tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104528352024-03-07T13:46:45.346-05:00K.B.SKOBAC BLOGAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comBlogger611125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-66108050921057518462014-12-31T08:47:00.002-05:002014-12-31T08:48:28.872-05:00Speaking on 'Communicating with Youth in a Social World'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif3rjbRhFwhSz9EEGgTWmWsKjQst9rqdqFVyVZmbbAC3HLuZCSD4feBd8X_D24hjnbCG60PFIDREMQNoLoFGwjmE4kajv4q7NCDAtYT4tFmKLrRtbklK4MmciIKCsDIxlw6lGe/s1600/laureate+photo+merged.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif3rjbRhFwhSz9EEGgTWmWsKjQst9rqdqFVyVZmbbAC3HLuZCSD4feBd8X_D24hjnbCG60PFIDREMQNoLoFGwjmE4kajv4q7NCDAtYT4tFmKLrRtbklK4MmciIKCsDIxlw6lGe/s1600/laureate+photo+merged.jpg" width="560" /></a></div>
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Looking back on 2014, one of the accomplishments I'm most proud of this year is overcoming my fear of public speaking, at least temporarily, to deliver a keynote to 300 educators at the Laureate Leaderships Summit this summer.<br />
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The topic of my talk was <i>Communicating with Youth in a Social World</i>. If you're interested, you can watch the entire presentation, along with a follow-up question & answer period, below. I take the stage at 2:45 in.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/uVemvy0Y1uY" width="560"></iframe><br />
[<a href="http://youtu.be/uVemvy0Y1uY?t=2m46s">link directly to where I take the stage</a>]<br />
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If you do take the time to watch, let me know what you think in case I am invited to give the talk again in the future.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-20910103520743223252014-12-26T06:16:00.001-05:002014-12-30T10:27:00.246-05:00Can "The Interview" Pave the Way for a New Film Release Future?<div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqlj_uvqH5BFUMCrbkGB8ldsaXz9YExjXopZXSvKuUEsTg7687dQAWcJL8ZYB8lUFxBLYEcFHuzzpim9I1YokSXmNscyS07g-OnmNwZVUd3H5QzBkDyBYuLpFyD8WQKoZnqykX/s1600/screen_shot_2014-06-11_at_8.00.12_pm.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqlj_uvqH5BFUMCrbkGB8ldsaXz9YExjXopZXSvKuUEsTg7687dQAWcJL8ZYB8lUFxBLYEcFHuzzpim9I1YokSXmNscyS07g-OnmNwZVUd3H5QzBkDyBYuLpFyD8WQKoZnqykX/s1600/screen_shot_2014-06-11_at_8.00.12_pm.jpg.jpg" width="560" /></a></div>
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Sony's "The Interview", which triggered an unprecedented deep and damaging data hack, will have significant lasting repercussions. But data warfare, security issues and fear mongering aside, it's lasting legacy on the movie industry's film release strategy will be exciting to watch. </div>
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"The Interview" is the first major studio film to aggressively use alternative distribution models on day one. In addition to being available in 330 independent theaters nation wide, it was made available on YouTube, Google Play, XBox, and even direct from the movie website, at a competitive price of $5.99 to rent or $14.99 to buy, even before the film hit independent theaters. </div>
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Previous tests of same day release windows had embarrassingly prohibitive price tags and restrictions. But with theater monopolies giving up their leverage, Sony had an opportunity to do something different. And the big winner is us consumers (not to mention Google, who was able to put its almost anonymous YouTube video rentals service in the limelight).</div>
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A few of the many interesting press quotes about yesterday's release:</div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><i>"More interesting than the film itself is the unique release strategy Sony Pictures was forced to adopt ... while it's far from a great film, The Interview has inadvertently become a cinematic milestone. Its content led to terrorist threats and an unprecedented studio cancellation. But with its unique release strategy, it may also pave the way for Hollywood to completely rethink how we see films in the future." -- <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/25/the-interview-review/">Engadget</a></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><i>"The theater operators have to date been very hostile to the idea that a film studio would put a film out directly to viewers over the Internet on the same “day and date” that the film is released in the theaters. If Sony has a massive online viewership of The Interview today, that could change the dynamic between the film studios and the theater industry ... This could be a watershed moment for over the top online film distribution." -- <a href="http://avc.com/2014/12/merry-christmas-everyone-4/">Fred Wilson</a></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><i>"Many of the roughly <a data-crackerjax="#post-slider" href="http://mashable.com/2014/12/23/where-the-interview-is-playing-on-christmas/" style="text-decoration: none;">330 small, independent theaters around the nation</a> reported robust sellouts, with festive, star-spangled costumes and a celebratory mood sweetening what was hailed as essentially a free speech rally." -- <a href="http://mashable.com/2014/12/25/the-interview-christmas/">Mashable</a></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><i><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"</span><a href="http://torrentfreak.com/the-interview-is-a-pirate-hit-with-200k-downloads-141225/" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">According to Torrent Freak</a></i><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><i>, “The Interview” has been downloaded an estimated 750,000 times after 20 hours." -- <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/25/the-interview-torrent/">Techcrunch</a></i></span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Paying for and watching "The Interview" yesterday wasn't just a vote for free speech, it was a vote for access to content the way we want it. Hopefully the film did as well both online and in theaters. Hopefully this is just the first domino to fall.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-65053737983911249062014-12-08T09:00:00.000-05:002014-12-30T17:30:05.149-05:00The Golden Era of Podcasting?<div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;">
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You've probably heard by now of <a href="http://serialpodcast.org/"><i>Serial</i></a>, the wildly popular podcast from the creators of <i>This American Life. Serial</i> has quickly built an audience of <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/aeb8d37c-7af1-11e4-8646-00144feabdc0.html">2.2 million weekly listeners</a>, far surpassing <i>This American Life</i> as the most popular podcast ever [Note: TAL has <a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/about">more listeners</a> overall including terrestrial radio]. Its popularity has caused a lot of people to say that podcasts may finally be ready to break through in popular culture. </div>
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Whether Serial's runaway success is an exception to the rule or not, there are a lot of reasons to be excited about podcasting right now. More talented people are getting involved. Podcast companies are starting to raise VC money. New podcast technology is being created. But the most important thing is, there is more and more great content. It's gotten so I'm always looking for a new reason to walk somewhere, just so I can have the time to listen.</div>
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Here are the shows I'm listening to currently:</div>
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<li><a href="http://gimletmedia.com/show/startup/">StartUp</a> -- Alex Blumberg, producer of This American Life, left to build a podcast company called Gimlet Media. This is his firsthand account of starting his own business, including direct recordings of conversations he's had with VC's and others. It's an amazing inside look at the startup world. I hear it's Serial for geeks.</li>
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<li><a href="http://gimletmedia.com/show/reply-all/">Reply All</a> -- The second show to come out of Gimlet Media, Reply All is an awesome show that explores a new unusual story each week about something peculiar in Internet culture. The stories are short and sweet, sometimes only 15 minutes, but they're always captivating.</li>
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<li><a href="http://www.theverge.com/label/the-vergecast">The Vergecast</a> -- A weekly talk show where the editors of The Verge discuss the week in tech news. The Vergecast used to be my favorite podcast before it took an extended hiatus and The Verge founder Josh Topolsky left for Bloomerg. Now it's back and better than ever. The new cast is really funny.</li>
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<li><a href="https://soundcloud.com/a16z">A16Z</a> -- A frequent interview podcast featuring the team at powerhouse VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. Part of what makes A16Z so great is the guests that join on a weekly basis, such as VC's Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel, analyst Benedict Evans, or entrepreneurs like Marc Benioff.</li>
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<li><a href="https://soundcloud.com/product-hunt/">Product Hunt</a> -- A weekly discussion lead by Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover about the many interesting new products and companies making their way to the homepage of Product Hunt, in itself a wildly popular new site for tech and startup enthusiasts. </li>
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<li><a href="http://www.relay.fm/clockwise">Clockwise</a> -- A weekly roundtable variety tech talk lead by Jason Snell, the former lead editor of Macworld. Four participants propose one topic apiece, which gets discussed for 5 minutes each. Snell has other <a href="http://sixcolors.com/podcasts/">interesting sounding podcasts</a> as well.</li>
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<li><a href="http://foundation.bz/">Foundation</a> -- A sporadic interview series from charismatic serial entrepreneur and VC Kevin Rose. It doesn't happen very often, but Rose gets lengthy interviews with elite founders like Jack Dorsey, Tony Hsieh, and Elon Musk.</li>
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<li><a href="http://howtostartastartup.co/">How to Start a Startup</a> -- A recording of the entrepreneurialism business class startup accelerator Y Combinator teaches at Standford. It's pretty cool to be able to audit an entire class like this for free, even if you don't get the visuals that go along with it.</li>
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A podcast I haven't started yet but plan on listening to [update: there were others listed here that have now progressed to my "always" list above]:</div>
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<li><a href="http://exponent.fm/">Exponent</a> -- A weekly show about technology and society lead by James Allworth of Harvard Business Review and Ben Thompson.</li>
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And in case I have some extra time to kill, I listen to few ESPN podcasts, <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/espnradio/podcast/archive?id=2864045">Bill Simmons</a> and <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/espnradio/podcast/archive?id=2445552">Mike & Mike</a>, for good measure.`</div>
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Last, what powers all this new listening. I'm using <a href="https://overcast.fm/">Overcast</a>, the incredibly user friendly new iPhone podcast listening application from Marco Arment of Instapaper and Tumblr fame. I've paid to unlock all of the premium features like cellular download and smart speed, but also to support developers investing time in podcasting, and independent app development in general.</div>
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One more thing. You'll notice Serial isn't actually on my list. That's because while it is incredibly popular, I've never actually been interested enough to try listening to it. What podcasts are you listening to?<br />
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<i>Blog post photo borrowed from <a href="http://www.imore.com/best-podcast-apps-iphone-ipad">iMore</a>.</i></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-27650525858879534372014-11-30T13:54:00.000-05:002014-11-30T13:56:41.570-05:00The Genius ISMs: 17 Principals on Life and Work<div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Below is a revised version of the <a href="http://genius.com/Genius-the-genius-isms-annotated">17 basic principals</a> that guide the work, culture, ethics, and interactions of employees at Genius.com. For broader application to other people and companies I’ve generalized and reduced each principal to the key points. For authenticity, wherever possible I’ve maintained the same language from the original description. In addition to reading this list (or the <a href="http://genius.com/Genius-the-genius-isms-annotated">original</a>), I recommend listening to the <a href="https://soundcloud.com/a16z/a16z-podcast-guiding-startup-culture-the-genius-isms">A16Z podcast</a> where the founders of Genius are <a href="https://soundcloud.com/a16z/a16z-podcast-guiding-startup-culture-the-genius-isms">interviewed</a> about the thoughts that went into many of the principals.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s Not Not Your Job</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whatever it says on your business card, your real job is to make the company a success. You can never say “it’s ok that we failed, at least I did my job well”. You need to take ownership.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Chaos will Not be Minimized</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Building anything great is messy. Pursue a results-maximizing strategy, not a chaos-minimization or comfort-maximization strategy.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It Should Be Fun</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We won't succeed unless we all do great work, and it’s impossible to do great work unless you’re feeling inspired and enjoying yourself.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Only Hire A Players</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Skills can be learned. Is the person smart? Do you get excited just talking to them? Would the person be effective in our environment? Is the person HUNGRY? Would we be devastated if they quit? Anything less is communication overhead.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't Fill Up on Bread</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Choosing how to spend your time is one of your most important and difficult jobs. Always be asking yourself: “What am I working on? Is it the most important thing I could be doing?". Email is rarely, if ever, it.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Worse is Better</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have nothing to lose. If we fail it will be because we didn’t seize the opportunity, not because we made too many mistakes.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Run Into The Spike</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Life is a battle against the evil voices inside that tell us to give in and take the easy way out. Whenever you’re deciding what to do next, pick the thing you least want to do. Chances are it’s the hardest and most important thing on your plate. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take the Roast out of the Oven</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An “almost done” project is just as valuable as a project you haven’t started. the worst thing you can do is get a project to “almost done” and quit. it’s far more valuable to ship one project than it is to get two projects to “almost done”. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Being Busy ≠ Making Progress</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just because you’re not on Facebook and are feeling busy and stretched thin and tired doesn’t mean you’re making progress. And 5 people meeting for an hour is like 1 person meeting for 5 hours, i.e., killing their day.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“What is Right?”, not “Who is Right?”</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Very rarely should you do something because someone else wants it. Your job is not to figure out what the boss wants and make it happen. Your job is to figure out what you think is right and push for it.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Feel it to my Face</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s especially important to be honest about the quality of someone's work. Is someone’s work output bad, good, great? Let them know. Be critical, but try to help. Feedback is a gift. Err on the side of transparency.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“What do you Propose?”</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Instead of just noting there’s a problem, push yourself to come up with a suggestion for how to improve things. And “we should do X” isn't a proposal, you need to clarify who, and how.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Be Skeptical of Experts</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An “expert”’s advantages in experience and knowledge is dwarfed by the advantage you have in knowing the full context and history of your problem. they also probably care much less about the problem than you do.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pitch Like You Mean It</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The most important aspect to being a good public speaker is being excited about the idea you’re sharing and being excited to be “on stage” / presenting it to your audience.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Write Like a Human</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whenever you write something read it aloud and ask yourself “is this what I would say if I were just explaining this to someone in person?” If the answer is “no” then make it more human and less “professional”.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Go to a Gym-esque Place</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The healthier you are you are, mentally and physically, the happier and more productive you will be. Make time in which to step away from that glowing rectangle and take care of your mind and your body.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We’ll Figure it Out</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stay cool. It’s not as bad as it seems. In 6 months no one will care. You get ZERO credit for being right that things were fucked, and a TON of credit for turning a crisis into an opportunity. Stay positive and look for one!</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The original long description, with annotations, on Genius.com:</span></i></div>
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<a href="http://genius.com/Genius-the-genius-isms-annotated"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://genius.com/Genius-the-genius-isms-annotated</span></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A great interview with the Genius founders on their principals:</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/a16z/a16z-podcast-guiding-startup-culture-the-genius-isms">https://soundcloud.com/a16z/a16z-podcast-guiding-startup-culture-the-genius-isms</a></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-43721152937223790072014-11-11T09:00:00.000-05:002014-11-11T09:00:00.971-05:00How extensions in iOS 8 change iPhone apps forever<div>
App extensions in iOS are probably not used, understood, or even known about as much as they should be. They're probably exciting the tech geek crowd more than anyone else, especially the Android-to-iOS audience that missed the powerful things they could do before trading their Nexus in for an iPhone. But app extensions have fundamentally changed the way apps work and the way they can deliver value to iPhone users. Here's why.</div>
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Prior to iOS 8, 3rd party applications were almost entirely self contained experiences. With the exception of a few tricks that paired partnered apps together (and most often apps in the same developer ecosystem, e.g., Google), the only way you used an application was opening it directly, using it for its purpose, and closing it. With iOS 8 apps have a newfound ability to contribute to the iOS operating system. Apps can now provide features and functionalities for the rest of your apps to use indiscriminately. And many of these functions mean you never have to open certain apps again, while benefiting massively from what they have to offer.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifP4zWnp_OnfXUCGYe3DVitq4Zzj9I72d4izXdB2f17M2dCxXHGZYZOxvRs0lTAvrry2kZ0iQNHw0NOGtwhsIkeiCiBvuQNXKKtOFo0reGgle5CfvcW88UUqaiwUy93v0rSiNU/s1600/yahoo-weather.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifP4zWnp_OnfXUCGYe3DVitq4Zzj9I72d4izXdB2f17M2dCxXHGZYZOxvRs0lTAvrry2kZ0iQNHw0NOGtwhsIkeiCiBvuQNXKKtOFo0reGgle5CfvcW88UUqaiwUy93v0rSiNU/s320/yahoo-weather.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Take the new ability to include lock screen widgets with 3rd party applications. These widgets can be so robust that many times the full function of the application can be moved out of the app. For example, I installed <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yahoo-weather/id628677149?mt=8">Yahoo! Weather</a> because the lock screen widget provides and instantly glanceable, beautiful, informative view of the weather. Now that I have the Yahoo! Weather lock screen widget I will probably never open the actual application again.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ua50eb93zTJxMwUIUCJH6nSEG8YuD6W5q-Prqsem2OOwsMCjSODoETI8pz5_AKNoRsm_Els1iGp-hHmya52B0Fz34bD96F7k1mDt2COM3GUgo15n88EdHT0Nqn3hY4VAIcId/s1600/Fantastical_2_2_for_iOS_8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ua50eb93zTJxMwUIUCJH6nSEG8YuD6W5q-Prqsem2OOwsMCjSODoETI8pz5_AKNoRsm_Els1iGp-hHmya52B0Fz34bD96F7k1mDt2COM3GUgo15n88EdHT0Nqn3hY4VAIcId/s400/Fantastical_2_2_for_iOS_8.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Or the ability for applications to be included in iOS 8's new universal share sheet. The obvious use here is to simply add a share button like "share to Tumblr", which was always limited to platforms Apple chose. But app developers are finding innovative ways to leverage this placement for unique functionalities. For example, if you install the popular <a href="https://flexibits.com/fantastical-iphone">Fantastical calendar</a> app on your iPhone you can take advantage of its magical natural language meeting compose feature regardless of whether Fantastical is your calendar app of choice. I prefer to use <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sunrise-calendar-for-google/id599114150?mt=8">Sunrise Calendar</a> for its design and social integrations, but Fantastical's compose meetings is the best out there. Now I can chose one without losing the best of the other, or have my cake and eat it too.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPbNLelUqk-9uJ2yoa1okTLwJhEpepFFolS1UJ8yQZtAmYttXhTs3WVxccHJgQE61bM5bI7Z4WocL5YrIIO3f5Ad5uHRluWl3kJwEEgIbELs8VstNm89flSQrm6z7ds2z7usz3/s1600/theverge1_640.0.0_cinema_1200.0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPbNLelUqk-9uJ2yoa1okTLwJhEpepFFolS1UJ8yQZtAmYttXhTs3WVxccHJgQE61bM5bI7Z4WocL5YrIIO3f5Ad5uHRluWl3kJwEEgIbELs8VstNm89flSQrm6z7ds2z7usz3/s320/theverge1_640.0.0_cinema_1200.0.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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It doesn't stop there. Apps can add camera functions and keyboards too. I rarely used <a href="http://campl.us/">Camera+</a> because I often take pictures with Instagram or <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vsco-cam/id588013838?mt=8">VSCO Cam</a> like most people, but now I can easily edit photos in my iPhone camera role with Camera+'s functions when I want to. And finally I can use Swype's unique one finger keyboard, the former Android exclusive pride and joy, to write emails. After installing the <a href="http://www.swype.com/product-features/ios/features.html">Swype</a> app to get the keyboard there is definitively into reason to open the app again.</div>
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With all of these new capabilities, what it means to be an iPhone application is being completely rethought and reimagined. I'm excited to see the things developers create with this powerful new opportunity in iOS.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-856254549292121122014-10-11T09:35:00.000-04:002014-10-29T09:49:23.856-04:0010 Lessons on design and making things I learned at Brooklyn Beta 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6OX3WJVSaon8dfBdqrqH2PYD_ZswakSqgsp7zIE9HVQ1Spfj1FRh8fTSsw3m1-hDfSYllfaVeMBes-rxRzTzTO939SaSojZ3oNo6spLPrbwiTp9NdVRmv8EMtj_b898X0Kmpq/s1600/IMG_4416.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6OX3WJVSaon8dfBdqrqH2PYD_ZswakSqgsp7zIE9HVQ1Spfj1FRh8fTSsw3m1-hDfSYllfaVeMBes-rxRzTzTO939SaSojZ3oNo6spLPrbwiTp9NdVRmv8EMtj_b898X0Kmpq/s1600/IMG_4416.JPG" width="500" /></a></div>
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The 10 most important lessons I learned at this year’s Brooklyn Beta conference about design, business, and technology when it comes to making stuff:
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<ol>
<li><b>Giving people <i>just</i> what they need, when they need it, and not more, is fundamental to the user experience. </b>Tavi Gevinson publishes only three new stories per day on <i>Rookie</i> magazine, timed to ‘After School’, ‘Dinner Time’, and ‘Sweet Dreams’. Her teen readers know new content will appear just when they need it, and in manageable doses.</li>
<li><b>Creators innovate on ways to provide value, as well as how to make money from their ideas.</b> Over time Tavi has grown Rookie into a triple thread with an annual published book for sale, as well as an physical event series. They all work together to deliver Rookie’s promise.</li>
<li><b>If you can’t win the game, change the game you’re playing.</b> When David Hieatt realized his small town denim factory couldn’t win in the market for denim jeans competing for the best price, he started over as a brand focused on quality and innovation at a premium.</li>
<li><b>Purpose makes your company stronger, makes people believe in you, and want to support you. </b>People believe in Hiut Denim Co. because Hiut’s mission is to bring jobs back its town and enable its craftsman community to put their wealth of skill and knowledge to work.</li>
<li><b>Be an ideas company that applies ideas to a your business platform of choice. </b>Hiut is an ideas company that makes denim jeans. They constantly innovate on the product, the experience, and the story of their denim jeans. Ideas are what can have a multiplier effect.</li>
<li><b>Limitations can give your product direction and distinction.</b> While a majority of the jean market is for pre-washed jeans, Hiut couldn’t offer this because of the impact on the town’s water supply. Instead, Hiutcreated the “no-wash jeans” club and embraced the uniqueness of jeans that have creases from the wearer’s life instead of a machine.</li>
<li><b>Consider the impact your decisions will have on our culture for the long term.</b> Getting wrapped up in the Internet party and not thinking about the clean up after is destroying our heritage. Jason Scott said 40% of URLs they index at Internet Archive are gone. Everything important about us is on the shakiest foundation since the dawn of time.</li>
<li><b>Be honest with yourself about whether you’re achieving your goals.</b> Brooklyn Beta co-founder Cameron Koczon rated their conference a C+ despite a 5 year run and thousands of passionate happy attendees because he felt it became too design focused and didn’t help bridge the gap between design and development + business they intended.</li>
<li><b>You can choreograph empathy and creativity by paying close attention to the details.</b> Brooklyn Beta succeeded as an un-conference because the organizers perfectly choreographed the experience. Things like no announced schedules, no Internet, DIY creator stations, ample conversation breaks, and unlimited coffee + beer set the pace.</li>
<li><b>Do the stuff that matters to you the most.</b> Have big, audacious, scary dreams. It’s not the job of dreams to be realistic, it’s the job of dreams to be damn near impossible. If you work hard enough, you might achieve a jean company that employs a town, a magazine for a new generation, or a conference that inspires and changes people’s lives.</li>
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<i>Note: This post was originally <a href="https://medium.com/@kskobac/10-lessons-on-design-and-creation-i-learned-at-brooklyn-beta-2014-312456dadc02">written on Medium</a></i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-30337567512822005412014-09-12T09:47:00.000-04:002014-10-29T09:49:01.891-04:00With Apple Watch, Don’t Be Afraid To Dream Big<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrw3GAi7886qPTHjTdnPKKJDOB0TLXm0O1avecSlDWbJCJJfdiWbg_PpCQqOlMxfQl-j24qRkpADuE8uxwlkNPm2oXhF3S_38njTOOWgHsfShbUvIl4e_ex-JgEVtLepZzZhNP/s1600/With_Apple_Watch__Don%E2%80%99t_Be_Afraid_To_Dream_Big_%E2%80%94_Medium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrw3GAi7886qPTHjTdnPKKJDOB0TLXm0O1avecSlDWbJCJJfdiWbg_PpCQqOlMxfQl-j24qRkpADuE8uxwlkNPm2oXhF3S_38njTOOWgHsfShbUvIl4e_ex-JgEVtLepZzZhNP/s1600/With_Apple_Watch__Don%E2%80%99t_Be_Afraid_To_Dream_Big_%E2%80%94_Medium.jpg" width="500" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">On Tuesday Apple finally unveiled the Apple Watch, ending years of rumors and seemingly insurmountable hype. The reviews have been mixed, at best. There are critiques about the design, critiques about the interface, critiques about the feature set. But mostly people are just saying “why would I ever need a watch when I already have a phone? What could it possibly do better?”
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The ‘Why’ is what’s important.
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The challenge of new technology is to overcome the obvious and enable the unprecedented. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking a device has failed just because it can’t do what we already do, any better than we already do it. It’s much harder to think about what a new device, especially one with such unique features as the Apple Watch, is capable of enabling in our lives.
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">This is precisely the same question we’re pursuing with Google Glass.
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If you put on Google Glass and simply take a picture, do a search, or even play a game, you might feel like you are wearing an overpriced Halloween costume. When it comes to reproducing existing behaviors Google Glass often feels inferior, clunky, even infuriating. For that reason, over two years after Google Glass was first announced, it’s considered by many to be a dud.
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But when you begin to think about what it could mean to augment people’s vision with the information they need, without taking up any additional human faculties, you look at Glass a little differently.
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Recently SS+K partnered with Mark Morris Dance Group to build an application for Google Glass specifically tailored to augment the lives of people living with Parkinson’s disease. Taking advantage of Glass’s heads-up display, bone-inductive audio, and verbal and gestural navigation, we’ve discovered new tools that will give people living with Parkinson’s greater control and freedom in their lives. In a way that only Google Glass, and nothing before it, could make possible.
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is equally true of other Glass-based projects now underway. Remedy is a medical technology company building Glass software that enables physicians to lend their eyes to specialists for remote consultations. Quest Visual is making international travel easier than ever before with their application Word Lens that magically replaces the foreign language words you’re looking at with the proper translation, right before your eyes.
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So when I look at the Apple Watch I’m not thinking about text messaging, Google searches, Facebook, or phone calls. I’m thinking about how the Apple Watch could be more consistently and more prominently connected to us than any mobile technology before it. How the underside of the watch face has a heart rate sensor. And how the watch body can generate varying degrees of haptic feedback to the wearer. I’m trying to think about the things that have never been before.
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Writing off Apple Watch based on how it performs against today’s tasks is a fool’s errand. Instead, we need to look at Apple Watch as a new opportunity that we have the capability to make wonders with.
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">What’s possible is only limited by our imagination.</span><br />
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Note: This post was originally <a href="https://medium.com/@kskobac/with-apple-watch-dont-be-afraid-to-dream-big-fd5ca553b9b6" style="color: #436590; text-decoration: none;">written on Medium</a></i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-42308522252478177672014-06-28T09:41:00.000-04:002014-10-29T09:43:29.501-04:00Holding onto what you love<span style="font-size: large;">The “should the founder sell” dilema</span><br />
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Today I read that that <a href="https://svpply.com/">Svpply</a>, a much loved product curation community that sold to Ebay less than two years ago, is shutting down. Shortly after the announcement, the founder launched a <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103885170/very-goods-the-new-svpply">Kickstarter campaign</a> to fund the creation of a new site independent of Ebay, very similar to Svpply, that he says will focus purely on the community, and never sell again. He’s turning to Kickstarter to fund the community so he’s not beholden to venture funding demands this time around.<br />
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If you think the story sounds familiar, it’s because the the the founder of Upcoming, a once popular event sharing community that sold to Yahoo! and saw his brainchild dissapear, just recently announced a Kickstarter to relaunch Upcoming campaign with <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/waxpancake/the-return-of-upcomingorg">the same promise</a>. And before that, similar stories have played out with StumbleUpon [once sold to Ebay], Foursquare [an outgrowth of Dodgeball, which Google bought], AboutMe [once sold to AOL], and others.<br />
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When Svpply was acquired by Ebay a <a href="http://blog.svpply.com/post/31008753911/ebay-inc-acquires-svpply">blog post</a> that went up said “we couldn’t be happier to announce that we’ve been acquired by eBay Inc.
One thing we do want to make clear: Svpply is not going away.” When Upcoming was acquired by Yahoo! a <a href="http://waxy.org/2005/10/yahoo_and_upcom/">blog post</a> that went up said “I’m unbelievably proud to announce that Upcoming.org is now a member of the Yahoo! family. I’ve always had a warm and fuzzy feeling about Yahoo.” History has rewritten both.<br />
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I’m thinking about these stories because I’m currently building something I’m really excited about, that we’re about to show the world soon. If all goes well and we’re lucky enough for it to be successful, I know we’ll eventually have to make a decision to fight the good fight ourselves, or find a home for it. And I know when the time comes, finding a home for it will seem like the right decision. But I wonder how many people who sell their baby regret when they do. I wonder how often that is the wrong decision.<br />
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Even though venture funding and attractive acquisition offers are necessity for spurring innovation, and many of the great things we enjoy today are a result of that pattern, I’m curious how much we’ve also lost because the people who are passionate about their ideas lose control of them. I hope we can avoid that fate.<br />
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Note: This post was originally <a href="https://medium.com/@kskobac/holding-onto-what-you-love-285d6557ec7f" style="color: #436590; text-decoration: none;">written on Medium</a></i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-8641923752363459732014-05-24T08:11:00.001-04:002014-05-24T08:40:47.394-04:00It's an amazing new world<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiavLocSd9EbTf9yShLUy7808Mn5wUejbvxVO8N2hqez7vX05_czQNtfXV6xy_ncSn5QqCRxiKCco_ASh4WW5d6tbr8RpyukwYBdRq1B4QgYVc9F458w6KNjnmuv8e2eNQJpEzO/s640/blogger-image-921105489.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiavLocSd9EbTf9yShLUy7808Mn5wUejbvxVO8N2hqez7vX05_czQNtfXV6xy_ncSn5QqCRxiKCco_ASh4WW5d6tbr8RpyukwYBdRq1B4QgYVc9F458w6KNjnmuv8e2eNQJpEzO/s320/blogger-image-921105489.jpg" width="180"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7WR6sAL46bWoBcdIoJ3VUTYA1kmRNhGJkS4pKsK60TT4LHPT07KiDdHgCxXIfPLPefQuuV7FMqH_8YQOK6ules7BDkHdKY0HyRVOR5nRpF_rqjfkDVvOw8MXt5RE84NGMr0h4/s640/blogger-image--562991853.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7WR6sAL46bWoBcdIoJ3VUTYA1kmRNhGJkS4pKsK60TT4LHPT07KiDdHgCxXIfPLPefQuuV7FMqH_8YQOK6ules7BDkHdKY0HyRVOR5nRpF_rqjfkDVvOw8MXt5RE84NGMr0h4/s320/blogger-image--562991853.jpg" width="180"></a></div>
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This morning I was set to leave for a trip to Florida with my family. This is how the morning went.<br>
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My wife and I closed the door to our apartment, opened Uber on our phone, and ordered a cab within minutes right to our door. I could track the cab as it drove the six blocks to meet us, and the cab knew exactly where and which side of the street I was standing on. Magic moment #1.</div>
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Once we were in the cab and on the way to the airport I opened Google Now which told me our flight was on time, what gate it was at, and the weather at both my departing airport and in the city we are landing in. It also had a record of the flight reservation and hotel reservation. All of this information was provided proactively by extracting details from my email over the last few months. Magic moment #2.</div>
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Then when we arrived at the airport both my wife and I looked at our phones to see our boarding passes already available on our lock screens, courtesy of Apple Passbook. These instantly displayed because we were at the location and time our boarding passes were relevant. Magic moment #3.</div>
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All of these things were not possible, not even imaginable, just a few years ago. Every single part of my travel experience has gotten easier because of intelligent mobile technologies. It really is an amazing new world.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-16722695010778739492014-03-17T08:19:00.000-04:002014-03-17T08:22:14.200-04:00Amazon Prime's price hike: when companies don't have your best interests at heart<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQbZkeLp4kwD37X50A6fLr-AOKeXsEFbsCtVmPD_epGCQwsEgKq-yEk5dgTb9HYNQs0k-CkpC27SJmvySiFURG1A6D_DSBlI-jz2gIfUlWz5JlIpd2blp7OtkndcwIyjGLFAb7/s1600/prime-dp-hero-orange._V379394406_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQbZkeLp4kwD37X50A6fLr-AOKeXsEFbsCtVmPD_epGCQwsEgKq-yEk5dgTb9HYNQs0k-CkpC27SJmvySiFURG1A6D_DSBlI-jz2gIfUlWz5JlIpd2blp7OtkndcwIyjGLFAb7/s1600/prime-dp-hero-orange._V379394406_.jpg" width="560" /></a></div>
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Amazon announced this week that <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/prime/signup/videos">Amazon Prime</a> would be seeing a price increase for the first time since its launch 9 years ago, from $79 to $99.<br />
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If the rising cost of shipping, and improved abilities to deliver next-day or even day-of are at the heart of that price increase, then it seems completely fair and customers will understand. But the question on the table is: how much is expenses related to Amazon Prime's core value proposition affecting the price increase, or instead is it the side ventures that Amazon is bundling in as "value-ad": <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/video/primesignup/ref=sturl_primevideos?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=34097042962&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2498500996065548838&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_4jds6sr3lc_b">Amazon Prime Instant Video</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000739811">Kindle Owners' Lending Library</a>.<br />
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In particular, Prime Instant Video, Amazon's Netflix and Hulu+ competitor, must be a significant cost for Amazon to continue to building out. Licensing content, especially platform exclusives, is an increasingly costly venture as <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/09/amazon-prime-instant-video-orphan-black/">bidding wars for the best content</a> heat up. Additionally, Amazon is investing in <a href="http://studios.amazon.com/amazon-originals/series">Original Series</a> of its own that it provides for free to Prime customers, which ads to the ledger.<br />
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Prime Instant Video, Lending Library and Original Series are all great value-ads, but I don't know many people who use any of the services regularly, and I haven't heard of anyone upset that they can't pay for them individually, instead of one of the competitors. So if it turns out the expense of providing all of these "value ad" features to Prime customers, without giving them a chance to opt out and only receive free two day shopping, is driving the membership increase-- then how does it feel? <br />
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At some point, Amazon customers won't want to subsidize Amazon's efforts to enter new markets-- at least not without choice.<br />
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Marco Arment has an excellent blog post "<a href="http://www.marco.org/2014/03/15/worse">Worse</a>" about how Amazon and its tech peers are increasingly making decisions based on monopolistic interests, instead of customer interests:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>This isn’t just an Amazon problem. In the last few years, Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter have all made huge attempts to move into major parts of each others’ businesses, usually at the detriment of their customers or users. (How sad is it that Microsoft isn’t even in this list? They invented this move.)</i></blockquote>
These decisions are ones we all deal with as customers because we value the primary service enough, but we wish we didn't have to. And it forces us to always be on the lookout for alternatives-- new products, new companies, that don't force us to accept those terms. Think about the negative karma that companies have generated by forcing us to use Google+ instead of Google Reader, Apple Maps instead of Google Maps, Twitter photos instead of Instagram, etc.<br />
<br />
I strongly believe sacrificing customer satisfaction to pursue monopolistic tendencies isn't a good long term strategy. Especially if the product companies provide us as a replacement for their competitors is inferior.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-58675288518342652442014-01-05T21:29:00.003-05:002014-01-05T21:29:17.944-05:00Four Progressions That Will Shape Internet + Technology Culture in 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHu2EnlsCynYkaSOT8QCANyDyYuSlVPJKCbQRnYSHy8aF-jWEy4W9Ex_kw4bfwU2l9QSn5ApA7xOb6ptEsg2aG2tp5bLAPhwLAt-y3cGsHdcX_6eKpyorVhcn3AgTCvLbHg2de/s1600/3449854626_2c80957f47_o-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHu2EnlsCynYkaSOT8QCANyDyYuSlVPJKCbQRnYSHy8aF-jWEy4W9Ex_kw4bfwU2l9QSn5ApA7xOb6ptEsg2aG2tp5bLAPhwLAt-y3cGsHdcX_6eKpyorVhcn3AgTCvLbHg2de/s400/3449854626_2c80957f47_o-2.jpg" height="244" width="570" /></a></div>
As 2014 gets under way and we begin packing for the annual Consumer Electronics Show, its time to think about the advancements in internet and technology that could impact the way we all consume content and interact with each other. While we’re excited to see the latest in wearable technology, break-through high resolution TVs and connected electronics, the real game changers may not be device-specific at all. Instead, we’ll be thinking about the more subtle forces that could impact the future of marketing. <b>Here are four progressions we see shaping internet + technology culture in 2014:</b><br />
<br />
<h3>
<b><span style="color: orange;">1. Public vs. Private Interaction</span></b> </h3>
In its early days, popular mobile messaging app Snapchat was heralded as a way for teens to send racy photos outside of the watchful eye of parents. But, as the audience grows in to the tens of millions, Snapchat is being recognized for what it is— the necessary outgrowth of years of “public” being the dominant value on the social internet. Sure, Snapchat’s photo-first messaging strategy is quick and fun to use, but its the freedom of impermanence that really drives the service in a way that can only be such a relief after understanding the exhaustion of the opposite.<br />
<br />
It’s become clear that the drive towards openness is a symptom of a persistent Facebook-guided social media culture that has its limits and its repercussions. For many, it’s become tiresome thinking through the necessary polish and potential ramifications of sharing each piece of life content. Snapchat’s disappearing messages offer a way out — a way to engage with friends and family without thinking it through very hard, like you might in person. If that’s something we’re all yearning to return to, then Snapchat is just the beginning of a new wave of platforms and products that offers an alternative to the public eye.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: orange;">2. In-depth vs. Snackable Content</span></h3>
In a year where Buzzfeed more than tripled its size, it seemed as if every publisher was rushing to emulate the magic formula by turning every article into lists, slideshows, animated gifs and Upworthy-esque headlines. The result is a web culture that in some ways feels like its one giant tabloid magazine for the attention-challenged generation— big, bold, suggestive headlines paired with flashy imagery in place of real depth or context. The snackable content format fits perfectly with the rapid-fire news stream that Twitter and Facebook has established. But like the gif-column, the news feed is a ride consumers may be starting to feel differently about.<br />
<br />
Just when it seemed blogging had been made extinct by 140 characters, new publishing platform Medium was conceived by the very same founder to provide a construct for people who want to write without distraction. Even more drastically, in December we saw the launch of The Information, a $400 / year online technology publication that promises just a few articles, on topics that deserve depth and dialogue. It may be time to start thinking differently about the content we create for consumers.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: orange;">3. Open vs. Closed Infrastructure</span></h3>
The feature wars between Apple and Google, Facebook and Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat (etc.) have been well covered. But while everyone is focused on the land grab over a billion users messaging + photo + friend platform of choice, the bigger struggle developing may be over the destruction of the very fabric of the internet. The early days of social media were defined by openness— structures such as RSS feeds, open APIs and chat protocols. This early web infrastructure helped services grow and content spread in a collaborative, user-centric way that benefited all.<br />
<br />
But in 2013 Google substituted its open Google Chat platform for its new proprietary Google+ Hangouts to compete with Apple iMessage, an equally closed messaging platform. Google also closed the RSS-powered Google Reader in hopes of making the silo’d Google+ the proprietary social news platform of choice instead of Facebook. Twitter notoriously reigned in its once public API to control its customer more tightly. The question is, will users be comfortable with these decisions as long as they are continually given new features, or will embracing the open internet begin to serve as a stand-out differentiator?<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: orange;">4. A La Carte vs. Bundled Video</span></h3>
Every time a cable network and broadcast company battled over carriage fees the cry for a la carte television becomes louder. The truth is a la carte is here, it’s just arriving through the back door of connected TVs and streaming video providers. In the last year, the arms race between Hulu, Amazon and Netflix has resulted in numerous water-cooler worthy original shows being created outside of the traditional broadcast model. The future is being defined by these new "channels", libraries of archive + original content a consumers wants to pay for at ~$8 a pop.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately each library of content is silo’d in independent application gardens. Connected video systems like Apple TV require viewers to jump in and out of each ecosystem instead of easily navigating all of a user’s subscribed content in one menu, and may not even support each 3rd party “channel” as a competitive practice. We are in the golden age of television <i>content</i>, but managing your television has never been more difficult. This must be solved now, because a la carte will really be tested if the traditional networks and premium video providers like HBO start to disaggregate from the cable bundle as well.<br />
<br />
<i>Reference Links:</i><br />
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/the-year-the-platforms-ruled-the-internet">The Year The Platforms Ruled The Internet</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.esquire.com/_mobile/blogs/news/we-broke-the-internet">We Broke the Internet</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/2013-the-year-the-stream-crested/282202/">The Year the Stream Crested</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://gigaom.com/2013/07/03/google-readers-shutdown-the-rise-of-walled-gardens-and-the-future-of-the-open-web/">Google Reader’s Shutdown, The Rise of Walled Gardens, and the Future of the Open Web</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.marco.org/2013/07/03/lockdown">Lockdown</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/google-abandons-open-standards-instant-messaging">Google Abandons Open Standards for Instant Messaging</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://dashes.com/anil/2012/12/the-web-we-lost.html">The Web We Lost</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
<i>* This blog post was cross-published on the <a href="http://blog.ssk.com/2014-predictions-for-internet-technology-culture/#.UsoU3WRDuQM">SS+K Blog</a></i></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-4125423979881625062013-11-22T08:38:00.000-05:002013-11-22T08:38:40.209-05:00Instagram Borders Are So 2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc7AWajhAU5aJHSEyTtnkmHcFHCPwhRudaEBKE8ei93yLO3c8ex8Eyl7surjaxsRIV4O3q31q1AfGAxaSx51T6bKGoQMhjInhrvx5ha5lwFYrLkUTepxOTK0hmRdxiiiF3DUNn/s1600/Screenshot_11_22_13_8_36_AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc7AWajhAU5aJHSEyTtnkmHcFHCPwhRudaEBKE8ei93yLO3c8ex8Eyl7surjaxsRIV4O3q31q1AfGAxaSx51T6bKGoQMhjInhrvx5ha5lwFYrLkUTepxOTK0hmRdxiiiF3DUNn/s1600/Screenshot_11_22_13_8_36_AM.jpg" width="530" /></a></div>
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From what I'm seeing, most people are <b>not</b> adding borders on their Instagram photos anymore. Borders used to be basically standard-- part of the way we all looked to Instagram to make our less-than-spectacular mobile photos beautiful.</div>
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Now almost no one I follow regularly on Instagram uses them, or least uses them very rarely. Why is that? My guess:</div>
<ul style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">
<li>we want the extra space to capture as much of our photograph moment as possible</li>
<li>"square" has become enough of a framing accent to a photo that borders often feel repetitive</li>
<li>borders have started to feel very generic + cheesy, exposing the repetitiveness of using the same stylized filters over and over</li>
<li>phone cameras keep getting better, so stylizing photos seems less and less necessary</li>
</ul>
<div style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">
That last point is interesting, because I'm even using filters less and less all together on Instagram photos. Many of the filters can make a photo a bit grainier, less real. Instagram is now the best place to share and enjoy photography as a whole, and and less a utility for making photos prettier. It's replaced the camera on many people's iPhone screens.</div>
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I think these are pretty big and exciting developments in the Instagram ecosystem. It's interesting to see, after all the bells and whistles, its the community that's most compelling. And it contributes to Instagram's potential for longevity.</div>
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What does everyone else think?</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-14217514777628331472013-10-31T12:19:00.000-04:002013-10-31T15:22:41.721-04:00Why Auto-Expanded Images + Vines on Twitter is Bad News<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3XbAmv9xUgCVI03Nsf1t7Kohew2TyqmTceaHsqmZlGXE60fOiIa67JRtO-6OsZGzXX76kwCC3nzsKOCdDldJZHVfqu1B-WfXPARG2E0_j4IpaBz1nek2TyYHKaxZGREemXH8Q/s1600/Screenshot_10_31_13_12_17_PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3XbAmv9xUgCVI03Nsf1t7Kohew2TyqmTceaHsqmZlGXE60fOiIa67JRtO-6OsZGzXX76kwCC3nzsKOCdDldJZHVfqu1B-WfXPARG2E0_j4IpaBz1nek2TyYHKaxZGREemXH8Q/s1600/Screenshot_10_31_13_12_17_PM.jpg" /></a></div>
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This week Twitter rolled out a <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/2013/picture-this-more-visual-tweets" style="color: #1155cc;">major change</a> to the tweet stream: <b>auto-expanded photos and vines in users main feeds</b>. Now instead of having to click to expand the Twitter card to view some rich media content, a 437x218 px thumbnail will be clearly visible directly below the respective linking tweet. The tweet stream change rolled out across web, iPhone and Android all at once.<br />
<br />
While at first this might not seem like a big deal, auto-expanded content could have an immediately negative effect on user behavior:<br />
<ol>
<li><b>Auto-expanded images break the democracy of content in your tweet stream.</b><br />Instead of scanning all content equally, users' eyes won't be able to avoid skipping to the next image. And instead of engaging with the most interesting content in their stream, users will be drawn to the most visually stimulating. With Twitter prioritizing rich media over text, conversation and link sharing no longer has equal standing. In other words, Twitter is on its way to becoming another Facebook or Instagram, instead of the maintaining its status as the world's quickest and most robust news feed.<br /><br />The effects of images in the tweet stream may not be immediately evident when everyone is just getting adjusted, but consider Facebook. While much has been made over the years of Twitter's 140 character limit, the optimal post on Facebook is actually <a href="https://www.openforum.com/infographics/the-simple-science-of-facebook-engagement/" style="color: #1155cc;">80 characters or less</a>. With Facebook's emphasis on photo + video in the news feed, written text (even a minimal 140 characters text) can't compete for attention. Is this what Twitter wants for its future?<br /><br />The auto expanded images and videos are also accompanied by now immediately visible reply + retweet + favorite buttons. The buttons makes the tweet stream feel much busier and slower to scan than ever before. This is most notable on the desktop, where as many as twenty or more buttons in repeating rows of four now clutter the page above the fold.</li>
<br />
<li><b>Brands were just given a back door to banner advertising on the homepage.</b><br />Brands invest a great deal of time, energy and money in building communities on Twitter and communicating with their followers on a regular basis. Planning for auto-expanded images + vines will become an immediate best practice for brands that want to maximize message exposure and engagement. Many brands also have more human and capital resources to invest in creating imagery to accompany every post, which contributes to the uneven playing field in the tweet stream.<br /><br />This reality will be even more apparent when brand tweets are paired with Twitter's paid promoted tweets platform. Promoted tweets are published "above the fold" in the first few tweet placements. Promoting a tweet with an auto-expanded image will allow brands to serve up a prominent visual banner ad on the homepage of Twitter for the first time ever.<br /><br />It's important to note that while brands will (and should) take advantage of the new Twitter format, high quality + high value content will still be critically important. This is reinforced in two ways: users being able to easily unfollow brands that clutter their tweet stream with noise, and Twitter's auction model that factors a brand's quality score into the cost of advertising.</li>
<br />
<li><b>Two links and minimal text per post becomes the norm. </b><br />Since including images in posts will be required to attract viewers, images will now be included in posts even when the goal is to share a link to an article. This is immediately becoming the standard for publishers, who are pairing image links with article links to draw attention to their articles. Because Twitter requires 22 characters per link to wrap the link in their URL shortener, two links eats up 45 characters (including a space in-between) before any copy is even written.<br /><br />It's worth noting, as well, that the new auto-expanded images appears to break article preview Twitter cards. So when publishers pair images with their article links to maximize attention in the tweet stream, they're prioritizing the new form of banner ad over the valuable content + context they were providing to their readers upfront, before the click.<br /><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUw7lOZLdS_Vk2X7R6mcGGuZZjsEYe9uCEynhk7_Ywd9RDMfHS10BphP8rEeko6etLxNnXK5XJVn6jnn7DIKzUXYGbLLF1LjJWIV1ilhqQX_rMZ0ok3Qd0sXnoBtM5MC56B8jy/s400/Screenshot_10_31_13_11_15_AM.jpg" style="color: #0000ee; text-align: center;" width="400" /></li>
<br />
<li><b>Twitter images + Vine videos get preferential treatment. </b><br />Ever since Instagram <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/12/3759112/twitter-ceo-dick-costolo-instagram-prerogative">pulled support</a> for Twitter cards, images that were uploaded directly to Twitter have been more visible on the platform than photos shared from their competitor. However, while the Twitter cards imbalance was Instagram's choice, the new auto-expanded images feature now gives Twitter's own image format a distinct advantage over any other image hosting service.<br /><br />Now users can expect to see plenty of Instagram photos (and images created using other tools) downloaded and re-uploaded natively directly to Twitter's image platform. Popular API hacking tool IFTTT already has a <a href="https://ifttt.com/recipes/120668">recipe for automating</a> the process of porting a photo from Instagram over to Twitter images. This will create fragmentation in engagement around the same content, duplicated across platforms.<br /><br />This home court advantage will likely help boost Vine's success, as well, which is critical as Instagram begins to roll out its own advertising format. Branded video on Instagram, with its :15 second time limit, is expected to be incredibly popular with advertisers looking to bring video spots to the <a href="http://instagram.com/press/">150 million</a> strong Instagram audience. Auto-expanded vines paired with paid promoted tweets will be a powerful tool for Twitter to combat Instagram's new offering.</li>
</ol>
<div>
With Twitter's IPO just around the corner, auto-expanded Twitter images + vines may just be one of many big changes coming to the platform. For the health of the platform and its long term potential, Twitter must think through the impact all of its design decisions will have on user behavior. It also needs to evaluate clearly which values Twitter wants its platform to stand for. Choices like auto-expanded rich media may seem small at first, but they could do more to disrupt the democracy + dialogue the platform has been known for than any other changes Twitter has made to date.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-26547475186630534532013-08-19T10:36:00.001-04:002013-08-19T10:44:48.673-04:00Facebook Home, One Way Or Another<i> How Facebook for Android is a trojan horse for Facebook's larger ambitions.</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZG6IH-c9RlHEOqWgv5hK_2cJHkpRWwjqPvk34_am0rBG5976yKKP9j1-YtwD4-z2buaqROeOvrzh7LcQpO0bSJu3DQOZBXb27mgbqcOAjoWm-X1CUPpqHvkPZDjy0kFf4i8W1/s1600/Screenshot_2013-08-19-08-07-57.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZG6IH-c9RlHEOqWgv5hK_2cJHkpRWwjqPvk34_am0rBG5976yKKP9j1-YtwD4-z2buaqROeOvrzh7LcQpO0bSJu3DQOZBXb27mgbqcOAjoWm-X1CUPpqHvkPZDjy0kFf4i8W1/s1600/Screenshot_2013-08-19-08-07-57.jpg" width="550" /></a>
<i><br /></i>
<br />
You've got to wonder whether this strategy is written on the board somewhere prominently in Facebook's offices: do something extreme, make people uncomfortable, and then when it's been soundly rejected, take a step back and find a way to make it happen without anyone noticing. Since the days of Beacon Facebook has done this time and time again. Facebook introduces a major change that take invasion of privacy, lock-in and control to a whole new level, cause a crazy uproar. Then, when the uproar has subsided and nobody is paying attention anymore, Facebook finds a new, quieter way to accomplish the very same thing. Even Facebook's stock price has taken that path, finally flirting with <a href="https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:FB">profitability</a> after a tumultuous IPO.<br />
<br />
The latest culprit of this bait and switch strategy? Facebook Home, Facebook's attempt to own our mobile operating system.<br />
<br />
Facebook Home's launch may have been the company's biggest failure yet. It was announced with great fanfare, with commercial partners, and with lofty claims about this not only being the greatest version of Facebook ever-- but a whole new way of experiencing mobile. The problem was, though, Facebook Home took mobile lock-in to a whole new level by suppressing much of what people do on their phones a layer below Facebook's own features. It also showed a complete misunderstanding of the motivations of many Android users. The result was a minimal usage and HTC's Facebook Home phone being discounted to <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/11/facebook-home-is-losing-steam-in-the-charts-fast/">99 cents</a> within a month of going on sale.<br />
<br />
But as we should know by now Facebook never gives up. While almost no one is using Facebook Home, a tens of millions of people are using Facebook for Android. And Facebook Android app, it turns out, is the perfect back door to introduce Facebook Home features away from the critical public eye. First came Chat Heads, Facebook Home's clever and fun messaging platform. Then came Cover Feed, Facebook Home's very attractive newsfeed screensaver. Both features were introduced as opt-in options, and I've activated each as soon as they were available (note: as a Facebook for <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/introducing-the-facebook-for-android-beta-testing-program/10151529228878920">Android Beta tester</a>, I sometimes receive updates earlier than the general public).<br />
<br />
As it turns out, Facebook Home's best features are pretty great. Chat Heads makes messaging much more accessible than ever before by elevating text messages above the Android application layer so you can send messages without having to leave what you're doing. And Cover Feed makes turning on your phone a few hundred times a day much more interesting and enjoyable by introducing new photos and status updates from your friends in beautiful full bleed panning display that you can 'like' or comment on immediately, every time the lock screen appears. My Facebook usage had waned considerably over the years, but since turning on Cover Feed I've browsed and interacted with Facebook at exponentially greater volumes.<br />
<br />
One day with Cover Feed and you can see why Facebook wants this so badly.<br />
<br />
Facebook turning its regular Android app into a trojan horse for Facebook Home features isn't going to solve all of its problems. Cover Feed is great, and new features seem to be getting added regularly (just this week Facebook added support for audio controls in the lock-screen). My biggest critique with Facebook Home when it first launched was its blatant disregard for 3rd party applications, which it needs to play nicely with if it wants to own more real estate on the phone. I'm loving Cover Feed, but I'll be more likely to stick with it if I can integrate photo streams from other applications as well (first-up, how about Instagram support, which at the very least is part of Facebook's own family?). And Facebook is still quietly working on Facebook Home, hoping to get it to a place where Android users consider it a compelling alternative to the stock operating system. <br />
<br />
It's clear to me, though, whatever happens-- one way or another, we'll all be using a version of Facebook Home sooner or later, whether we realize it, like it, or not.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-73942154259769617762013-07-02T09:58:00.004-04:002013-07-02T09:58:54.648-04:00Replacing Google Reader<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://medium.com/this-happened-to-me/a3c7cea220cb" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-0U9hnVao-asbzPBxXzNyTMjHagbgY7YEvWtouWoxp1wty2doW66pFCEeiMy57vnR4Wzzal2cHrBAHlUNauZBmUPbquOUAGrocH2prMtfjDpotKzHzI8B_hM-6qao93MsYIxS/s640/Google_Reader_489.png+(2772%C3%971748).jpg" width="500" /></a></div>
<br />
Today is the first day us geekerati won't be powering our daily reading with Google Reader (at least those of us who still rely on RSS). There were many of us who loved and relied heavily on Google Reader, and I wrote a story about how hard it is <a href="https://medium.com/this-happened-to-me/a3c7cea220cb">when a beloved product doesn't love you back</a>. But the question I'm being asked is, what are you doing now for RSS reading?<br />
<br />
<b>#1. Backing up my Google Reader data</b><br />
Google has enabled us to export all sorts of data from Google Reader via its personal archive service <a href="https://www.google.com/takeout/">Google Takeout</a>, including a list of all of your RSS feed subscriptions, starred items, and more. I exported my Google Reader data and stored it to Google Drive. You only have until July 15th to do this, so get on it.<br />
<br />
<b>#2. Creating an account on Feedly</b><br />
If you're a power RSS reader, you need an RSS reader that is flexible, personalizable and accessible on all of your devices. <a href="http://www.feedly.com/">Feedly</a> is a good choice because it's an RSS reader in itself and has also built an API backend to replace Google Reader's 3rd party application community. I am not in love with Feedly itself (it always seemed to pretty to me), but its leadership position in the RSS marketplace means it's dependable for all my needs.<br />
<br />
<b>#3. Transitioning my mobile applications</b><br />
I do most of my RSS reading on my phone, and often underground in the subway. I rely on power RSS reading apps that let you cache feeds to read offline, skim lots of content quickly, and sync data among other things. I've opted for <a href="http://reederapp.com/">Reeder</a> on iOS and <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.twentyfivesquares.press">Press</a> on Android, both because they're the best in their respective marketplace and because they both sync cleanly to the <a href="http://www.feedly.com/apps.html">Feedly cloud</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>#4. Testing out new RSS products</b><br />
While I'm relying primarily on Feedly, Reeder and Press right now, I'm also exploring other options. The one I'm most excited about is <a href="http://digg.com/reader/">Digg Reader</a>, a very new product from the Betaworks team that is being developed with the power user in mind. I love the synergistic social news ecosystem that Betaworks is developing with <a href="http://www.digg.com/">Digg</a>, Digg Reader, Bit.ly and Instapaper. They have a long way to go towards making this a reality, but I'm optimistic. I'm also considering testing <a href="https://feedbin.me/">Feedbin</a> and <a href="http://www.newsblur.com/">News Blur</a>, two cross-platform RSS readers that have admirably put a stake in the ground for a paying business model that could help sustain them long term. <br />
<br />
So that's my post Google Reader RSS plan right now. What's yours?<br />
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<i>Additional reading: <a href="https://medium.com/this-happened-to-me/a3c7cea220cb">A bittersweet goodbye to Google Reader, the online girlfriend who dumped me.</a></i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-47324724337905656432013-06-21T09:19:00.002-04:002013-06-21T09:19:42.003-04:00But Do People Really Want Video on Instagram?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8HIYEbWsHuo7USGoJ9zAZtlhWkkZ-puEBFzSRWC3rUqupBoMKCbbRRNsk3FIo-AyaAMqg2NPB4oUn2l6YkTGzC2U5F_ZAdS1zpsdSh0E851e6Xt0DJeyTbgKW8KyxzBsDpCnM/s1600/Instagram+Blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8HIYEbWsHuo7USGoJ9zAZtlhWkkZ-puEBFzSRWC3rUqupBoMKCbbRRNsk3FIo-AyaAMqg2NPB4oUn2l6YkTGzC2U5F_ZAdS1zpsdSh0E851e6Xt0DJeyTbgKW8KyxzBsDpCnM/s400/Instagram+Blog.jpg" width="500" /></a></div>
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This afternoon Facebook held an event to announce video capture would finally be available to Instagram's 130 million users. The experience of creating a video is ripped right from Vine (touch and hold to record, lift your finger to pause), which is good because Vine was the first mobile video product to be welcomingly easy to use. Instagram video also has some interesting new bells and whistles that differentiate it from its video predecessors-- video stabilization, filters, and the ability to import content, to name a few. With Instagram video you certainly have the ability to create a more visually compelling product than ever before, in a way that feels very native to the Instagram experience. But I have to ask, after the initial excitement is over, will people really want that?<br />
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Part of the magic of Instagram is its innate ability to make any photo instantly attractive. It essentially created the idea of "one touch magic button" apps that is now a benchmark for how simple and powerful a mobile product should be. But while adding stabilization and a filter might make any video more attractive than it was to start with, it does not in itself make every video interesting enough to spend 15 seconds with. In fact, applying the promise of Instagram magic to video content might even make viewers more upset when they stop flipping through beautiful photos long enough to watch.<br />
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That's my biggest concern with Instagram video. It's great that Instagram has developed such amazing tools to make regular video better looking. But if the Instagram community starts being bogged down by :15 second videos that would have been a lot more interesting and native to the experience as photos, it will make spending time in Instagram a lot more weighty. Almost like your friends ran a :15 second ad in the middle of your beautiful photo stream. I'm already feeling this in the first day-- browsing the feed is slower, and it's more complicated to discover new interesting content in the "Explore" tab. Myself and many others open Instagram countless times a day to briefly scan through the latest photos for a moment break and smile. A steady stream of sub-par video will make that a bigger lift, and less enjoyable.<br />
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Now how does this all compare to Vine? Vine has been so successful because if provides the right balance of capability and confinement. In 6 seconds people can be as creative as they want to be (and there's been some truly impressive Vine art). But 6 seconds also limits uninteresting content in a way that doesn't disrupt the flow of scanning content that is necessary in social platforms like these. Vine's limitations somehow lower the bar for what video content has to achieve to be compelling, and that's what so differentiating and impressive about it. It's also established itself for what it is-- browsing the Vine stream you get exactly the experience you're looking for. Wouldn't it be strange if people could suddenly start taking pictures with their Vine app?<br />
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So while I'm very impressed with the video product that Instagram has put together, and I'll probably even use it every once in a while, I don't think it's going to be the market disrupter that Instagram originally was. I don't think it's going to be the magic bullet to make ammateur video instantly more proliffic and compelling than before. And I do actually think one of two things will happen-- people will not use it all that often, or Instagram will add some sort of view filter that lets people browse only photos if they want to, to preserve the amazing experience they've been cultivating since their launch. And Vine, and other single-purpose apps, will continue to flourish despite Facebook's relentless attempt to take the whole cake.<br />
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At least I hope so.<br />
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<i>Disclaimer: The SS+K Lab that I co-founded built the popular Vine search engine <a href="http://www.vineviewer.co/">VineViewer</a> and has previously built applications for Instagram, as well. We love both equally :)</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-70857877719640689982013-05-19T20:08:00.001-04:002013-05-19T20:08:37.377-04:00Why Tumblr Should Sell to Twitter Instead<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCVqv1ftUqSF8Am4YWnOkEKDjhpqHUXXRGriy3V4O8ffXA7x0EM_NShy4dimiJ9swYWKyPLW0hg3YinXZlaSmoYlUxQSe8ripftWwlp5QWnOuXJXiuvI_zxKJ1i7rXe-ZztO-B/s1600/Screenshot_5_19_13_6_55_PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCVqv1ftUqSF8Am4YWnOkEKDjhpqHUXXRGriy3V4O8ffXA7x0EM_NShy4dimiJ9swYWKyPLW0hg3YinXZlaSmoYlUxQSe8ripftWwlp5QWnOuXJXiuvI_zxKJ1i7rXe-ZztO-B/s400/Screenshot_5_19_13_6_55_PM.jpg" width="550" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Awesome photo borrowed from <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/17/4341144/yahoo-to-hold-monday-press-event-nyc-tumblr-acquisition-rumors">The Verge</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span id="goog_800947257"></span>If the rumors or to believe, the ink is drying as we speak on a deal for Yahoo! to acquire Tumblr. This is Marisa Mayer's biggest move yet in her effort to make Yahoo! relevant again. I'm a big fan of Marisa and rooting for her to bring magic to properties that Flickr that I still rely on. But as a Tumblr user, I can't help but wonder if this is a terrible fit. In short, here's why: Yahoo! has a horrible legacy with forced integration, has never been innovative when it comes to monetization models, and is lacking any real creative credibility at the moment. Tumblr users, myself included, have to be worried about all of these things.<br />
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As a regular user it may seem funny to think so intensely about the business functions of free consumer platforms like Tumblr, but the truth is we have to. Tumblr founder David Karp fought the good fight by keeping regular banner advertising off Tumblr's enjoyable platform for so long. But free platforms have to make money somehow, and as we're learning <a href="http://kbskobac.blogspot.com/2012/12/instagram-please-let-us-pay-my-digiday.html">time</a> <a href="http://kbskobac.blogspot.com/2012/11/why-i-bought-tweetbot-and-rising-cost.html">after</a> <a href="http://kbskobac.blogspot.com/2012/08/pov-on-twitters-api-announcement.html">time</a>, the harsh reality of business is often bad news for us. The question is whether Yahoo! is capable of recouping a $1.1 billion investment in Tumblr in a way that makes sense for itself and the Tumblr community.<br />
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Advocates of this deal will point to Google's successful acquisition of YouTube as an example of how the relationship between Yahoo! and Tumblr should be structured. But YouTube actually benefited immensely from Google's ownership and was more synergistic than it may be looked on the surface. Google's infrastructure innovations have helped reduce the operating expense and increased the compatibility of the platform. Google's ad targeting and performance pricing were both exactly right for YouTube. And search is incredibly important for YouTube. Does Yahoo! have that type of synergy with Tumblr? I'm not so sure.<br />
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<b>If Tumblr really had to sell, I would have much rather seen Twitter as the acquirer. </b> In many ways, Tumblr and Twitter are incredibly compatible. David Karp and Jack Dorsey are both creative leaders who have proven they care about user experience. Tumblr's diverse content posting platform would be a perfect way for Twitter to fill in support for all media types in its growing Twitter cards platform. Tumblr has recently started making money through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising">native advertising</a> techniques that replicate Twitter's monetization-- promoted posts and promoted accounts-- and both platforms approach the advertising with careful restraint, which is greatly appreciated by users as compared to Facebook. Twitter and Tumblr also both have the respect of a younger audience, which means their loyal fans would probably not be appalled and run for greener pastures if the acquisition took place (which is a major fear should the Yahoo! acquisition go through). Both companies use tagging and topic pages to tell cover events and tell stories through the power of their users. The examples of synergy go on and on.<br />
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Yet again we users are in a scary situation as a company we considers its on future. It's time for users to take some responsibility for these fates. We have to signal the ways in which we'd be comfortable with the services we use making money. We can be willing to pay, we can appreciate and support good ad experiences, we can willingly give up our data. Hopefully users and companies can work together to ensure the product we both love can thrive and secure their own fates. And if that's not possible, hopefully companies can make smart acquisition decisions that lead to outcomes like YouTube, not Flickr. I hope I'm wrong and Marisa Mayer is the right parent for the job.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-47854750636943097152013-05-17T13:56:00.000-04:002013-07-20T14:01:23.103-04:00The subtlety of (don’t be) evil<b>The subtlety of (don’t be) evil: considering Google's ambitions</b><br />
<i>[A blog post I wrote for <a href="https://medium.com/@kskobac">Medium</a>, but never published, after Google IO]</i><br />
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In the aftermath of Google’s annual IO conference that ended with an impassioned speech by Larry Page pleading with the tech industry to stop fighting and start focusing on making the world better, it’s worth revisiting Google historic <b>Don’t Be Evil</b> mantra. The irony was not lost on anyone when, at the same time Larry Page was preaching unity, Google lawyers were requesting that Microsoft pull their recently launched YouTube app from the Windows Phone Store.<br />
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Here is why I believe in Google, why I buy into their mission: <b>more often than not, Google’s work helps make the world better.</b> Whether its breaking new ground with products no one ever thought of, or entering competitive industries that already have clear leaders, its typically doing so to significantly benefit us all by starting massive leaps forward.<br />
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Oftentimes critics label Google’s ambitions in productivity (i.e., Google Docs), web utility (i.e., Chrome), Geography (i.e., Maps), and mobile (i.e., Android) as evil because they were competitive efforts in someone else’s industry. But in each case, Google helped drastically change the market for the better. Microsoft wasn’t innovating with its Office product and clearly had no vision for the era of web connectivity. Firefox had done the hard work of unseating Microsoft’s hold on the browser market, but it took Google’s entry into the industry to ignite the incredible acceleration in web browser speed, standards compatibility and cross-platform sync. Google Maps proved MapQuest was actually a laughable product that was doing a fraction of what mapping was capable of. And while Apple made the biggest contribution to the mobile industry ever by breaking the carrier stranglehold, it needed a foil in Google to expose the value of open platforms. In each instance, Google entering the market has ignited competition that has lead to greater and greater products and services for users.<br />
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<b>For me, whether Google is acting evil or not is determined by whether it can really effectively make a difference in a market it enters, not just steal someone’s revenue.</b><br />
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Google isn’t perfect, by any means. While I do believe Google needs a social layer to its products to tie them together, the way Google often forces use of Google+ and restricts connectivity to other social platforms is clearly self serving. When it creates competitive products like Google Music All Access with little innovation that could steal the lunch of other startups, it’s getting greedy. And when it cancels beloved services like Google Reader without considering alternatives like selling the product to another company, it’s irresponsible to its users. Nothing Google does right would keep me from looking down on its infractions. But its track record is filled with many more reasons for us to thank Google than to chastise them.<br />
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At this week’s developer conference, Google made another massive contribution to the tech industry by showing the world how valuable personalized data can be for us all. While most of its competitors are running around leveraging user data for self-serving advertising products, Google is finding new ways to unlock the power of personal data to provide magical services to users. After experiencing Google Now on my phone and seeing Google’s new maps and search products, I actually want Google to have more of my data—what other company can I say that about? I’ve started forwarding more information to my Gmail just so Google can digest and leverage it in its products. I wish I could augment Google’s record of me even further by handing it the keys to my data on other valuable platforms like Foursquare and Facebook. I want this because I know every product Google thinks up will be better for me the more they know about me. And their vision of how to use my personalized data is to better my life, not just to sell me to advertisers.<br />
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So when Google stands up in front of the world and asks us all to be a little less evil, I respect them because I believe they’re leading by example. I trust and respect them more than most other companies, and believe they’re capable more than most other companies to make a real difference in our lives. They will falter along the way, but as long as they keep doing more good than not, I believe they’re standing by their motto.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-44381324245156143502013-04-07T09:14:00.000-04:002014-03-18T09:16:01.415-04:00Facebook Home is a beautiful, but contradictory, vision for our mobile futureThe rumors of a Facebook phone have been around for years now. And with each new mobile app or functionality that Facebook launched-- Facebook Messenger, Facebook Camera, Facebook Messenger with voice calling... the noise grew louder. But the question always remained: a Facebook phone sure seems great for Facebook, but why is it great for us?<br />
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Finally on Thursday Mark Zuckerberg walked on stage and gave us our answer in the form of Facebook Home. Its not a phone, he said, its a whole new way of experiencing mobile. Its a paradigm shift from apps to people. Its the way mobile social was always supposed to be. Oh and by the way, its the best version of Facebook yet.<br />
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Well therein lies the rub. Mark Zuckerberg did unveil a beautiful vision for the future of mobile. The immersive cover feed seems like we could get lost in it for hours. Elevating chat above the app layer is a stroke of brilliance that changes the meaning of multitasking. It certainly feels right to be looking at people and actions, not apps.<br />
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But by its very nature, the Facebook phone-- or loader or whatever you want to call it-- is a contradiction. It simply turns your smartphone into one big Facebook app, suppressing almost anything but Facebook's already people-first behavior. Its a glorified app at the expense of how people really exist today-- as a multitude of experiences and behaviors across a wide variety of platforms and ecosystems.<br />
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You see, people today don't just want to communicate on Facebook. They want to stream news on Twitter, express themselves on Tumblr, explore on Foursquare and more. A Facebook phone can never really become the world's first truly people-first phone unless it embraces every way people really communicate. Facebook, on its own, cannot be a phone for the people.<br />
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Mark Zuckerberg mentioned several times on Thursday how Facebook Home wouldn't have been possible without the amazing commitment by Google to make Android open. If Zuckerberg really wants to be the champion of a people-first mobile future he should match that by building Facebook Home to embrace all of the other interactions, on Facebook or otherwise, that people want to have. THAT will be the best version of Facebook yet.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-45285735756577045142013-02-11T09:00:00.000-05:002013-02-11T09:00:12.242-05:00Trading in my iPhone 4S for a Google Nexus 4<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIY-8UjYbs1LTRz-83zyh3kcpMyzc-fvuJFoXwKi0m1lsa4lDjbbENdzgppTfRzcqcj538UMzBp0mGP9E8ih0iEfkK4QfAgSMxBVNU8Cgm6x6eFDrqyGPZ5BkKHBLAICWSD16o/s1600/blogger-image-824733205.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIY-8UjYbs1LTRz-83zyh3kcpMyzc-fvuJFoXwKi0m1lsa4lDjbbENdzgppTfRzcqcj538UMzBp0mGP9E8ih0iEfkK4QfAgSMxBVNU8Cgm6x6eFDrqyGPZ5BkKHBLAICWSD16o/s640/blogger-image-824733205.png" width="550" /></a></div>
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Ever since I <a href="http://kbskobac.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-magic-of-google-now-and-thinking.html">fell in love with the Google Nexus 7</a>, I've been thinking about trading in an iPhone for an Android phone. As I mentioned before, I think innovation in the mobile Operating System space is largely coming from Google (and even Microsoft) right now, and in comparison Apple's iOS is starting to feel stale. The release of Android 4.1 Jellybean this summer was a turning point for Android, but there wasn't a phone worth buying yet until Google released the Nexus 4, a flagship phone in the same lineage of Nexus 7 that would always feature the latest version of Android. As lucky would have it, I won a new Nexus 4 at a Google event, so this week I decided to take the plunge.<span style="background-color: white;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><b>I popped the sim card out of my iPhone and transitioned full time to an Android phone.</b></span><br />
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I'm going to spend a lot more time with the phone before I give an official review, but until then it's worth sharing some my initial reactions for anyone about to make a similar phone change cold turkey. The phone itself is beautiful. It's slim and light, but with a big beautiful screen. Multi-tasking and cross-app integration is pretty fantastic (as It's always been on Android). Voice recognition and other typing alternatives like native swype-style keyboards make information input a breeze. The operating system is much more informative and actionable-- from better app notifications, to better data about your power usage. And I have really high hopes for <a href="http://kbskobac.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-magic-of-google-now-and-thinking.html">Google Now</a>.<br />
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But there's also a lot of surprises. Though the phone is very fast, the touch response feels a bit slower, akin to how Windows trackpads often feel compared to Apple. And even though the operating system itself is fantastic, many applications aren't matching it in quality. It seems many companies delay in rolling out their best features to Android, so applications I love on iPhone are only subpar on Android (for example, Evernote Hello doesn't have business card scanning functionality yet, and Nike+ doesn't have friend leaderboards or Path integration yet-- both popular features on their iOS equivalent). And some great apps are still missing all together. <br />
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Also, Android's old selling point-- the most powerful versions of Google own applications-- isn't even true anymore. The latest versions of Google Maps, Gmail and Google+ on iPhone are pretty killer, even better, I think, than what's on Android right now. I think this is because on iPhone Google has a the highly evolved standard gestures of iOS, a refined standard that doesn't yet exist on Android (things like pull to refresh, left-swype menus and click-to-top headers). <br />
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So it will be an interesting ride. I can already see a ton of pluses and minuses of both iOS and its standard hardware build (the weight and size is definitively easier to hold, but harder to read on) and the operating system (a more open OS leads to better integration but less polished functions). I'm sure I'll learn a lot more as I spend an extended period with the phone. And then come July, when the next iPhone comes out, I'll be ready to make an informed decision on what platform I'm going to commit to my next two years. In the mean time, let me know if you have any Android suggestions or questions.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-15310116073452674442013-02-08T13:11:00.002-05:002013-02-08T13:11:49.773-05:00Our Vineviewer Vine Search Engine Gets Some Love<div>
<a href="http://vineviewer.co/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUzPegTulLQDQLJIxeVGB519E5Nm-lrl8j74Wz-q2bWWiyPaXXOaqtxcs4ycW_-5OAngyqK0mgwN_5XWiDrF-nKc-7HnRlHOVd2Q74iLpMBhApAB5CIl10da-4ZBLCcoUMEUQQ/s640/vineviewer+cropped.jpg" width="550" /></a></div>
<br />
We launched our labor of love <a href="http://vineviewer.co/">VineViewer</a> (a Vine video search engine) to the public one week ago now. It's been an exciting seven days, so I wanted to provide an update on our web app.
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Since roll-out, our development partner <a href="http://www.firefallpro.com/">Firefall Pro</a> has been killing it with feature updates and stability optimizations. Now each Vine video has its own "card" which includes a link to the video post's original Vine post page as well as the shared Twitter post page. You can search for multiple keywords at once, and search results now have unlimited scrolling. Videos fail much less often, but when they do, we serve a nice error graphic instead of a 404 page. There's a new "about" message that appears when you roll over the corner plus (+) graphic. And the design is a lot cleaner overall.
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We've gotten some pretty awesome coverage in the press:</div>
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<ul>
<li>A full article in <a href="http://www.fastcocreate.com/1682372/vineviewer-is-a-search-tool-for-vines">FastCompany Co.Create</a></li>
<li>Featured on <a href="http://creativity-online.com/work/ssk-vineviewerco/30660">AdAge: Creativity</a></li>
<li>Bylines in <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-named-the-clydesdale-foal-2013-2">Business Insider</a> and <a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/tuesday-odds-and-ends-200_b44162">Media Bistro: AgencySpy</a></li>
<li>Listing in AdAge's <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s4/sh/b1756e73-5674-4817-9db6-4cb81d4f97b4/36f76ca9bf6cfa30d18a6f6f24680fd2">Ad Critic Top 20</a></li>
</ul>
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And most of all, people seem to really enjoy using it. Over 2,600 people have used the app so far, to search for everything from <a href="http://vineviewer.co/?search=proteus">video game clips</a> to peeks at the <a href="http://vineviewer.co/?search=nemo">winter storm Nemo</a>. And the average visit duration is climbing to now over 3 minutes per visit (amazing, considering Vines are 6 seconds).</div>
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I hope VineViewer grows as a part of the Vine community. We'll be thinking about ways to make it more useful. In the meantime, continue to share it, and let us know what you think.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-78378168407855977462013-02-01T13:38:00.001-05:002013-02-01T13:38:17.862-05:00We Built a Vine Search Engine<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.vineviewer.co/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="1" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUz-7hOWVyV_P3jFK1QrG_x6uJtxbeq7kh0GHJaOXltuOjsahiaG08tldXxOlWRv1y8Yx4eJQAafxAXZ0Xq_3T-PPP07vySj6osWi3WFQringekJCtcXgQj7_fkOuAj_0CJnT3/s640/VineViewer.jpg" width="525" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="tr_bq">
Last week Twitter launched a new video product called <a href="http://vine.co/">Vine</a>, which enables users to quickly & easily record and share 6 second videos. Vine's big innovation is its way of enabling people to stitch a video together without having to use any editing tools, the result of which is a drastically lowered barrier to making an interesting looping clip. I'm loving Vine because vine videos feel really raw and intimate, characteristics that are unfortunately sparse these days now that just about every photo is cropped to a square, filtered and bordered.</div>
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But as much fun as it is to watch Vine videos, there's unfortunately no way to easily search for vines of topics of interest. Enter <a href="http://vineviewer.co/">VineViewer</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>VineViewer is a fun utility developed (rapidly) by <a href="http://www.ssk.com/">SS+K</a> and <a href="http://www.firefallpro.com/">Firefall Pro</a> designed to allow people to search the growing library of vines based on their tags. We were really excited by the launch of Vine. Like everyone else in our business, we immediately began thinking of different ways we might bring vines in on our client work. In doing so, we lamented that there was no simple way to search for vines of a specific topic, like love for Valentines Day. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>VineCreeper is in in constant beta, and may evolve as we come up with more ideas for Vine. We hope people enjoy, and use at their own discretion.</i></blockquote>
We concepted and created VineViewer in just a couple of days, to fill a need and interest we had. It's certainly rough around the edges, and there are some more features we'd like to implement (like a widescreen view and endless scrolling), but we wanted to launch it immediately for all Vine lovers to enjoy. Learning about new social tools is all about using and prototyping, not polish. <br />
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So search for <a href="http://www.vineviewer.co/?search=cats">cats</a>, <a href="http://www.vineviewer.co/?search=puppy">puppies</a>, <a href="http://www.vineviewer.co/?search=babies">babies</a> and <a href="http://www.vineviewer.co/?search=nyc">NYC</a> to your hearts content. Let me know what you think, and share it with your friends.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-85362193379803377922013-01-23T18:32:00.000-05:002013-01-23T20:38:53.778-05:00Blogging is set to have a new golden age<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiurYzjOqpm-k-_QxIsKvRyTkIkZxOeaDmBjk0j4uis4Rr24trElvq2diAs_Vm1WkkPMOaLG9XCvYFoMpKgIEv-M6r-wnNodpNYcS6qSQMhrOyA3jyL1Hpfh6n2I0JqdV2Wv7J/s1600/Medium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiurYzjOqpm-k-_QxIsKvRyTkIkZxOeaDmBjk0j4uis4Rr24trElvq2diAs_Vm1WkkPMOaLG9XCvYFoMpKgIEv-M6r-wnNodpNYcS6qSQMhrOyA3jyL1Hpfh6n2I0JqdV2Wv7J/s400/Medium.jpg" width="525" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The welcome screen of Medium.com (created by Biz Stone & Ev Williams of Blogger + Twitter fame)</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Today Quora <a href="http://blog.quora.com/Introducing-Blogs-on-Quora">announced a new blog functionality</a>. It's not surprisingly getting a lot of attention because, on the surface, it appears to be a pivot for the company. But in reality it feels like a natural extension of Quora's platform, in support of Quora's <a href="http://blog.quora.com/Our-Mission">core mission</a>: </span><br />
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<b>Quora's mission is to share and grow the world's knowledge</b></blockquote>
And while interesting, smart question asking has unearthed <a href="http://qsf.cf.quoracdn.net/best_of_quora_2010-2012.pdf">some even more amazing</a> knowledge, without the right question a lot of great knowledge won't be published. So Quora's blogging product enables everyone with something great to say about a topic to contribute to it through a blog post. That's Quora's innovation on blogging, by the way -- adding the ability to post original insight to a topic, without having to worry about building a following.<br />
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But Quora's new blog product is just another developing in an even more exciting trend: a new golden age of blogging.<br />
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After years of stagnation in the blogging space, the last few months have seen a flurry of blogging innovation. <a href="https://svbtle.com/">Svbtle</a>, <a href="http://www.medium.com/">Medium</a>, <a href="http://www.branch.com/">Branch</a>, and <a href="http://www.quora.com/">Quora</a> have all created new publishing platforms that embrace smart, intelligent writing in unique ways. They all embrace design as a way of enhancing the writing and reading experience. And all of these platforms are helping to fight back against the trend of character counts, meme machines and animated gifs.</div>
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Branch, in particular, has me really excited because of how it's making social dialogue interesting again (more on this from me soon).<br />
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So if you've forgotten what it's like to write longer than 140 characters, or you're tired of just seeing auto-animated images, and you want to dive into some really interesting, thought-provoking content, start exploring one or two of these new platforms that are helping reignite a new golden age of blogging. And share with me what you've found.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-756148841284531772013-01-21T09:30:00.000-05:002013-01-21T09:30:00.712-05:00My Social Media Footprint, January 2013<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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At the beginning of the year, I like to take stock of the websites, apps and technologies that I'm using on a regular basis. This time I returned to an exercise I performed four and a half years ago when I <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kskobac/2574656004/">drafted a map</a> <i>(see below)</i> of my social media presence. The social web has grown exponentially since 2008, so obviously there are more properties than ever on my map. But what's more interesting is some of the trends that are illustrated. </div>
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For starters, websites, apps and tech have all merged so much so that doing different lists seems a bit silly. For this exercise, I used a loose definition of listing websites & apps that revolve around social interaction, be it creation, communication, management or sharing.</div>
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Also, many sites have changed classifications since 2008. For example, my old graph has Tumblr listed as an aggregator, but since then Tumblr has switched from a pull-type service to a creation platform. In fact, aggregators as a whole have basically gone away.</div>
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And social productivity was certainly a thing in 2008, but it was an outlier, not a tentpole category as it is now. That feels like a reflection of the evolution of corporate IT, which has largely embraced things like Google Apps, DropBox and Evernote.</div>
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It's crazy to think how many social properties I've enjoyed that weren't even around four years ago, and amazingly are already obsolete (things like Posterous). And certain categories are starting to be disrupted again, though they were relatively stagnant all this time. Blogging is one of them.</div>
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I look forward to doing this exercise many times over in the years to come. It's always interesting to sit back and take stock of how the web is evolving. For the sake of comparison, here is my map from 2008.</div>
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<a href="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3007/2574656004_1fe1a5bbf6_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3007/2574656004_1fe1a5bbf6_o.jpg" width="500" /></a></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10452835.post-66155496846724007042013-01-15T09:23:00.002-05:002013-01-15T09:24:49.416-05:007 Discoveries and Observations from the CES 2013 Conference Floor <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBgldDO2lqs9uQTWgse5dbZOvJg7fMmf2vn0E5Jd4_tGHb1LYf7e-5cXX4gYRZvuMndyvyHLFjvjAkutbvV7xqwuHnx8OFxcwVdj7shoXB52g9evYTvxGli2AKV5LUv3dlAY0c/s1600/photo-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBgldDO2lqs9uQTWgse5dbZOvJg7fMmf2vn0E5Jd4_tGHb1LYf7e-5cXX4gYRZvuMndyvyHLFjvjAkutbvV7xqwuHnx8OFxcwVdj7shoXB52g9evYTvxGli2AKV5LUv3dlAY0c/s400/photo-5.jpg" width="450" /></a></div>
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<b>1. No matter how good you think your TV is now, it can always get better.</b></div>
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This year television manufacturers showed off new Ultra High Def (UHD) <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/14/ces-2013-hdtv-and-connected-devices-round-up/"><span class="s1">televisions</span></a> that have 4K resolution, or about four times the resolution of today's high definition screens. These big and beautiful TV's show virtually no pixelation when displaying UHD content (though upscaling non-UHD content may be less compelling). Also present were new curved televisions that enable viewers to have a more balanced viewing experience (each inch of the screen is equidistant from the viewer), and an impressive <a href="http://mashable.com/2013/01/09/samsung-dual-view-eyes-on/"><span class="s1">dual-view 3D TV</span></a> by Samsung that enables two people to watch different high definition 3D broadcasts in full screen at the same time from the same television.</div>
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<b>2. It's more fun to use human interfaces and have physical interaction.</b></div>
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While TV's, phones, computers and cameras steal the headlines at CES, smaller companies tucked away in the corners innovating in ways you can't imagine are much more fun. And many of these companies are helping us to interact with the world a bit more by building physical interaction into technology. One particular cool gadget is Sphero, a hackable robot ball that you can control via your iPhone, around a physical track. <a href="http://www.gosphero.com/"><span class="s1">Sphero</span></a> can also trigger augmented reality experiences, and be used itself to control computer programs through physical manipulation. Also peek at <a href="https://www.sifteo.com/"><span class="s1">Sifteo</span></a> cubes, small computer cubes that pass information between each other, enabling all sorts of interactive puzzles and games.</div>
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<b>3. Health technology and the quantified self are at a tipping point.</b></div>
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All sorts of companies are making health-tracking devices, from health start-up <a href="http://www.fitbit.com/"><span class="s1">fitbit</span></a>, to Nike Fuel to Jawbone Up, that track anything from how many steps we've taken to how well we're sleeping. But wearable bracelets won't be the only way we measure, share and analyze our health data. <a href="http://www.withings.com/"><span class="s1">Withings</span></a> has a connected scale that measures your weight, BMI, heart rate and even the air quality around you. As more companies enter the health tracking fray product innovation will collide (Withings has a wearable monitor now, and Fit Bit has a connected scale). The bigger question will be how well these companies can guide our real life health improvements based on all of the data we're collecting. </div>
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<b>4. Every device will be connected soon (so plan for bigger data plans).</b></div>
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Just about everyone seemed to enjoy playing with Samsung's new <a href="http://www.samsung.com/in/promotions/galaxycamera/"><span class="s1">Galaxy Camera</span></a>, an internet connected digital camera with an Android operating system built in. Now you can install your favorite mobile apps like Instagram right to your camera to filter and share photos as soon as you take them. Samsung also showed off a <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/11/samsung-smart-fridge-it-runs-android-apps-like-evernote-video-demo/"><span class="s1">connected refrigerator</span></a> that includes popular applications like Evernote, so people can collect recipes from anywhere and browse or view them directly on the screen in their kitchen. With the internet of things growing so quickly, ubiquitous connectivity and shared internet plans will need to improve along with it.</div>
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<b>5. Kickstarter is one of the most exciting names in consumer technology.</b></div>
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One of the most anticipated announcements at CES was from <a href="http://getpebble.com/"><span class="s1">Pebble</span></a>, the ambitious smart watch that was funded on Kickstarter. The Pebble raised a record-setting $10 million dollars to build their product back in April, but didn't announce their shipping date until CES. If Pebble lives up to its promise once in the hands of consumers, the next CES might be much more focused on the independent technology innovators that are arising in part to innovative funding models like <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/year/2012"><span class="s1">Kickstarter</span></a>, rather than the big behemoth technology companies that lead the market today. In fact, many of those big market leading companies seem to be pulling out of CES all together.</div>
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<b>6. The big four internet companies are confusingly second fiddle at CES.</b></div>
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Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook, known as the big four internet companies, have become successful through their merging of content, services and technology in a user-friendly way. Each, to different degrees, are defining what it means to be a connected product today, from user experience to content to ecosystem compatibility. And while CES is full of other companies making devices for those platforms, the names defining the space need to stand up and illustrate their vision for the future. There may have been hundreds of devices from different companies on the CES floor that included Android, but Google needs to lead the discussion of how all these devices will work together with Android at its core.</div>
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<b>7. Welcome to the new CES, it's not just a trade show.</b></div>
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The biggest story going into the week was actually how few product announcements would be taking place, with many technologies likes cameras and phones now saving their biggest own popular trade shows later int he year and big names like Microsoft having left altogether. But a reported 150,000 people from all walks of life attended the convention this year, the largest audience in CES history. More significant may have been the tens of thousands of brands, sales and marketing companies who spent the week in Las Vegas talking about the implications of the consumer electronics revolution and its implications on media and marketing, without ever stepping on the conference floor. CES may be changing, but for new reasons its just as interesting and important none-the-less.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02511213795104650777noreply@blogger.com