Twitter releases Vine for iOS

No. Nope nope nope.

Sorry, Vine is interesting. It’s even “revolutionary” if you are a stop-motion animator. But in terms of adding to Twitter’s arsenal? It’s Sherlock to Mac OS8 – handy for a certain percentage but completely left alone otherwise. It’s not ideal for capturing anything as-it-happens (unless you happen to know it will only last 6 seconds or last long enough to plan it); it’s not great for just Gif making because of everything it DOESN’T do. And to me the most damning lack comes from trying to reinvent Tweet-video without allowing you to naturally use existing video. So if you take, say, 7 seconds of video in your regular camera, you can’t use that on Vine. You have to capture it natively on Vine.

So not only does Vine need to convince me (and the average consumer) to use Vine to capture video, it needs to convince me I should sacrifice capturing something in the moment with a normal camera in favor of a new interface, platform, etc. If you can’t plan out your moment, at least a little bit, Vine is an awkward waste. And if you CAN plan out your moment and take advantage of the hold-to-record artistic possibilities, then you will be thrilled as to what it can CREATE as an application… but as for an entire community all its own built around you? Um, good luck.

If Vine can 1) Allow editing of existing video and 2) Just let us record Vine(s?) inside the Twitter app than I feel like something can get started. Otherwise this is a fun test app. Maybe TwitterLabs is a thing and we can get excited about lots of things and innovations to come – or maybe they’re expecting way too much out of a tangential idea.

Well, that was fast!

Global contender Line enters the U.S. with the features of Facebook’s newly rejuvenated Messenger (complete with voice calls). Of course it also brings what Facebook DOESN’T have: stickers of bears “a shy balding man surrounded by little sparkles and flowers” – you can’t make this stuff up.

Facebook tops Google Maps as the number 1 US mobile app

And Facebook didn’t just beat regular-old Google, but specifically Google Maps… which also shows how dominant THAT channel is (an important point for us as we beat the geolocation drum so loudly).

Tumblr upgrades to inline compose windows

A slick tweak!

Twitter modifies embedded tweets

Further reading: More on the implications of the embed twweaks and the standardization of how you see a Tweet

Facebook launches a new conversion measurement

An important and helpful new measurement available to Facebook ad buyers!

A much deeper analysis than your typical “guru” might think about – but an important one. Look closer into that “Puppy” viral image you saw last week.

What can studying viral culture from 200 years ago tell us about viral culture online today? As it turns out, the impressions Cordell has formed studying a period so long ago are exactly those that would lead you to believe that Twogirlsandapuppy would have a chance at catching on, but would at the same time lead you to dramatically underestimate the velocity and degree to which it would do so. Nineteenth century viral culture is quite like today’s Internet culture. And then again, it’s something totally different.

We use our Facebook page and our Twitter profile to comment on the social media and technology news of the moment! Add us to catch our reactions to stories of the day!

Twitter Topics:

Numerous current events were discussed on Twitter this year, some of which even broke on there first (such as the Osama bin Laden announcement). Here are the news items that topped the Twitter trending list:

1. Japan earthquake and tsunami
2. Royal Wedding
3. Libyan conflict
4. May 21^st/Oct. 21^st Rapture
5. Death of  bin Laden
6. Egyptian protests
7. Venezuelan protests
8. Brazilian politics
9. Gabrielle Giffords shooting
10. England riots

See Twitter’s year in review here.

IPO Mania:

This was the year of IPO buzz. Social media companies that went public in 2011:

• LinkedIn
• Zynga
• Pandora
• Groupon

Speculations circulate that the IPO trend will continue in 2012 with the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

Top Tech Stories:

CNN selected their top picks for tech stories in 2011. Here are their 10:

1. The death of Steve Jobs
2. Social media’s role as a tool for protesters
3. Hackers
4. Tablet market gets dozens of new entrants
5. Facebook and partners add ‘frictionless’ sharing
6. Patent wars
7. Google+
8. Apple becomes the most valuable company in the world
9. IBM’s Watson beats human champs on ‘Jeopardy!’
10. Spotify and Facebook take on digital music

Click here to read the full article.

The 2011 Social Media Timeline:

Social Media Today put together a timeline that makes it easy to recap social media accomplishments throughout the year:

What’s next?

Tech Guru’s share their opinions on what they think the online future holds:

Next year – from CNN:

1. Touch computing
2. Social gestures
3. NFC and mobile payments
4. Beyond the iPad
5. TV Everywhere
6. Voice control
7. Spatial gestures
8. Second-screen experiences
9. Flexible screens
10. HTML5

In 5 years – from IBM (Covered by techworldnews):

1. Personal energy
2. The end of the password
3. Mind reading
4. The end of the digital divide
5. The end of junk mail

2011 has been an innovative year and 2012 looks as if it won’t disappoint. Happy New Year!

-Anna (@alucas9)

This week Google introduced Pages for its “+” service, allowing brands big and small to join the social networking community and interact with the advertised 40 million people there. Many of those, however, aren’t major users, and are just sitting there, dormant, because they got an invite a few months back when this whole shindig began.

For now, we’ve largely written off Google+ after an initial wave of excitement. To be sure, there are some people there who have kept up with it over the past few months. And they may turn out to be a great social network’s pioneers. But for us, and for most, G+ is just too close to Facebook, which went through its own set of great changes and essentially introduced many of the same features that Google+ considered its own – the stuff that would set it apart.

The features on Google+ today are really no different than the things you can do on Facebook, where 800 million of your friends and enemies are already located.

So, back to Pages. If you know how they work on Facebook, G+’s are largely the same, with a few minor tweaks:

- Businesses and brands can update and share information with their “fans,” which are simply in an organization’s “Circle” on Google+. Pages can’t add people to Google+ Circles, just as Pages can’t add people as friends on Facebook. You can also “Like” a page, but not subscribe to it, by hitting Google’s becoming-more-famous +1 button on the Page.

- You cannot run contests or sweepstakes on a G+ Page. You can link out to them, but you can’t host them on Google.

- When you hit the “+” sign  in the Google search bar followed by the name of a business or group, and that business or group has a Page, you’ll be able to add that Page to your Circles.

Where Google+ may shine with its social products – eventually, and only “maybe, if it succeeds” – is on search. Anything you put on a G+ site – be it your personal profile or your company’s Page – will begin to show up in search rankings. And that could be cool, particularly for those small brands that are trying anything to get their name out.

But still, with very few actually using Google+ and still loyal to the old standbys that we all know and use, that day is likely far off. If ever.

And so, we’ll continue to maybe, someday, actually get around to testing out our G+ page.

-Jeff (@jephkelley)

Facebook has unveiled – in an attempt to curb the growth and keep up with features of Twitter, Google+ and others like it – a feature called “Subscribe,” which will allow Facebook users to, well, subscribe to the news of others. You’ll be able to begin hand-picking the content you want to view on your wall, thus fine-tuning the Facebook experience to your liking instead of having to see the somewhat random mess of updates from an array of people.

Subscribe is completely optional; if you don’t use it, Facebook will continue to run as it always does.

But for those who choose to use Subscribe, the benefits could be many. Like Twitter, instead of “friending” a celebrity or someone you’re really not friends with but are otherwise interested in, Subscribing will let you simply follow their updates (provided the person allows subscribers) without getting all their personal details. Subscribe means that popular or up-and-coming performers, writers, singers or comedians will see their stars shine a bit brighter. Self-proclaimed social media gurus will begin to measure their self-worth on the number of Subscribers they have. And you may find yourself with people you truly don’t know who are interested in what you have to share.

Subscribing may be the answer to keeping people on Facebook while tightening the experience to meet the demands of what people are looking for in today’s social networks: greater control, a more personalized experience, and a reason to stay at Facebook instead of another service: the people.

Facebook, unlike the rash of other services available, already has the critical mass. Yet if you take the pulse of savvy web users and even everyday Facebook users, you’ll hear stories of Facebook fatigue, the desire for more control over content, the need for privacy, or simply that they’ve done everything they can do on the site and are moving on. And while it is still growing, that growth is perhaps slowing (even dropping by 6 million users in May, Inside Facebook reports). It’s no death knell, but it could be telling.

For these reasons, we’re seeing more niche, focused communities pop up on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Path and other platforms. They are more private, and the people on them more difficult to find.

This “privitization” of social networks is a trend we’ve been watching closely. And Facebook is about to board this train in a big way.

Not all of this is new, revolutionary or mind-blowing. But Facebook Subscribe is a bit of a mind-blower when you apply what this is and does to the masses of the social network, the paradigms in play in digital media, and the ever-increasing complexity of the modern identity.

Does it mean everyone will use and understand Subscribing right out of the gate? No, but its very existence is a product of some other trends and thoughts. For months (which is how we count technology time) people have been organizing their lives into separate places: Twitter for public thoughts, Tumblr as an extension of that community or to share personal interests with others, photo-sharing apps like Path or Instagram to share slice-of-life pictures and video.

Up until now, Facebook wasn’t really adequate in separating content as well as simple privacy. But with Subscribing, now even the non-savvy can start stratifying in new ways. People will share more, and less. Lives will take new shapes to certain people. And therefore, so will identities.

The layers of social soil just got more interesting for your garden.

Google Acquires Zagat

Google has purchased Zagat, popular restaurant review site, for an undisclosed sum that is estimated at less than $66 million.  Google made the purchase to improve its local products. As stated in the Google blog, “Moving forward, Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering—delighting people with their impressive array of reviews, ratings and insights, while enabling people everywhere to find extraordinary (and ordinary) experiences around the corner and around the world.”

Facebook Testing Page Recommendations
Facebook is testing a Page recommendation widget, which prompts users to write a recommendation for a Page. Facebook is hoping this widget will make it easier for friends of reviewers to find and connect with Pages.  When questioned about the widget, Facebook responded by saying “We’re always testing new features with small percentages of users to provide us feedback to help improve the service. The tests inform many of the improvements we make to the site and help shape new products.”  Facebook is also testing friend’s filters in the news feed: http://mashable.com/2011/09/08/facebook-news-feed-changes.

Twitter’s Active Users

We finally have a pulse on how many active Twitter users there are. Typically, Twitter likes to share number of users, which is currently around 200 million, rather than active users. This week, Twitter finally broke the news that there are over 100 million active twitter users logging in at least once a month and 50 million active users logging in everyday. Adding to these stats, Mashable explained that “Twitter now hosts roughly a billion tweets every five days, 230 million tweets every day, and has hit a new record for tweets per second: 8,900.”

Smartphone Satisfaction
Apple should be grinning over the recent study completed by J.D. Power and Associates on Smartphone satisfaction. The study, which surveyed 6,898 Smartphone owners, found that Apple Smartphone’s had the highest customer satisfaction. Criteria included overall satisfaction, performance (35%), ease of operation (24%), Smartphone features (21%), and physical design (20%). Apple scored 830 points based on a 1,000-point scale. The industry average, for comparison, was 788 points. HTC was the closest to Apple with 801 points. See the full study here.

Smartphone Usage

Speaking of Smartphone’s, how is the average consumer using them? According to a recent study by Pew Research, Checking in on apps like Foursquare are at the bottom of the list. The survey, which was conducted on 2,277 adults, found that 92% of Smartphone users send and receive texts whereas only 12% checkin on geolocation services. View the charts below to see how Smartphone activities rank:

-Anna (@alucas9)

The move signals the search giant’s desire to supercharge its Android mobile operating system, but there’s more at play here. Since the announcement – coinciding with significant turbulence in the markets – Google’s value has dropped considerably, indicating that the finance community is not impressed with the acquisition or the price paid (there was a significant premium for the Motorola shares).

So if the move wasn’t made for the bottom line, what other factors were behind this decision?

If you don’t follow the business side of the mobile computing industry, well, I’ve probably lost you already. But for those who stuck around (related: thank you!) and don’t know, there’s a major legal battle brewing over patents filed for smartphone features that we all take for granted. This is stuff like capacitive touchscreens, software (as opposed to physical) buttons for navigation, and the different functions of ‘swiping’ your fingers across the screen. All these features are in dispute, and Apple (and its mountain o’ cash) is leading the litigious charge.

In defending the single best selling smartphone out there, the iPhone, Apple claims that its desire is not to be anti-competitive, but rather to push peers to come up with their own innovations. Well played, Apple. Well played.

To that end, they’ve sued everyone responsible for the Android food chain (Google, Motorola, HTC, Samsung, and more) for copying parts or features of the iPhone. They even teamed up with former nemesis Microsoft to buy up the intellectual property of former telecom and networking giant Nortel, to the tune of $2.6 billion for some 6,000 patents. Clearly, the game is afoot and it is played with a lot of zeros. Taiwanese smartphone and tablet maker HTC, for their part, snatched up 265 patents for $300 million by buying S3 Graphics, a company that has had recent success against Apple in copycat court.

Which brings us back to Google: what are they getting for their $12.5 billion investment in Motorola, besides bringing a major Android licensee in-house?

A: 17,000 patents with another 7,000 pending.

That’s some serious firepower.

What does this all mean for the consumer? Probably nothing. There’s a lot of money changing hands and a lot of lawyers involved here, but at the end of the day, neither side seems to have a distinct advantage. Patents seem to be either super-specific or overly broad and litigation tends to lead more to deal-making than product-breaking. Apple tends to be particularly tough to work with in this regard, but if they had a really strong case, chances are they would have never let Android smartphones achieve their current level of success, leading as a platform, if not a singular device. The only potential downside I see is that instead of improving their devices and pushing the envelope and technology forward, they’re spending their capital on expensive pieces of paper and international bickering.

But, as anyone who’s ever had to replace a smartphone knows, if the cost of these devices is any measure, there’s plenty of money to go around.

-Thomas (@thomasmcdonald)

Facebook Enriches Comments

Facebook has updated commenting options. Now, if you post a URL to an image, video or website within a comment, it will appear in the same format as if you were posting a status update. Previously only the text URL would be displayed. As Mashable explained, “Now, when you comment on a post with a URL, Facebook will pull in a video player, a thumbnail or an overview of the website that you’re linking to.”

OSX Lion Debuts

Apple’s big debut of the summer is the desktop operating system OS X Lion.  Over 250 new features were added to the operating system including Multi-touch geastures and full-screen apps. Lion was released exclusively through the Mac App Store and on the first day it was downloaded over 1 million times.  You can purchase Lion for $29.99. Learn more here.

Big Growth for Apple

Speaking of Apple products, see a breakdown of how Apple product sales grew from December 2007  to June 2011 below. The infographic illustrates Apple’s massive sales growth. Apple’s revenues grew 82% last year. Woah.

Google Colorless

Google keeps getting shot down on purchase requests. We saw it with Groupon and Path and now we are seeing it with the photo-sharing app Color. According to Techcrunch, Google previously requested to buy Color for $200 million but Color declined. Google may actually have lucked out with this refusal as Color has become increasingly unimpressive.

In other Google news, Google Labs, Google’s product prototype experiment,  is being shut down. Learn more here.

Mobile Payment Predictions

According to a data report prepared by Gartner, mobile payment spending is on the rise. The data suggests that in 2011 141 million consumers will spend $86.1 billion using mobile payments. Shen, Research director at Gartner, “believes the mass market adoption of NFC payments is at least four years away, with the biggest “hurdle” as changing users behavior from using cash and credit cards to using their mobile phone. And she predicts that in 2011, merchandise purchases from mobile apps like eBay and Amazon will account for 90 percent and 77 percent of all mobile payments transactions in North America and Western Europe, respectively.” [via Techcrunch]

-Anna (@alucas9)

The Numbers Behind Google Plus

Google Plus already hit 10 million users this week and according to readwriteweb should hit 20 million by this weekend. It is also estimated that Google+ grew 350% in only 6 days. Google released a statement staying that 1 billion items are shared everyday on Google+ (in contrast to Facebook’s 4 Billion). New members receive invites, which is how the “social project” has grown so quickly despite still being in Beta.

Spotify Now in U.S.

Popular UK music sharing service Spotify officially launched in the U.S. this week. You must have an invite to access the free version, but if you want to pay for a premium ($4.99) or unlimited ($9.99) version you can listen straightaway. Spotify describes their new venture as “The award-winning music service that’s taken Europe by storm has now come to U.S. shores. Millions of tracks ready to play instantly, on your computer and your phone.” Request an invite here: http://www.spotify.com/us/hello-america

Foursquare does more with Daily Deals

Foursquare is now partnering with companies such as Groupon, Living Social and Gilt Groupe to incorporate daily deals from these sites into their service. Dennis Crowley, CEO at Foursquare, explained that the company would be sharing daily coupons with their users for a cut of the revenue. “We are trying to see if our targeting works and how users will react,” he told the Wall Street Journal. Currently Foursquare does not make any money off merchant-initiated deals. Learn more from the official Foursquare announcement.

-Anna (@alucas9)

Revamping Realtime Search

Google Realtime Search is no longer available (for now). Google’s deal with Twitter to aggregate tweets expired on July 2^nd taking much of the content with it.  Google will be re-launching Realtime search (no set time frame) and this time it will include content from their latest social media endeavor Google+. There will be a variety of sources Realtime search will pull from when it re-launches.

Facebook Announcements

Video Calling

On the heels of the Google+ announcement Facebook held a press conference to announce “something awesome.” As has long been rumored, Facebook announced a partnership with Skype. You can now video chat with your friends (one-on-one) through Facebook.

Chat

Facebook also announced new chat features. Facebook will now organize your “buddy list” based on the people you talk to most. You will also be able to participate in group chats. The really “awesome” thing is that Facebook confirmed they have over 750 million active users and that 4 billion things are shared on Facebook everyday.

Goodbye, Unlimited Data

Those who have the VeriPhone (Verizon iPhone) may want to read this. It has been confirmed that Verizon will no longer be offering unlimited data plans. On July 7th Verizon switched to new usage based price plans. Existing customers will be able to keep their current plans. However, those who switch to Verizon after July 7^th will pay $30 for 2 GBs of data, $50 for 5 GBs of data, and $80 for 10 GBs of data.

Apple App Stats

This week Apple shared their latest app store statistics, stating that “More than 15 billion apps have been downloaded from the revolutionary App Store and more than 425,000 apps are available, including more than 100,000 native iPad apps, to consumers in 90 countries.”

-Anna (@alucas9)

Surprise: 50% of iPad subscribers click “Allow”

50% of users who subscribe to online publications opt-in and allow Apple to share information with developers such as their name, email, and zip code. As CNN Money reports, “this discovery is “the surprising reason publishers are finally saying yes to Apple.””

Google Music Beta to stream 20,000 songs for free, official! (updated)

Google beta launched a cloud streaming service called “Music Beta by Google” that streams over 20,000 songs for free. The service allows you to create a playlist or select “Instant Mix” to have a playlist auto-created based off of one song. As Engadget described, “Google’s service will essentially mimic the music locker functionality of Amazon’s Cloud service, albeit without the ability to sell songs direct to consumers. Ouch. Unfortunately, Google’s plans to launch a more feature-complete service were derailed when discussions with the labels broke down.”

Facebook Finally Launches Improved Photo Tagging

Facebook has improved photo tagging. Users can now tag photos with the names of Pages and can tag people who aren’t on their friends list (as long as privacy settings allow for it).

EXPOSED: Facebook’s Plan To Plant Anti-Google Stories in the Press

Busted. Facebook has admitted to hiring PR firm Burson-Marsteller to raise concerns over Google’s privacy act (aka plant negative press). This plan backfired when blogger Chris Soghoian decided to publish emails from Burson asking him to write a negative piece on Google.

GrouponLive: An Online Ticketing Deals Marketplace From Groupon, Live Nation

GrouponLive is a new joint venture by Groupon and Live nation that is going to offer local online ticketing deals.

-Anna (@alucas9)