#RotoloClass

A few weeks ago, #RotoloClass students were sorted into the four houses of Hogwarts: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. (Students who were absent for the Sorting Ceremony were formed into a fifth group: Muggles.)

Each house of aspiring wizards was challenged to use their best magic to create a video with the best shot of "going viral" online.

The Assignment was simple: There are no rules on content. It could be comedic, informative, a display of talent or anything else the house decides has viral potential. The only rule was to do nothing that is against the law or unethical in the process.

What follows are the submissions from each house, as well as the muggles. These videos were viewed in class on November 17 during the "Quidditch Cup of Viral Videos," but they need your help to be truly viral. A winning house will be announced next week and your votes can help determine who takes home the prize.

To vote, choose your favorite video below and tweet your choice using the #RotoloClass hashtag. Be sure to include either #Gryffindor, #Slytherin, #Ravenclaw, #HufflePuff or #Muggles in your tweet so we count your vote accurately.

#RAVENCLAW - CAN YOU LICK YOUR ELBOW?

#GRYFFINDOR - HOW TO DESTROY A BLACKBERRY

#HUFFLEPUFF - CLUCKIN' AROUND THE 'CUSE

#SLYTHERIN - A TOAD LIFE

With a focus on personalized news, Zite uses the twitter and delicious APIs to deliver a unique news aggregating experience. 

Zite feels less like a traditional news experience (flipboard tries to recreate newspaper/magazine reading) and more like curated rundown collected by a personal assistant. 

Price: Free. Ads: None (publishers add them soon) Content: ★★★☆ (3/4 stars) - Twitter, Google Reader, and Delicious API, but no Facebook integration. Content partnerships took a hit after cease and desist letters from The Washington Post, AP, Gannett, Getty Images, Time, Dow Jones. (source) Endgame: A rumored $10 million CNN buyout came to went down Aug 31, 2011.

What's missing: A more simple way to share topics or stories with friends. A CEO the responds to student inquiries and timeliness of this post on my part. 

A screenshot of the Zite home screen:

A screenshot of the Zite section screen:

  A screenshot of the Zite story screen:

With all that Apple had accomplished over the years previous, they had a hard time thinking of what market they could make a move into next. With the rise of social media amongst the younger generation, they knew that this had the potential to be the next big thing. Well... it hasn't become that yet, but I am going to take a look at what makes Ping so interesting from a music industry point of view.

Although we have seen many social media platforms based around music, there were none really where almost every person had an account made for it even before they knew it. With Ping, the social network was instantly integrated with iTunes and the iTunes Music Store. All you had to do, was build your profile, and follow other users and artists that interest you.

Following Artists

Ping allowed you to follow your favorite artists with a click of a button. Artists were able to share content such as status updates, pictures, etc., which some may consider to be "inner-circle" content. It is almost as if you can become a groupie without having to actually become a groupie. With the iTunes store integrated, there is a direct pathway into purchasing the artists' music if one was to become interested through Ping. Ping allowed the listener to become more connected to the artist, and allowed the artist to share what interests them, which is a great way for them to build a fanbase easily.

Following Peers

What makes a social network, a social network, is the fact that we can share our thoughts and ideas socially through a medium that fits our interests. For myself, being a huge fan of music, really engaged in Ping with other users who had the same musical interests as myself. Users can upload reviews that they post about albums or songs that they have downloaded from iTunes, which then get sent to all of the people that follow you. Many do not have the luxury to write reviews for Rolling Stone or other music magazines, even if they have great thoughts and ideas about music to share. Writing reviews on Ping is a great way to get your personal thoughts and ideas out there to the public on a medium where there are others that have your same interests.

What is the benefit for the music industry?

The Ping social network really identifies well with the music industry as a whole. Being able to share your thoughts and ideas with others on Ping promotes the purchasing of music in a time-period where illegal downloading and pirating is at an all-time high. Also, as stated before, artists are able to become more personal with their fans, which promotes themselves and the music that they create. It allows the artist to be more in charge of their own career, where as in the past it was the record companies and agents that spoke for them. Artists now have a medium to express their thoughts and ideas on a more human level.

The state of Ping

From the founders of Skype we get delivered Rdio for our listening pleasure.  Rdio is a add free music-streaming social network.  Now there are many things that are done very well when it comes to Rdio, and then there are some lacking points.  When you got developers with the type of experience that the Skype guys have you can expect to get a certain level of quality no matter what.  Did they fall short or pull through to take over the music-streaming app on my mobile device. 

Features: Rdio does exactly what it is advertised to do as a program and service.  It is advertised as giving you access to a vast library of music anywhere with a simple interface.  Now allow me to dwell on that idea for a minute.  No matter which of the many platforms that you can access Rdio on you choose to use its comfortable.  The interface you given on most devices is immediately accepted because its familiar to us a-la-iTunes store.  If you have ever cruised apple’s infamous store, you may feel like it’s a walk down memory lane (from yesterday).  However this can’t really be counted as a downfall, because it works so darn well.

            Recommendations: Rdio recommends music to you based off of your listening history.  This idea was great in concept but falls short in a lot of the same ways that I feel the “genius” in our iPods is nothing more this a “smart kid”.  It never really suggested something that I would like to hear. 

            Collection: This option allows you to pull some of your favorite songs or albums out of the cloud so that you can play them while you offline.  This would be useful for you train commuters and such, but in most situations in today’s day and age we seldom are lacking a net connection on our mobiles.  Even still this is a feature that gives the user just that little extra bit of freedom.  Although the music in collections can’t leave the app itself, it’s still a nice touch.

            Activity tabs: Rdio takes the liberty of organizing the music at your disposal by what is at the top of todays charts and what is in “heavy Rotation” amongst other Rdio-ers.  This makes it easy to find that song that was playing on the radio or in you friend’s car the other day a breeze.  Rdio makes dealing with the size of the library at your disposal a pleasure to work with and to look at.  The interface for all of these tabs are classily done, equipped with album art and animations.

            Platforms: Rdio is on so many different platforms for how long it has been around.  The tool is available on every iOS device, Android, PC, and Mac.  That is a very impressive line up.  What’s even more impressive is the polish that shows in each of these implementations of the tool.

            What’s missing: I honestly feel like the social aspect is what’s truly missing from Rdio.  It doesn’t address other people you may know well at all.  The concept is there but their actual execution is sloppy, which when put next to the polish of the rest of the system is disappointing.  The social aspect is a half attempt at a twitter and iTunes Ping (that thing that no one uses on the sidebar) mash-up that unfortunately just never grows on you.  You get no real benefit of adding friends, and its not an easy task to find others you may know either. 

            The next downer is the fact that you are supposed to pay for this service.  Now don’t mistake the idea that I don’t think we should pay for things, but I don’t feel like there is enough here for me to dedicate that 10$ a month they are asking for.  The music portion is spot on but I have things like “my own library” and Pandora for when I really just am looking for something I don’t have.

            For Rdio to be a fully successful social addiction it will need to put the music player and selection portion of the system on the back burner.  We are certain that can do that portion well.  They need to focus on giving its users something to do while they listen to their music.  Start throwing in fun fact a-la-“music choice” or ways for people to comment on individual songs.  These are just suggestions and it is clear that the social aspect of this social tool needs a serious overhaul. 

Competition: The first competitor that comes to mind is Spotify, and honestly the only one that holds a candle to Rdio.  Spotify does unfortunately handle the social aspect of this type of tool much better than Rdio.  Truthfully there isn’t much from the descriptions of Spotify that I have received that differentiates either of these tools from each other but the name.  This is a good and a bad thing for Rdio. It’s good because Rdio is younger then it’s competition by two years.  The creativity and drive is still new in the Rdio developers, and hopefully they are working on an amazing social model to be implemented in Rdio in the near future.

In our current age of technological development, some people believe that books are being replaced. Why read an entire book when you can listen to podcast, read a blog post, or watch a video that offers the same information or enjoyment? It is true that the definition of a book is changing. No longer is it a pile of bound paper, but a literary work that can be presented in many different mediums. This includes electronic books available online and through e-readers like the Nook or Kindle. Regardless of what format a book is read and enjoyed, there has been a definite rise in interest for book lovers to interact with technology. Websites have even been developed to create a more global community of book lovers through social media. These websites include:

Library Thing (http://www.librarything.com/)

Listal (http://www.listal.com/)

Delicious Monster (http://www.delicious-monster.com/)

Shelfari (http://www.shelfari.com)

What's on My Bookshelf? (http://whatsonmybookshelf.com/)

What Should I Read Next? (http://www.whatshouldireadnext.com/)

Good Reads (http://www.goodreads.com/)

and Many Others

Among these sites, Shelfari shows a lot of potential for becoming a widely used social technology.

Shelfari is an emerging social website launched in 2006. It was later acquired by Amazon.com in August of 2008. Since it has been released, the site has targeted book fanatics, book clubs, authors, aspiring authors, and publishers in order to enhance the reading experience. The site offers numerous useful links for avid readers including: featured books and most popular books. Additionally, you can search for books of potential interest based of their tags or by browsing authors, series, subjects, etc. Shelfari also encourages its members to connect with each other using the following features:

Building virtual bookshelves

Bookshelves are customized (different styles, colors, and designs) lists (catalogs is a better word) of books that the member has read or plans to read. Beneath each book you can view how the member has rated it. This bookshelf can be made public or private depending on the preference of the individual user.

Sharing with circles of friends

As a member you can follow other members and they can follow you. What you share with the public has a lot to do with your preferences. You can share a short biography, profile picture, your bookshelf, receive and send messages to people privately or publicly on “public notes”, view or share other members' friends or groups they are active in, view reading stats, view reading goals, and view any posts or edits that you or other members have made about books or “Book Extras”. According to Shelfari,

“Book Extras are curated factoids by the Shelfari community that provide readers with helpful information while they’re reading or deciding if they should read a book. These Extras include character descriptions, important places, popular quotations, themes, book-specific glossaries and more. We have integrated with the Kindle Apps for iPad, iPhone & iPod touch, Kindle for PC and Kindle for Mac. You can also access Book Extras on the Kindle device, Kindle for Android and a growing number of devices and applications.”

Rating and discussing books online

Pretty self explanatory. You can do this through reviews and the “Book Extras” feature described above. There are also numerous discussions that a member can take part in by simply searching topics they wish to read more about or participate in the ongoing discussion.

Being linked or suggested to interact with people who have similar reading tastes

You can search the Shelfari Community and filter results to a tab of “Members Like You” in order to follow this members or sift through their bookshelf if it is open to the public.

Participating in online book groups

Similar to a book club, these online book groups focus on a book topic, author, genre, or a defining feature of the people in the group (such as profession) and discuss whatever the deem relevant.

Interacting with authors

This can be compared to following “famous” people on twitter. Members of Shelfari can find authors they like who are part of the Shelfari community and see what books they are reading or just message these authors privately or publicly with their admiration.

Shelfari users can connect their Shelfari account to other social websites by adding the Shelfari widget to their personal blogs for instance. Additionally, Shelfari allows its members to connect this social site with his or her Amazon account. However, I have not seen any added benefit minus the ease of logging into Shelfari more quickly and the ability to read the first chapter of some books in order to see if that book appeals to my tastes (a function of Amazon).

Although Shelfari is a well designed website with several useful features, the site itself is not considered as popular as Library Thing or Good Reads. Shelfari users often complain that they are not finding groups or discussions relevant to their literary interests and that the social aspect of the site is not practical unless you want to waste hours browsing the site. Users also complain of legitimate spam to the email address they chose to connect to their Shelfari account.

However, users have also expressed a dislike for Library Thing due to its poor design and the fact that Library Thing costs money if a user catalogs more than 200 books (a surprisingly low limit).

In my opinion, Shelfari has the most potential for growth and further development due to its affiliation with Amazon. Recently, it has even added the option to access a mobile version of the Shelfari site where the member can use some of the more popular features such as viewing your books on your shelf, adding and editing these books, learning more about books, and viewing your friend’s books.

To receive more information about Shelfari follow their blog: http://blog.shelfari.com/

To get more information on reviews of Shelfari and its competitors go to the following sites:

http://techcrunch.com/2007/01/18/keep-an-eye-on-shelfari/

http://runningwithfoxes.com/2006/10/19/social-sites-for-book-worms/

http://reviews.rebeccareid.com/librarything-versus-shelfari/

by Ben and Eric

SoundCloud is an online audio sharing platform where users can upload, collaborate, promote, and distribute their audio.

What can it do? SoundCloud makes sharing sound files super easy. Once you register for an account, you hit the upload button, where you are free to either 1. record a sound right then and there using your device’s microphone or 2. upload any sound file from your computer. By any, we mean AIFF, WAVE, FLAC, OGG, MP2, MP3, AAC, AMR and WMA. So yeah, pretty much any.   When you’re done uploading your track, you’ll get something like this.

  This is the Waveform Player. This represents the basis of the SoundCloud platform. This is how your sounds looks like on SoundCloud. The player provides a graphical representation of your sound’s waveform. What’s really cool however, is the commenting system. Other users can comment at any point in the duration of your sound. Imagine you have a song with a really atmospheric intro, or you have a track with an epic buildup that suddenly lets loose at the drop. Any of these points can be specifically commented on, to connect the comment with the experience. We always find commenting on the best time positions in the track fun.

The player has a share button, that gives you the unique URL for your track on SoundCloud.com or an embed code, to effortlessly share your tracks wherever you want throughout the web, be it personal music website or Facebook. Optionally, your player can have also have a download button if you’re feeling generous, but even a buy button if you’ve got your sounds hosted at an online marketplace, making SoundCloud a great way to promote your music.

The Social Network

Sure, you can upload tracks to SoundCloud. But SoundCloud is a social network, not a file uploader. So let’s get social.

First off, you’ve got your standard profile. The profile showcases all your different tracks. People can also send you private messages and private tracks through your profile using a DropBox like feature.

Next are people and groups. You can follow other users and have other users following you, pretty similar to the Twitter experience. One more thing similar to Twitter, famous people. Rather, famous musicians. DJs such as Diplo and bands such as The Foo Fighters. New tracks from users you follow will show up on your main dashboard, again similar to a musical Twitter feed.

Groups help users connect over shared music tastes or interests. There are groups for different music genres like house, techno, and dubstep, and even for different music professions, such as producers and DJs. Users can post their tracks to group pages for feedback and collaboration. While groups can be great place for discussion, there are a few downsides to the system. For one, the aforementioned genres? They dominate the types of groups out there. Electronic music tends to be over represented in the groups. Also, with thousands and thousands of groups out there, many with very similar titles and purposes, it’s hard to distinguish which groups to join. With little differentiation, and thousands out there, it’s hard to go about truly exploring groups, especially since a random set of them loads every time you try the “Explore Groups” link. The group discussion boards tend to have a lot of “check out my new track” or “let me know what you think” type comments. It’s usually well-meaning musicians, but you can feel overwhelmed by people asking for feedback. Of course, there are also the self promoting spam comments which can bog down popular tracks, similar to YouTube spam (even though YouTube is better utilizing filters).

Beating out the Competition. Does anyone do what SoundCloud does?

With Myspace, Spotify and a variety of other competitors out there in the market, there are certainly a lot of options out there for the average music consumer.  Yet even with the plethora of alternatives available, SoundCloud manages to distinguish itself from the pack by predominantly focusing on user-authored content.  In doing so, SoundCloud emphasizes not just an essential niche in the music landscape, but an ever-increasingly popular one as well.

Applications like Myspace and Spotify really emphasize sharing and streaming mainstream music and content. Also, while Myspace lets musicians upload their music, it doesn’t allow for the awesome embedding options that SoundCloud gives you.  When logging on to Myspace using my Facebook login, you are immediately inundated with music from the major artists and bands that you have “liked” or shown interest in on Facebook.  With Spotify, that option to link your Facebook login information is also available.  Once that is done, you are given the option to download Spotify, as it runs on the operating systems level – not through the browser.  After downloading and logging into the application, Spotify thrusts you into an interface where you can either upload your own playlists/songs or stream mainstream songs (similar to Pandora).  So yes, both Myspace and Spotify offer the ability to share playlists and enhance the music listening experience –on a mainstream level.  But all that being well and good, where Spotify and Myspace come up short to SoundCloud is in the ability for consumers to both upload their own user-authored content AND find user-authored content from other consumers.  And honestly, the more content we have access to the better, right?  Right.

A price plan for everyone

With the help of this specific concept of focusing mainly on user-authored content, SoundCloud has managed to lay out a very thorough and well-crafted business model for their premium content. SoundCloud has intelligently divided up its features into 5 premium tiers that users can purchase.  Of course, the first tier is the most basic and it is free, which we feel is a productive way to attract beginner users.  From there, users can choose to purchase even more upload time and more ways to customize their uploads.   By clicking on each account level, SoundCloud gives a very thorough description of each premium subscription in terms of privacy, storage space and downloadable content to give you exactly the amount of power you need.  Understandably, the more experienced a user gets, the more he or she would pay to satisfy his or her musical requirements and upload limits (soundcloud.com/premium/pro-plus).  It’s one of the most comprehensive plans we’ve seen from these types of site – which we like.  Most other applications, such as Spotify for example, only offer a couple subscription packages beyond the basics which obviously limits the users options. Even with a free account, (what we have) you still get to upload two hours worth of audio.

In addition to the great premium content set-up, SoundCloud also has an extensive “App Gallery” on their website, where users can access other third-party apps (such as Avid ProTools) to enhance and maximize their SoundCloud experience.  Of course, users will still have to pay for access to many of these apps, but just the fact that all these options to enhance the uploading experience are confined to one page is a big plus.

SoundCloud on the go. The Mobile App

Increasing the social networking appeal even further, SoundCloud has a mobile app which allows you to continue your experience even on-the-go.  The smart phone application allows for users to keep track of what users they are following and even gives the option to record sounds straight the phone.  We don’t envision too many users utilizing the latter part of this feature considering the smart phone is not optimized to record sound, but it’s a nice option to have. Users can also do a basic search for songs/artists they might want to hear on SoundCloud which is especially helpful.  Overall the app captures the basic SoundCloud features very well.  So long as users aren’t set on recording high quality content on their mobile phones, this app serves it’s purpose and functions without any hiccups.

The Pros

Sharing and embedding audio online has never been this easy

Really cool music player and commenting system

Thriving community

Variety of paid accounts to get exactly what you need

The app does justice to the full site

The Cons

Difficult to explore groups

Spam comments

Our Conclusion

There's no better solution for sharing user-generated audio on the web, period. SoundCloud has a unique and useful product out there. If YouTube is for sharing your videos, and Flickr for sharing photos, SoundCloud can be seen as the standard for sharing your audio. We give SoundCloud:

hay guise, here's a review of moot's new social media extravaganza, canv.as!

canv.as was first revealed early this year to rather mixed reactions. Widely characterized as some kind of "4chan 2", there was quite a bit of skepticism and disdain spread across the interwebs. However, back then, barely anyone had actually given canv.as a shot. Not only did it remain in closed beta for most of the year, but it used Facebook Connect as its beta signup/login method, which surely deterred quite a few potential testers who may have felt a just a little anxiety about giving all of their personal information to anyone associated with 4chan.

I actually did sign up for and gain entry to the site fairly early on, but still didn't really try it out until now. My first impression back then was that it was basically something like a sanitized version of 4chan that would be so easy to navigate that it could attract an even lower common denominator than 4chan, while staying clean enough to support the advertisers who were too afraid to deal with 4chan and actually make some loot. Now that I've gone through it a bit more, I don't think the preceding conception of canv.as is wrong, but there's a lot more to it. I'll go through how it works step by step, and you can decide yourself.

the canv.as experience

The first thing you'll notice if you know anything about 4chan is that canv.as requires an account. This seems initially to contradict moot's claim to strongly support anonymity, but it's a bit more complicated than that. Many people fail to realize that when they post on 4chan, unless they go through additional measures to mask their identity, are only anonymous to other participants in discussions. From the perspective of the administration, which logs the IP address connected with each post, it's easy to determine what users are posting what content. It's necessary to do this in order to suppress rule violators. The actual value moot sees in anonymity is the ability to post things without having an individual reputation at stake, and canv.as continues to facilitate this. By default, everything is posted as anonymous, only using your username if you choose to. However, it allows the interesting feature of attaching your name to a post retroactively, should you choose to.

When you first log in, you're given the annoying choice to autoinvite everyone on your Facebook friends list. I suppose this probably does get them a few new users, but I suspect most people have a fairly unpleasant reaction to seeing that the site's already digging through all of the information accessible to it via Facebook Connect (even if they should know better).

After that, you're greeted with a splash screen displaying the latest posts in the most popular categories. The subject categories are given twitterish hashtags and act something more like reddit's subreddits than 4chan's fixed boards. If you click on one of the images, you're linked to its position at the bottom of the parent thread. You're then given the ability to reply with text, a picture, or a modification of the existing picture you clicked through.

a basic run-through

Beginning my test of the system, I clicked on the the image of Link/Zelda. This brought me to the end of the thread in the "exploitable" category where it had been posted.

The initial post in this thread was simply the words "KNOW THE DIFFERENCE" with a vertical divider through the center. This was a common 4chan meme a while ago, with the optional caption "it could save your life." The idea of an exploitable image (something begging to be photoshopped or captioned) was also a relatively common concept on 4chan in its earlier days, with the accompanying phrase "OH, EXPLOITABLE" often posted when such an image appeared. The existence of this category on canv.as is likely part of moot's attempt to reacquire some of early 4chan's creativity that it's arguably lost in recent days, having been replaced with doubles threads and lol we r lejun xD everywhere.

Replying with only text or an uploaded picture is extremely similar to posting on 4chan-- you have a text box and a button to browse to a file on your computer to attach it. By itself, this would contribute pretty strongly to the whole "shiny 4chan variant" perception.  However, with the new ability to modify existing images from within the site, they've added something really impressive.

If you choose to "remix" an existing posted image, you're presented with what's essentially a javascript version of mspaint, with shortcuts to do everything you might need to create the newest iteration of advice dog. It's no longer necessary to have any kind of Photoshop or even basic paint skills to make silly (retarded) images and spread them across the internet.

Basically, canv.as' goal here is to lower the barrier of entry to creating some kind of visual content so much that ~anyone~ (really anyone) will be able to do it, and that's what's potentially their real innovation here. Maybe something like a visual twitter? Not quite, but it might be approaching that.

After making my pointless modification, I hit submit! And now we have my worthless contribution added to the end of the thread.

Look! Someone gave me a cookie! See the icons on the sidebar above the obligatory facebook/tumblr/etc link buttons? They're kind of like visual meta tags that you can apply to other peoples' posts to help categorize/prioritize them. The description of the cookie is that it's "for things that need a little condescending acknowledgement." Sounds appropriate amirite?

That's the basic process. There is one more critical improvement over 4chan / innovation lacked by other sites, though, which I referenced before. This is the ability to "claim" content that you've previously posted as anonymous. Paraphrasing moot, anonymous posting gives you the ability to create content without worrying about how a failure reflects on your personal identity. But what if something you post turns out to actually be awesome? It's pretty implausible, but it could happen. If it does, you'll probably wish you were getting credit instead of the collective intelligence known as anon. This is what canv.as lets you do-- no loss if you post complete drivel 99% of the time, because only the 1% of beneficial content need be attributed to your identity.

is canv.as actually worthwile; does any of this matter?

Maybe. It's probably still to early to say. There's no question that it's an attempt to extract the good parts of 4chan and present them in a friendlier way. It's probably up to you to decide if that's actually a good thing, but they've done a fairly nice job of it. The integration of the imageboard and the image editor into a single interface is absolutely a great idea, and really does reduce the stupid cat picture creation time to almost nothing-- sites like memegenerator have nothing on it. 

The ability to switch between anonymous and a persistent identity is also rather brilliant, but I'm not sure if people at large will realize its value. I don't think most people consciously realize that 4chan is really a place you can go to safely experiment (har), but simply somewhere they can post while disregarding normal social etiquette.

The site's designed quite well and should certainly be very easy for even the nubbiest of newbs to navigate. If canv.as allows people at large to create their own content more easily, that could be pretty cool and make the world a more interesting place. On the other hand, lowering the bar of entry too much often tends to result in a flood of garbage. If/when canv.as gets sufficiently popular, we'll see which it is.

How many times have you typed in a question on google like "What is new and exciting in the tech world?" or "What are the best home remedies for a sore throat?" more often then we'd like to admit right? It would seem though, every time you do type one of these questions in, almost without fail, Yahoo Answers pops up with an answer to that very question, and chances are there is one maybe relatively* (I use that term very lightly) accurate answer that addresses the question at hand, more likely though is there is a slew of inappropriate remarks that have the wherewithal of a thirteen year old boy and his buddies trying to sneak the words no0b and FCUK in as often as they can. Not exactly the most reliable of sources for accurate information.

Crowd-Sourced Answering

Enter from stage left, Quora, a new social platform that allows people to pose questions, and write crowd sourced answers. Crowd-Sourced Answers whats that mean? It means that any user can pose a question, and any user can respond, but, the difference lies in that others vote up the best answers, ignore the bad ones, and can make recommendations for edits to the best answers as to make them more accurate.

  Why Quora?

Beyond the crowd-sourced accuracy model that Quora adopted from Wikipedia, which helps to ensure quality, reliable, and correct answers to the questions, Quora provides individualized features that help you aggregate information on all the topics you are interested in. Quora allows you to follow topics, specific questions, and specific users (a large amount of the Quora user base are very influence members of their communities i.e. Philip Kaplan, the entrepreneurial wizard from SyracuseU) which allows users to very quickly find information they otherwise wouldn't have been privy to. 

About

Socialcam is a mobile video app for your smartphone that makes it dead simple to share videos with your friends.  Created by the folks at Justin.tv, Socialcam is often billed as the Instagram of video.  Within the app, users are able to find and follow their friends.  Videos are automatically uploaded to Socialcam as they are shot.  Once the upload is complete, your followers are able to view your video.  Socialcam is growing rapidly and to date has more than two million users.

Socialcam was launched by Justin.tv in March earlier this year, with the intention of helping users share video taken on their iPhone and Android devices.  Socialcam wants to become the default mobile video application for iOS and Android.  In August, Justin.tv spun off Socialcam into its own company.  Former Justin.tv CEO and co-founder, Michael Seibel, now heads up Socialcam.  Since breaking off from Justin.tv, Socialcam has added many exciting features, including live video filters; akin to Instagram.

Historically it has been difficult, or at least a hassle to share video.  Socialcam simplifies the entire process.  It tightly integrates with your social media profiles, including; facebook, twitter, youtube, tumblr and serveral others.  Within seconds after shooting a video, your friends are able to watch your video.  That’s powerful.  You can even tag your friends too.

Using Socialcam

One can either fire up the social cam app, or change their settings so that the camera launches directly to Socialcam.  The first time you launch Socialcam, you’ll want to create an account then link to all your other social media profiles.

You can choose to upload a video that is already on your phone or shoot your own.  Shooting your own is more fun because you can overlay live filters.  There are currently 11 filters, some of them are pretty cool.  Take a look.

Once you finish shooting your video, the upload to the Socialcam servers automatically begins and you're able to enter a title and decide where to share the video to.

It's as easy as that.  Your video is posted where you wanted and shared with your friends.  You can also choose tag friends during the upload process.

Here is a video I shot with the bohemian filter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puHeT4f4qlw

Social Aspect

In addition to allowing you to share your videos to facebook and youtube, Socialcam also allows you to view and comment on your friend's videos within the app.  This mostly seems to be useful if your friends are sharing a lot of videos.  I would prefer to watch the videos on facebook or twitter.

Competition

Socialcam has carved it's own little niche in the mobile video app market.  There are other apps that exist, such as Ustream's mobile video app, however that app is more focused on live broadcasting.  It seems the biggest competition for Socialcam could be from Apple or Google.  Socialcam replaces functionality that is missing from the operating system.  There is nothing else out there that allows you to share your videos to multiple sites simultaneously and effortlessness.

Worth it?

By: Stacie Foster and Anne Frances Krengel

  Description

Founded by Alex Iskold, Get Glue is a service that enables people to find entertainment and interact with people to discover new diversions.  Based on each person’s individual tastes and their friends’ likes, the site will provide users with information about additional items they might enjoy. 

How to use Get Glue

Get Glue is unique because it makes entertainment, which is normally an isolated activity, social.  It is extremely easy to use.  To get started, the user needs to download the app on a mobile device or on start on the computer. The user is prompted to select his or her favorite movies, DVD’s, books, music or video games.  A user can then follow his Twitter and Facebooks friends who are already using Get Glue by visiting the Find Friends page and then clicking the Follow button under their pictures.  

Features

Users can tell their friends and other GetGlue users what entertainment they’re checking out at any moment by using the check-in feature.   The more check-ins someone has, the more the service learns about that user. Then, Get Glue recommends things that might interest the user.  This is a multi-platform feature, available on the GetGlue site as well as through apps on the iPhone, iPad or Android.  A mobile site is also available to Blackberry users.  

Another Get Glue feature is the reward system, used to encourage users to display what they’re doing.  By completing activities such as checking in and liking things, users can unlock a sticker, or a badge, for their efforts.  Other rewards include coupons, prizes and opportunities to win prizes.    

The site encourages more advanced social interaction by offering points for comments and replies.  Anyone who likes and comments on something can be eligible for Guru status.  When other Get Glue members find these comments or replies helpful, the poster receives points.  The user with the most points for a specific item becomes Guru.  As the Guru, he obtains the ability to recommend things people might enjoy and revise content.   

Get Glue’s Purpose  

In his Inc.com article, “Get Glue: The Foursquare of Entertainment,” Lou Dubois, a Social Media Editor for NBC Universal’s local news affiliate WCAU-TV, quotes GetGlue founder and CEO Alex Iskold explaining the purpose of Get Glue:  

  "From the beginning, the idea with Get Glue was based around my belief that entertainment is very naturally cross-vertical. Facebook is perceived by people as a great place for friends to connect, see pictures and send messages. Twitter is admittedly a news network, and Foursquare, GoWalla and the others are location-based services. It was clear to me that social entertainment was the missing piece, because we're always consuming media" (Inc.com).

  According to Dubois, Get Glue was the most popular media and entertainment checkin site to enter the social media arena in 2010, jumping from a membership of 30,000 in January 2010 to more that 650,000 as of mid-October of the same year. Dubois even says that according to Iskold, Get Glue has equal numbers of television user ratings as IMDB, equal numbers of user movie ratings as Yahoo! Movies and five times as many TV show users rating as TVGuide.com.  Furthermore, Adweek says that Get Glue has partnerships with more than 50 major entertainment companies, such as FX (adweek).

  Development

It’s hard to believe that such a popular site started off as a Firefox browser add-on that was developed by AdaptiveBlue, a New York City-based compay, which began as a social recommendation engine when it was founded in 2006.  Richard MacManus, the founder and editor-in-chief of ReadWriteWeb, said this transition was successful because it changed its branding, launched a getglue.com website, and “got emotional” (ReadWriteWeb). 

  Positive Attributes

Get Glue was recently named a leader in the Emerging Social Entertainment Martket by Bloomberg. Simply put, Get Glue is the only app of it’s kind and that is very fortunate for them. Get Glue cashed in early on SM in the entertainment industry and they are leap years ahead of any other app that will someday try to compete (this is expanded on in a later section of our review). 

  Another positive attribute to Get Glue is its versatility. Users don’t have to be a TV buff, music junkie, or ultra gamer to use Get Glue. You can check-in to any entertainment component you want. It’s not all about music, films, or TV; it’s all of those things. Get Glue is friendly for everyone. Therefore, there are huge amounts of potential for this application to grow. Right now, it’s still recognized on a smaller-scale. As soon as word gets out about Get Glue, expect it to be a major player in the Social Media industry because there is a spot wait for Entertainment apps in social media—there isn’t a big player…yet.

Negative Attributes

Get Glue is a little bit too similar to Foursquare. The actual functions of these applications are completely different, but they use the same terms—the terms that Foursquare coined. To signify that they are tuning into a program, listening to a song, playing a video game, or watching a movie, users have to “check-in.” This complicates things. Foursquare is an already established SM application. When someone says they “checked-in” the clear assumption is that they were using Foursquare and not Get Glue. There is a similar problem with “badges.” Get Glue users earn stickers at first, and after so many stickers, they elevate to badges. But Foursquare is better associated with badges than Get Glue. In order to have its own presence in Social Media, Get Glue needs to coin a new term that signifies a user is consuming a particular medium.

  The other negative aspect of Get Glue is that there is no interaction beyond checking-in. There is no opportunity for users to comment on the episode after they watched it, or review an album after they listen to it. Get Glue users have opportunity to connect their activity to Facebook and Twitter, and then discuss there, but there should be some opportunity to discuss within the app.

  The most negative feature in Get Glue is the “share an idea” option. It’s simply too broad. The most promising aspect of Get Glue is how specific it can be. You can check-in to a movie, music, video game, TV show, or book.  To check-in to an idea is pointless. There are too many “ideas” floating around. Without a specific focus, this feature gets lost.

Get Glue—compared with other social media

The most prominent aspect of Get Glue is that it’s the first app of its kind.  Concentrating solely on entertainment industries, Get Glue has a monopoly over the all methods of fun that young people indulge in. 

  The most similar app you can find to Get Glue is the pages feature in Facebook and Google+. This feature allows users to express their endearment toward a particular entertainment facet, but there is no level of commitment expressed. Users on Facebook and Google+ can just “like” a page or “follow” any given company on the respective medium, but who’s to say that user tunes in every week to a show they like on Facebook, or buys music from the artist they follow on Google+? Conversely, on Get Glue, “checking-in” is a continuing action. You can’t check-in once for an entire season of a television show. Instead, you have to check-in every week. You check-in every time you listen to an album—not just when you buy it. There’s multiple opportunities for users to come back.

  Get Glue is different from other applications because it’s rewards are virtual as well as tangible. After users collect 20 stickers, they are eligible to request those stickers to be sent to them via snail mail. The stickers can be placed on laptops, cell phone, or anywhere else. The point is, those stickers are real—Foursquare badges aren’t.

Viability

Music, movies, television, books, and video games are the most financially secure industries. Currently a non-profit, Get Glue partners with these secure industries to receive financial backing and offer exclusive “badges” to people who check-in to entities owned by certain companies. Major partners include: 20th Century Fox, AMC, ABC Family, Disney Theatrical, Discovery, ESPN, FOX, Food Network, Hachette, HBO, HGTV, MTV, MSNBC, Showtime, Penguin, PBS, Random House, Simon and Schuster, Syfy, Sony Pictures, Travel Channel, USA Network, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. theatrical.

  Another important feature Get Glue has to offer companies is that they are the opposite of the common Company-Buyer social media interaction. Typically, in mediums like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, companies are talking at the consumers; all the interaction takes place via the companies end. With Get Glue, consumers themselves are engaged because they have to do the legwork. They have to check-in to something, not the other way around. On Twitter, Facebook and Google+, it is too easy for users to turn off information coming at them from companies. With Get Glue, there is no need for this because the users are initiating the actual interaction. 

http://getglue.com/

http://getglue.com/about

http://www.inc.com/news/articles/2010/10/getglue-the-foursquare-of-entertainment-checkin.html

http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/getglue-spreads-social-tv-fx-136162

Who doesn’t want to know how they do with social media? Why wouldn’t you want to brag to your friends that you are better than them in an online ranking? Klout is a way for you to manage your presence on line by tracking your influence on social media. Klout uses 4 main pieces of information to track how you are doing online. They track obviously your overall score, your true reach, amplification, and network. Your true reach is judged by the number of people who see your tweets and are influenced by them. Amplification is how much you influence people. The network is measured by how much you influence your audience and how many people you interact with.

Klout keeps track of what you are influential in. They will list topics for you that they feel you are influential in (http://klout.com/#/Adammc314/topics). One unique facet is that you can actually vote on what you think someone is influential in, and soon they will allow you to nominate what you think someone is influential in. You are given a certain amount of +K to give out each day to people who you may feel are influential.

Klout has been under a lot of scrutiny the past few weeks after changing their scoring metrics. Since the new scores have come out, users have been mostly critical of this change. Many users have dropped significantly since the change. Klout said in a tweet last week “The average Klout Score is around 20 and a Score of 50+ puts you in the 95th percentile #KloutChat” (https://twitter.com/#!/klout/status/131857435488026624). Now it seems as if most of the users fall within a chunk of the scoring. My score before the new algorithm was 54 and then after the change I immediately went down to a 44. Since then my score has been steadily dropping no matter how I have been interacting (http://klout.com/#/Adammc314/score-analysis). It has been shown that if you follow more people and more people follow you, your score will be higher regardless of what you tweet and who you tweet with solely based on the reach that your tweets make. The more people that see your tweets, the more influential Klout thinks you are being.

You can link your Klout account to a dozen different social media platforms at the moment. While you can link all of these accounts they don’t necessarily have metrics up for them all at this time to affect your scoring. You’ve been able to link your Google+ account to your Klout for a few weeks now but they did not have any scoring metrics for the network. “Many of you have already connected Google+ and in the next couple weeks we will be integrating it into your Scores. #KloutChat” (https://twitter.com/#!/klout/status/131862231066488832). As of now you can connect to the major networks, Facebook and Twitter, and some of the smaller networks, like last.fm and your blogs, on your Klout page.

Klout will group you into different styles of how you influence your following.  There are 16 different styles that you Klout can assign you (http://klout.com/#/Adammc314/kloutstyle). It seems to me that there is one section of the Klout board that holds the most users. The lower right quadrant is the area where it seems most of the users gravitate. In the Lower right you have styles such as Networker, “known to connect to the right people and share what’s important to your audience.” And Specialist, “may not be a celebrity, but within your area of expertise your opinion is second to none.” I feel as if Klout has hit a lot of these spot on with where they rank some of the people showing up on my board. Some other parts of the board are celebrity, “You can’t get any more influential than this. People hang on your every word.” There is a Curator, “You highlight the most interesting people and find the best content on the web and share it to a wide audience.”  And the final corner of the board is Observer,” You don’t share very much, but you follow the social web more than you let on.” If you are curious about what these people might be influential in with their style you can hover over their name and it shows the top 3 things that they are influential in. For instance @iSchoolSU is a curator and influential in Technology, Syracuse, and Entrepreneurship (http://klout.com/#/iSchoolSU).

Obviously there are people who you influence with you tweets and postings and people who influence you. You can see both of these lists on Klout which you might find interesting (http://klout.com/#/Adammc314/influencers).  There are people who influence you based on the topics that you share and based on who you retweet and interact with.

While Klout is used for all social networks out there, it seems as if the only thing that really matters is how you work on twitter. I have several accounts linked to mine and I would think that others would show up in my influencers and who I influence based on foursquare check-ins and comments and how I interact on Facebook. This does not seem to be the case however. I only see my scores reflecting based on my twitter usage.

While I admit I am slightly obsessed with checking on my Klout scores and influential topics, I feel that the Klout system is now broken and needs to be fixed. Whether that means scraping the new algorithm and going back to the old one or tweaking this one there needs to be a change again. It seems as if one of the real problems it that there isn’t another product that measures your scores in such a way that Klout does. In my own opinion I feel as if Google would be good at this with their already vast knowledge of analytics they should have a step in the right direction when it comes to scoring your influence. When it comes to social media the next idea in this field could just be the next big thing.

There has been a world wind of talk concerning two up and coming emerging technologies. In the world of discounts, both Livingsocial and Groupon have pledged to offer customers the best possible deals in anything ranging from escapes to adventures. Now, you may be wondering what exactly makes these sites different? Which site should you use? The following review will cover the ins and outs of these two sites, informing you on everything from the purpose of the company to the amazing features it has to offer. I will conduct and in depth investigation on both sites and offer the end user a decision on which site is worth spending your time and money on. Everybody has to love a great deal!  

Livingsocial, the more widely known emerging technology, has become quite the competition. Having been first established in July 27th 2007, Livingsocial has now reached well over 21 million sales in 25 countries and with over 46 million users. Originally, LivingSocial was merely an idea planted in the heads of four employees from the Revolution Health Group which has know grown to be more than they ever could have dreamed of!

  Purpose

The overall purpose of livingSocial is to offer an affordable way to live socially. The owners of LivingSocial want their members to experience something that they normally wouldn’t do. These amazing discounts allow them to do just that, afford the experience of a lifetime.

  Features

Livingsocial offers enormous deals in various categories such as daily deals, instant, escapes and adventures. Daily deals may range from a day at the spa to a discount at your favorite eatery. The escape category on the other hand offer luxurious vacations for an amazing discount. Adventures also provide awesome outings that you have never dreamt on participating in such as skydiving and white water rafting. There is not catch, no hidden deals, and most importantly no disappointments. Livingsocial ensures that every member makes it a point to go out and live social. Livingsocial also has an iPhone and android app so that you won’t have to miss out on your favorite deals. No matter where you are at you can make the deadline and grab once in a lifetime trips. Livingsocial also offers an awesome feature for their customers to gift their deals to a family or loved one.

Positive & Negative Attributes

Livingsocial has numerous positive features such as the division between daily deals, adventures, escapes and families. However, a negative aspect of Livingsocial is the fact that they do not cater to your specific interests.

The overall purpose of Groupon is to negotiate huge discounts with popular business and offer it to their members. However, unlike LivingSocial, Groupon focuses on targeting your discounts to your specific interests. The businesses win by getting tons of new customers, while the members receive enormous discounts.

  Purpose

Much like LivingSocial, Groupon’s purpose is to please their customers. They ultimately want to offer their members amazing deals that they would never get to experience otherwise.

  Features

Groupon has some awesome features that are not featured on Livingsocial. One of those features are personalizing your deals. This works by you telling Groupon a little about yourself and consequently you being automatically subscribed to deals that would interest you. This feature will help remove the clutter from you inbox and will make the most out of your Groupon experience. Another awesome feature is the ability to gift your deal.

  Positive & Negative Attributes

The positive attributes that Groupon has are the fact that you are able to refine your deal search to your specific interests. However, the negative attributes are the fact that Groupon does not attract major customer in ways that Livingsocial has.

My Personal Experience

I am personally a huge fan of Livingsocial, their user interface as well as their advertisements attract me more as a college student. However, Groupon has recently caught my attention with their personalize your deal feature. This feature helps avoid the hassle of having to clean out my inbox or sort through my mail. Every email that I receive interests me to the current deal they have in place.

  Conclusion

Ultimately, I have decided to continue using Livingsocial. I believe that they are growing at an impressive speed and will soon enough have all and even some of the same features that Groupon has. Livingsocial promises to keep growing and ultimately become the largest company in online discounts.

  Appendix

  1)   1)  http://www.screenwerk.com/2011/06/11/coke-v-pepsi-groupon-and-livingsocial-battle-for-hearts-minds/

This source was very useful when researching the differences between livingsocial and Groupon. It served as a reliable source on the various features that both of these sites had. This site also saved me tons of time and effort by providing a very well organized review of these two companies.

2)   2)  http://ascamorlegit.com/livingsocial-scam/

In 2009, when James McKelvey, friend of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, was unable to complete a sale of his $2,000 glass faucet and fittings because he had no way to accept credit, Dorsey knew he had found his next project.  Dorsey and McKelvey founded Square, Inc. in May 2010, to revolutionize electronic payment.

Square is a combination of software for iPhone, iPad, and Android, and a hardware credit card reader which plugs into the audio jack of one of these devices. Square consists of two mobile applications each for different payment processes.  The first app, called simply Square, allows anyone to accept credit card payments using his or her iOS, or Android device.  Sell your old guitar, or get paid for mowing a lawn, the possibilities are endless.  Next is the Card Case app.  This app allows customers to set up tabs with participating merchants, and simply pay using their name.  This review will cover the setup of a Square account, as well as the design, ease-of-use, and practicality of the hardware, and two pieces of software.

  Getting Started

Setting up your Square account on its website couldn’t be simpler.  Enter your email address, choose a password, and confirm by clicking the link that was emailed to you.  After the account has been created, add your Twitter handle, and phone number for tech support.  In order to be able to accept mobile payments, it gets slightly more complicated.  You need to link a bank account so that there is somewhere for the credit card payments to go.  Under your account settings you can enter your account number and bank’s routing number.  Here’s where it can get slightly time-consuming.  Square will make two tiny deposits into your bank account.  After waiting five to seven business days for them to appear, you confirm your account by giving Square both amounts.  While being forced to wait a week could be slightly irritating for some, this is really the only secure way to confirm a bank account, and it is the same process used by PayPal and other similar services.  Overall Square has made setting up an account as simple and painless as possible.

  Hardware

The Square reader is a black or white dongle that plugs into your iPhone, iPad or Android’s audio jack.  It can be purchased in Apple Stores for $10, but is also available for free when you sign up for an account on the Square website!  The design is extremely simplistic – a small rounded square with a slit for a credit card to slide through.  The Square logo is embossed on the front, and altogether it resembles an Apple product.  There isn’t much to say about the hardware, other than it has a great simple design that accomplishes it’s goal.

  Software

The main Square app (free in the App Store) allows anyone to accept a credit card payment for just about anything.  The main screen of the app has a simple layout which allows the seller to enter a price, and a description of the product or service, which can include a picture.  The customer swipes his or her credit card through the Square dongle, and uses his or her finger to sign directly on the screen of the phone or iPad.  He or she then opts to have a receipt sent to them via email or text message.  The app also has options to charge tax, or to allow tipping.  All transactions are recorded in the app’s sales history section.  A customer can even opt to pay with cash, and the transaction will be recorded there as well.  In my tests, this has worked flawlessly, and it seems like a great solution for the occasion sale of old stuff, or full-time merchants alike.

Next up is the Card Case app (free in the App Store).  The Card Case app allows you to setup a tab with participating merchants, and charge to it simply by giving the cashier your name.  It accomplishes this by allowing you to add your credit or debit cards into your virtual wallet.  You then setup up an account when you enter a store (which can even be done automatically with iOS 5 and its new geo-fencing capabilities) and the cashier confirms your name and face and charges to it.  You then receive a receipt via text message or email.  This all sounds great in theory, but the big problem is the lack of merchants.  While there are supposedly now 20,000 participating merchants nationwide, in my search there were only fifteen in a twenty-five mile radius of my area (Syracuse, NY), all of which were obscure or speciality shops which I would most likely never enter.  In my opinion, to make the Card Case app worth using for the vast majority of people, there will need to be a large increase in the amount of participating shops.  The Card Case app also contains a simplified version of the main Square app, to receive quick payments, but it’s missing many features such as tax, tipping, and cash payments.  For most people it would be more practical just to stick with the original Square app for these purposes.

  Business Model

I know what you’re thinking.  The reader is free, the apps are free, how does Square make any money?  Square receives a small cut of 2.75 % every time you charge a credit card.  This fee is less than that of even PayPal which charges 2.9 % + $0.30 per transaction.  In my opinion receiving 97.25 cents on every dollar is a pretty fair rate for the convenience of being able to accept credit cards from anyone, anywhere.

  Pros

easily accept credit card payments anywhere

minimal fees

great design and interface

Cons

not enough merchants to make Card Case worthwhile

  Conclusion

I spy with my little iPhone… where all my friends are at this very moment. With the new Apple app “Find My Friends”, no more wondering where your kids are, or how far away your friends are from you. People using iOS 5 with an iPhone, iPad, or iTouch, are now able to find friends by geolocating their iOS devices. It is super easy to use and also completely free. All one needs to do is download the app, sign in with their Apple ID and start sending requests to your friends. Once your friends grant you access to their data, you will then be able to locate them and see their location either on a list or directly on a map. One set back of this app, is that as of right now, users are limited to adding one friend at a time. Users have to add a contact, go back to the contact list and add the next one. One could also add a contact by entering the email address of a friend they’d like to invite. You can add friends for a limited period of time or until you would like to take them off your contact list.

Competition

The Android has always been the rival of the iPhone, so it is no surprise that the Android app Google Latitude mirrors the aspects of find my friends. Google Latitude is similar in the fact that it shows a list or map of your friends locations, as well as has a button to check in. One benefit however of Google Latitude is that it is greatly integrated into Google Maps; therefore giving consumers the option to access the app from the Maps app itself. By using the Google map feature, you have the option to check out the street view of friends locations.

Winner

While both apps have their pros, I find that Apple’s find my friends comes out the winner. While Android’s Google Latitude has the familiarity of Google Maps, that does not make it a better or more useful app. Not only does Apple’s find my friends just look better, but it is also more user friendly. Another aspect that sets find my friends ahead of Google Latitude, is the temporary friend option. While both apps allow users to add “friends” from their contact list, only Apple gives the option to have people view your data temporarily. This seems like a very smart move on Apples behalf. Maybe you are on a trip with friends or family or peers, and you want to keep in contact via location while you are in a new place. This app aides you greatly, however once returning home, it is understandable that now you do not want all these people knowing your whereabouts.

  Good vs. Evil

Just how useful has Apple’s find my friends been so far for people? According to one man, it helped him find out his wife was cheating on him. While the purpose of this app probably wasn’t for suspicious spouses to track their loved ones, that doesn’t mean that one cant use it for that! A man in New York City suspected his wife of having a wandering eye, so what did he do? He did what any 21st century, tech loving husband would do… he secretly installed the find my friends app on his wife new phone, and tracked her whereabouts. Low and behold, while the husband was correct in his suspicions, and was able to take the screen shots of their texts vs. screen shots of her location on the find my friends map straight to the lawyers office.

 Apple’s find my friends can also work for good. Earlier this month, a group of students who were abroad decided to all install the find my friends app on their iPhones, just in case one of them got separated or lost. Like typical college students, after a night of drinking down at a local pub, a few of the went back home, while others decided to keep their night going elsewhere. One of the girls ended up wandering off with another group of American students. However a little while into her night, she realized not only was she completely separated, but she had no idea where exactly she was. She could call her friends and try to explain her whereabouts, but mix together an unknown place, plus hours worth of drinking, and it is not so easy to describe ones location. Have no fear- find my friends is here!  Her friends were able to log onto find my friends, see her location, and come get her!

 Final Thoughts

I find that Apple’s find my friends is useful, as well as easy to use. The fact that you have to allow others to see your data, seems like it is a good privacy protector. Also, the option of having people be temporary or permanent contacts is the right move. All one needs is their iPhone, and iOS 5, and they can start tracking their friends! Imagine it as a 21st century game of marco polo.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/find-my-friends/id466122094?mt=8

http://www.macworld.com/article/162969/2011/10/apple_releases_find_my_friends_for_ios.html

What is StumbleUpon 

StumbleUpon is a discovery engine that allows users to find and recommend web content that suits their interests. Its features allow users to discover and rate Web pages, photos, and videos that are personalized to their tastes and interests using peer-sourcing and social networking principles. This social bookmarking website helps you to sort through the World Wide Web using topics that suit your interests. You just simply choose the topics that interest you the most, click go, and you’re instantly stumbling through thousands of webpages tailored to your exact interests. It makes it easy to share webpages with friends and family, as well as linking to your favorite social media websites to enable simple sharing. It’s a different, yet effective form of web sharing information.

  How does StumbleUpon Work?

 The general premise is that the Web has gotten so massive, that it is difficult to find relevant content without searching through pages and pages of results by using search engines. StumbleUpon works by first having users download a toolbar and having users personify themselves by selecting topics and interests that pertain to them. Using a combination of the user’s input and machine learning from the site’s algorithm, the site then determines the type of content that the user would be interested in. This makes it potentially easier to search the web by the users interest. This service is like Pandora Radio the online music player, where users pick a certain song, genre, or band, and Pandora plays music that is just like it. If you like a song they will play more like it, if you dislike a song, they won’t play more like it. It’s another convenient way to surf the Internet without having to sift through websites that don’t pertain to the topic you’re interested in.

  What’s the history of StumbleUpon?

 Four graduate students founded StumbleUpon in November of 2001 by the names of Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, Justin LaFrance and Eric Boyd. In May of 2007, StumbleUpon was bought by eBay for seventy-five million dollars.  StumbleUpon was a startup company that had gone viral through the Internet. In the developmental stages of the platform, creator Camp, a big fan of Google explained that the idea had emerged from Google, “It had been around for a year or two in the mainstream (referencing Google). But it was still only good if you actually knew what you wanted to look for.” It didn’t take long before Facebook and Twitter began to work with StumbleUpon. Now it is easier than ever to find webpages and share them with friends.Referencing Article: http://bit.ly/vbtJdT

Positives 

StumbleUpon is very generally easy to use. You can just sign up for the service, click a few interest boxes and click the big “Stumble” button. It’s very fun, and interesting especially if you have some time to kill or you’re looking for a variety of different websites. It can keep you entertained for hours, and makes it very easy to rate website by clicking the “thumbs up” button, or the “thumbs down” button. Once you’ve clicked the “thumbs up” button it will continue to bring pages that are similar to that page. Likewise, if there are pages you click the “thumbs down” button to, it makes sure to not bring up pages that were the same. Another positive is the mobile app that was created for Stumble Upon. As if it weren’t already easily accessible on the computer, you now have the power to stumble through your day, with an easy to use interface for mobile devices.Specifically Available on: your person desktop, iPad, iPhone, and Android.

Negatives

As easy as it is to sign up and beginning to use StumbleUpon, once you get using it, some aspects can be tough to figure out. For example, once you initially choose your interests, it is hard to go back through and change what you may be interested in. Most would conclude it could be found in your user profile, however it is found in a toolbar where you can update topics. It could be in a more easily accessible spot. This can get generally frustrating as your situations and interests as a person may change. Also, one that many users find it difficult to add detailed reviews regarding the site that they have just stumbled upon. It is very easy to add a review if you are the one who has discovered the site, however that does not happen too often, and it can be tough to figure out how to add a detailed review of the site.

Personal views on using the site

I have found a lot of very unique websites and resources that I would have never found if it hadn’t been for StumbleUpon. In fact, if I weren’t a full time college student working a lot, I’d spend a lot more time on StumbleUpon.  I learned of StumbleUpon in spring of 2011, four years after it really began to boom. To me it was the best kept secret, and still continues to be for web browsing and boredom. Not only is it good for times when you have time to kill, if you’re researching a certain topic for school, you can find a lot of great resources. I found some resources for some of my writing courses in school. I personally like the Mobile app that was made for the iPhone. It’s where I’ve done most of my stumbling. When I’m waiting at the doctor’s office, on break at work, or just a long boring car ride (not when I’m driving of course). It’s a very amusing and entertaining website that can also be very useful and helpful for all areas of my life.

Summary