My coworker is in the process of planning her wedding. Recently she went to message someone on Facebook about it, and she thought it would be cute to include a Facebook sticker/emoji for weddings. To her surprise, Facebook Messenger had removed the boy/girl pairing, and instead added some very odd same-sex and inter-animal choices instead.
TweetDeck‘s Mac app received a much needed update today that includes the ability to share access to your account with others, Direct Messages to groups, support for GIFS and videos, and other various updates.
For more than a century International Women’s Day has been held on March 8th. And it is amazing to think of the things that have happened in our country and world for women since that time. The date is derived from the women of Petrograd, Russia holding a “bread and peace” strike in 1917, but the message is timeless.
Already this year I’ve lost several friends, mentors, and coworkers from my past. Each one had a different online obituary site, and most had some Facebook presence, but the ability to fully communicate felt limited. A new IndieGoGo project called RIPCemetary seeks to allow loved ones to “create a space to honor a person and keep the memories alive forever.”
WhatsApp have just introduced the ability to connect your phone to a web browser and both receive and send WhatsApp messages via your browser. The first step is to update your WhatsApp messaging application on your phone. Then on the web use a Chrome Browser to navigate to https://web.whatsapp.com.
Every year in recent memory, we have gotten information about the trends of social media sites and apps amongst different age groups. This year we learned about how Facebook isn’t really growing in numbers but is deepening engagement. At the same time a post on Medium called “A Teenager’s View on Social Media” went viral. How do you compare?
In late 2012, along with 3400+ other people I backed a Kickstarter project called Instacube (which has since been renamed Hashtag Cube, or #Cube). The premise was simple: it was to be a stand-alone Android-based device that would wirelessly stream and display Instagram photos, when you could only view Instagram photos on iOS or Android devices. I backed at the early adopter $99 level, and the wait began.
When the Narrative Clip arrived I was excited. Sure, having a small 5MP wearable camera that takes a new picture every 30 seconds would have been great during my recent trip to Israel but it sadly arrived the day after I left. Still, I could see many ways this unobtrusive gadget might make a great photographic diary going forward.
Google’s swing at a social network – Google+ – has just made a big about-face in their much despised real name policy. When the network went live in June 2011 there was a major struggle with users wanting to choose whatever name they wanted and Google insisting on real names only.
About five minutes ago, I shared a post from Fox News on Facebook which reported an incident in Houston TX describing a lawfully licensed handgun owner involved in a shootout with armed robbers. So far this is pretty normal type stuff. But upon clicking POST, Facebook presented me with the prompt: “Do you think anyone will report this post?”.
This may be old news for some of you who were upgraded to the new Facebook interface. Mine just went live a few days ago, and there is a fresh appearance when I share a link. If there’s an image, Facebook expands it and creates an appealing “card-like” post. Google+ does this too – just not as consistently.
Have you received an email that said it was from someone related to you, but upon closer examination you saw that it was from an unknown email address, and it contained a spam link in the email’s body? If so, you might have thought that either you or your friend had been hacked, but this is something sneakier: spear-phishing.
LinkedIn today announced an expansion of their Influencer program that will now allow members to create longer form posts that exceed the standard 700 characters allotted regular members. This expanded feature now lets members to treat LinkedIn as a type of professional blog to showcase their technical knowledge. Posts become a part of their LinkedIn profile.
Skype audio seems to blow away voice quality on any similar VOIP solution yet I’ve been a big Skype user. It mostly seems like a relic of the past which is largely used for communication between users in different companies. Skype users have long complained that in the era of multiple devices that Skype is far behind because it doesn’t synchronize alerts between all devices.
Insulting a celebrity is basically a victimless crime, right? Perhaps, but it’s hard to look at Jennifer Garner as she reads a particularly rude tweet without cringing and feeling some sympathy. A HuffPost about the sixth Jimmy Kimmel Show‘s “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets” (many are NSFW) reminded me that I’ve wanted to mention this series for a while.
So what’s your verdict on Facebook’s newest “Game Changing” social application, Paper? While it’s an interesting attempt to paper over (get it) Facebook’s stale UI and stale content – the fact that a lot of the news from Paper is curated (aka picked for you by a human) makes me believe that this is a non-starter. Here’s why.
The other day I was at Target, and a notification sounded – it wasn’t email, or text, or Game Center or ESPN. In fact I didn’t recognize it at all – so I looked at my phone. It was Foursquare, as shown above. This was a surprise because I couldn’t recall the last time I’d even opened the app!
Maybe this whole NSA debacle has you feeling a bit over-exposed, or maybe you’ve decided that no good can come from having your information “out there”; whatever. Removing yourself from the internet is a daunting task, but Gizmodo has just published a guide that will at least get you started. Can you guess what will have to go first?
View N Me is a new online dating site that provides an alternative to the sometimes awkward and oftentimes generic online dating profiles. While View N Me allows users to have written profiles, the main selling point is the ability for their users to upload video profiles. This allows users to connect on a different level than traditional dating profiles.
I have seen people redefining the purpose of Google+ faster and more frequently than a politician doing the two-step when realizing their current position might impact the chance for re-election! And yet the truth remains – while Google continues to integrate properties with Google+ … the impact of the service is non-existent, less than any other social media site.
It should be obvious that the reason for advertising on a web site or app is to make money … and more specifically to make more money than you are paying to place the ad. Facebook’s mobile app is ad-supported, but a new study from Nanigans suggests that the advertising on iOS is nearly 1800% more profitable than on Android!