. That way, ArtSpotter will be able to recommend more exhibitions and art venues that it thinks you will like.
You can download the app here. For the map of where in the world ArtSpotter currently lives, go here.
For now, ArtSpotter is only available on the iPhone. It will start rolling out for other platforms next year.
Art aficionados and friends, how do you like this app? Give us your reactions in the comments below.
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