Social Networking

PhotoPlay, Who Needs Instagram?

by Peter Murphy on 03/04/2013

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The focus on Instagram goes well beyond photo sharing apps for Windows Phone. No matter what my thoughts are on that situation, it doesn’t take away from the fact that there are cross platform apps that perform a similar function available for Windows Phone.

Last May I took a look at Eyeem, an app for Windows Phone 7, that was a deserving photo sharing network, with a great focus on the art of photography, with apps for Android and iOS as well. A really good service, and large enough to be a decent competitor to Instagram with out the backing of Facebook. Unfortunately, they have not delivered in terms of keeping up with the Windows Phone platform, not delivering an update for Windows Phone 8. Even though I still use it, Eyeem has followed the money, Android and iOS, leaving Windows Phone users languishing.

Recently another service, PhotoPlay, using basically the same model entered the frey, but how much bearing do apps like these have on the current situation?

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Facebook is Insidiously , Taking Over the World!

by Peter Murphy on 26/02/2011

Having a friend with a 12 year old daughter who has just started high school, I’ve gotten a look at the way new users can get caught up in the social networking scene. It might just explain why 1 in 13 0f the worlds population is on Facebook.

 

The World Is Obsessed With Facebook from Alex Trimpe on Vimeo.

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MySquare For Windows Mobile Beta!

by Peter Murphy on 02/08/2010

4sqPhoneOptions The popularity of location based services like ForeSquare, has sort of been lost on me, although I’ll often post a GPS
co-ordinate with a tweet. ForeSquare seems to be a social networking extension that allows you to post info about places you like to your friends, both on Twitter and Facebook. Even extending to traffic tips and good stores. Basically a way to share about local businesses that you like, and be awarded points, and badges for. So ForeSquare takes the social Media “Citizen Reporter” up a level to a “Citizen Reviewer”. Basically, it’s a covert way for you to be the PR representative, for your fave local businesses to your network.

Why I haven’t used ForeSquare before, is the lack of a good WinMo Client. When you first go to the site to sign up, you will notice that there are apps for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Palm. The other devices link, takes you to a mobile login page, and that’s where Windows Mobile devices are relegated to, using a browser on your phone to log in to the service. It somehow negates the immediacy of a service like ForeSquare, “Oh I’m Here,  I like this place “, so I’ll open a browser, go to a bookmark, log in and then check in. To many steps right? Well a new Beta app for Windows Mobile called MySquare, caught my eye today at XDA Devs.

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Facebook, Privacy, and Leveraging the New Features!

by Peter Murphy on 27/04/2010

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In the last week Facebook have have made major changes in the way they share your personal information, with your friends and other selected apps and web sites. What most people have missed though, even though all this new inter site connectivity might surprise people, it was turned on for all by default. Essentially Facebook, without asking turned on a whole heap of new features that share your profile information all over the web, and for the less savvy user, this may not even be noticed. When Google Buzz erupted on to the social networking scene, their privacy settings, basically that through Buzz by default, you could see who people were followed by and were following, caused an uproar. People want control over what they share, and don’t like services they use to dump their info onto the internet willy nilly.

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Tweepstats, A Twitter Tool for You!

by Peter Murphy on 21/03/2010

tweepstats2 There’s a lot of information contained in a twitter feed, and surprisingly enough it’s quantifiable. For  a lot of people using Twitter for business, an analytical service which evaluates how they are progressing on Twitter, is key to their business strategy. For personal users though, a way to assess a followers value, and whether to follow back, is essential. Tweepstats does that in an unusual way, It shows you he overall mood of the user and whether they swear or not.

tweepstats1 There’s such a large range of information that Tweepstats hooks into, that is more individually focused, than a lot of other services. A little history though, my friend @jackstow, is in his own words a “coding monkey” and what started off as a personal project on his website, has grown into it’s own entity. Check out Jacks blog, and his tips for getting the best out of Tweepstats.

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Are You Buzzing?

by Peter Murphy on 11/02/2010

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The big NEW thing bombarding the intertubes in every way at the moment is Google Buzz. From what I understand, this social networking service, connects you to your Google contacts list, in order of preference. Well maybe not preference, frequency of contact! As always it rolls out a bit late, to take advantage of the marketing buzz down here in Oz, but it has rolled out!

googBuzzOz When I logged on to GMail tonight I was presented with an opt in screen, although I tried with google maps for mobile 4.0, yesterday, I couldn’t use the service, so it’s here. Time to have a look! Also don’t forget Buzz for Mobile

Google Buzz

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Marketing and the Internet! NOISE

by Peter Murphy on 13/01/2010

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Internet marketing is becoming all pervading, obviously with the right strategy in place, it makes people and companies money. Is it an imposition then, to embed advertising into apps, and even further, certain devices via file formats. Marketing ploys like these, are an annoyance, and maybe they drive users to buy the full app, in the long run though, they are a likely premise for users to see an app or device as half empty, rather than half full.

The intertubes concept of noise, a stream of useless and inane information that we voluntarily subject ourselves to, by subscribing to social networking services, creates a huge dilemma for those of us that want to utilise the web effectively.

So how would you feel if the latest book you purchased for your spiffy new eReader device, had an advertisement at the start of the page, in the middle of the page, and at the end of the page. The fact that most devices from here on in will offer internet connectivity, and may deploy advertising tactics, Just turns the volume up…

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Twitter is tWonky, is there hope?

by Peter Murphy on 14/11/2009

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For what has been a simple and useable service, Twitter has been introducing features, changes, that have hamstrung it in various ways recently. Or have they? Remember when Facebook did a redesign, and there was a huge uproar, well in the end people got used to it and moved on. In the last couple of weeks though, Twitter has rolled out lists, real time updates, and tentatively the new Retweet feature. Which appeared,disappeared, and reappeared unceremoniously tonight. However you look at it though, Twitter is evolving, and while it may not be for everyone, the changes to it’s simplistic functionality, raises huge questions for lot’s of users.

Not to mention that the bevy of changes in quick succession has actually caught a lot of mobile developers off guard, I’m finding all of the trusted Windows Mobile Clients that I use for Twitter are hanging, having troubles, I’ve never soft reset so much, as in the last week. In a rush to add all the bells and whistles, the devs at Twitter have outpaced all of the third party developers, that provide clients for the service. Even Firefox extensions I use have lost functionality. Is all of this making a simple online app better, or a better online app simply, unfunctional? The Platform is Twitter, the open source API, means most of us access the service through third party applications. If the API progresses at a rate of knots that the third party developers cannot keep up with, users are alienated, as their preferred client applications, are left in need of urgent updating.

If we look at the major features implemented recently, we se the first, “lists”, which is basically a way to focus followers into areas of interest, but a way to get you to follow people you would not normally come across in your daily personal pursuits. For the moment, personal lists escape me, they are essentially for people that focus their whole attention on the intertubes, and don’t have a day job  to go to, that doesn’t include writing a blog, or using a computer all day. One thing strikes me here, is that high profile Social Networkers, have the time and gumption to group people into like lists, or categorised lists, and that has become a new way to follow people without following them.

Real time update, is a feature that I’m concerned about. You can’t turn it off. At the moment of course, there are no windows mobile apps supporting the feature, so it’s not affecting peoples data plans at the moment, Inherently though, if I have Twitter open on the PC, it is continually downloading data. and if you don’t have an unlimited plan, it’s gonna cost you a lot of money to service Twitter. #please give us an option to turn it off @twitter#

The retweet feature, which at first was much maligned, actually seems quite functional. and useable, after a restart of sorts. I was one of the people that got the beta, it disappeared and reappeared. So being a new new user, I can comment on the ease of use, but it’s so new, I can’t really have an opinion on how it really works.

In the end though, you would have to conclude that Twitter is finally becoming master of it’s own domain. Even if it seems to be drawing from the functionality that others developed. ideas that others added to plugins and the like, to shore up the web app as it is.

Whether you think it’s retro/hindsight development, from Twitter, or believe this is what they planned all along, you have to admit, Twitter is becoming an independent cloud application, unfortunately, in the process, they are killing startups that built up on the sucess of their simple service and open API.

What do you think?

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