Twitter came under some fire this week for the lack of gender diversity on their board. Their CEO was defensive saying he wasn’t going to add women simply to increase diversity, implying there are no women qualified to sit on Twitter’s board. It isn’t just Twitter- this “no women are qualified” attitude spreads unfairly throughout Silicon Valley.
Online privacy is an illusion; anything you wouldn’t want your boss, friends, relatives, present or future significant others (or anyone else important to you) to see should never be posted, texted, emailed, tweeted, or liked. And now it appears that our own government is the party most interested in our social connections and interactions. How bothered should we be? I began writing reviews on the internet in 1999, and at that time I accepted that a certain loss of privacy came with the territory. I have lived my online life as transparently as possible, because I believed that I had nothing…
Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day, and once again Facebook is getting on the action. Last year they introduced the option to change your language to ‘Pirate’ – and they have brought back the option this year! Go to Settings, then Account Settings, and Language. Once you’re done and ready to go back, access ‘Ye Ship’s Rigging’ to change!
People are such competitive creatures, and bloggers can be some of the worst; Klout is a company that feeds that beast. Touting itself as “The Standard for Influence”, Klout measures the reach of everyone who is active in social media. What’s your Klout score? Should it even matter? Does it matter to you? Of course it does; you’re human! Klout preys upon people’s desire to feel or at least be perceived as influential or important, and it gives users a tangible score that can be used for comparison against others in their field (or in other non-related fields). Klout offers instant validation…
Confused about the Twitter IPO? Don’t know an S-1 from a 5s? Trying to figure out how Twitter makes money? You’re not alone! Businessweek has a clear rundown on the broad details surrounding why Twitter waited to go public, why they’re filing confidentially, and when you can expect to get all the details on how the company makes money. We don’t know a whole lot beyond Twitter’s now-infamous tweet, but this article cuts through some of the conjecture and will make you sound smarter at this week’s quiz night.
“Just because you can include some technological advance in your consumer product, it doesn’t mean you should.” That’s really the thought that came to mind when reading about a pair of new, upcoming headphones. Muzik (while I’m on a rant… I hate it when companies intentionally spell words incorrectly) just announced their first product – a pair of “smart headphones”. As the company release notes the company is, “pioneering a new space called social smartware”. The term describes their goal of connecting consumer electronic devices to content and social media platforms with the goal of making “music instantly discoverable and…
A few weeks ago we got exclusive information that the HTC First was in big trouble. As we first reported, sales number for the first phone designed specifically for Facebook Home were close to nonexistent. Our inside information told us that the pre-order and first weekend sales numbers of the HTC First were less than 500 total units on the East Coast. In other words, the HTC First was all but dead on arrival. My conclusion at the time was that: I cannot begin to imagine what stock AT&T is currently holding of the device, but I have a pretty…
I watched the Facebook Press Conference during which Facebook Home and the HTC First Android Phone with Facebook Home launched two weeks ago with a bit of amusement. I’m not a huge Facebook user, but my amusement really wasn’t just about my lack of being a Facebook fanatic at play; the idea of Facebook being my welcome screen and launcher just didn’t seem like something I would ever want. Facebook Home takes one means of connection and makes it central to my entire mobile experience. Having it on a dedicated Facebook phone means that I would need to go THROUGH…
We have been hearing about Facebook Home since the Facebook event last Wednesday which we covered here. The general consensus was that Home was pretty much just another launcher – but a Facebook centric one. Now as the Facebook Home app arrives on Google Play, we have installed it and taken a quick look. The big question from the post we had about the event is ‘who cares’? In other words, exactly what market does this app serve? I always thought that was obvious but had two angles – it serves the Facebook crowd, and pretty much does NOT serve…
Facebook is kind enough to be streaming their media event today. That means we can follow along with the news as it is shared from the comfort of our own homes. You can check it out here or simply refresh your browser as we’ll be updating this post as the news is shared. “We’re going to talk about the Facebook phone or more accurately how you can turn your Android phone into a Facebook phone.” “We spend our lives sharing and connecting.” Instead of starting with apps and then connecting what happens it we flip that around and our phones…
Back in mid-November, I wrote a post asking if those ‘unsubscribe’ links in emails of reputable companies actually meant anything. Carly wrote a follow-up post about how companies used junk mail blasts as targeted marketing, because it was surprisingly effective. So now it is about six weeks since I wrote my original post, making it nearly two months since I started trying to dump unwanted emails. How did it go? Amazingly well! Through Cyber-Monday I saw only a slight decrease in unwanted email, but immediately after that I noted a sharp decline, followed by slower drop-offs, and then a couple of reappearances between…
Over the Christmas holiday, Randi Zuckerberg (Mark Zuckerberg’s sister and former director of Marketing at Facebook) posted a picture of her family around the kitchen island having fun, and someone else shared the image on Twitter. This was picked up on Buzzfeed and more thoroughly explained on GigaOm amongst other places. Zuckerberg called the person out, saying that she had no idea how they got it, but that sharing the image to Twitter was ‘way uncool’. The thing that some pointed out was that Zuckerberg had very publicly taken the stance that “Anonymity Online ‘Has To Go Away’”. Personally I…
I’ve become increasingly enamored of video chatting. It is handy, convenient and it works well; it also saves gas and time. For example, I do most of my High Holy Day sermon writing with my friend Lawrence. We bounce ideas around, rip initial drafts apart, and share illustrations. In prior years we would get together two or three times and have marathon writing sessions together. This year we didn’t get together once; instead we used FaceTime and Skype. We didn’t need to travel, and we were able to “meet” far more times than we could have in the past. Similarly,…
![Pique your [P]Interest](https://geardiary.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/19632948345698899_uOLx7Hma_b.jpg "Pique your [P]Interest 30")
Did you know that if you run out of AA batteries, you can use AAA ones and fill the gap with foil? Did you know adding baking powder into your baby’s bath can help relieve diaper rash? Do you want to learn how to make homemade gel ice packs? Do you want a recipe for garlic cheese bread? Do you enjoy looking at cute pictures of fluffy animals? Are you interested in learning how to make an eternity scarf? These are just a few things that Pinterest has to offer. Pinterest is like Facebook, Twitter, and Evernote all in one…
(image courtesy TLC) My morning routine during November and December is pretty simple; wake up, throw on warm clothes, grapple the dog into his leash, start our walk, and use my iPhone to begin the mass deletion of every “ONE DAY SALE” email that’s hit overnight. I don’t even read most of the subject lines, I just skim and delete. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what all those retailers don’t want…and there’s more to their strategy than just gunking up our inboxes. The Wall Street Journal has an utterly fascinating article on how email marketing works, and what retailers aim to accomplish…
Finding new things to read online can be remarkably difficult. Everyone has their “usual” websites, via RSS, or Flipboard, or Twitter. And there are sites like Stumbleupon that give you fun random ideas. But it can be hard to set the parameters for new sources just right — either you’re looking in too broad an area, or you get so focused on a narrow niche that you miss out on finding anything new and different. That’s where ArchetypeMe.com steps in to make your morning news and coffee routine that much more interesting. What is ArchetypeMe? It’s an approach to content…
I used to love hanging out on the Runner’s World online forums. They were a treasure trove of information, support, and stories about running. I have met people from that site at races, and have challenged myself with online mileage games organized through the forums. Unfortunately, over the last year or so there has been a huge issue, so much so that it’s actually driven users away from the forum entirely. Want to know how Rodale is killing a thriving online community? Read on! Step one: SPAM! Everyone hates spam. Does any reasonable person actually click on the “make $1,000…
I have a coworker who often complains about our limited abilities to discuss work over social media. He claims it is a draconian and old-fashioned approach. Most of the time I let it roll past me, but more and more I think that it’s not strict or unreasonable, but in fact extremely smart. For some reason, Twitter seems to trigger the worst in public tweeters, from celebrities to companies. Don’t believe me? Lets look at some of the worst offenders. Just this week, there were two tweets that ignited a firestorm of criticism. First, KitchenAid tweeted this: Obamas gma even…
I was too busy with actual work to get to see the Apple iPhone event this year, so when I heard that Ping was ceasing operations on September 30th through an email … I just assumed it was one of those Apple ‘shutdown in 7 days’ things like we got for iWork and MobileMe and so on. Turns out it was a link from Macworld , and cited a bunch of sources noting that if you head to Apple’s Ping site … well, you can’t because you get redirected. But if you click on Ping in iTunes, you get the…
I think it is accurate to say that I have shown Electronic Arts VERY little kindness in my posts about them. I think they are greedy, petty, and petulant megalomaniacs as a corporate personality, and have a well-established history of buying properties, destroying studios, and running game franchises into the ground while extracting maximum financial gain from the ashes of former greatness. That said, they are not always wrong. They have stood up for marriage equality, have corrected many of the worker issues to the point where they are now a good place to work, and they put out loads…
Last month we shared our interview with Roamz CEO Jonathan Baruch. (Read it.) We also noted that an update to the ‘Social Goggles for the Real World’ app would be coming soon. Well Roamz 2.5 has launched and it brings some neat new features. As Baruch notes, “The new version of Roamz takes local discovery to the next level helping people find, discover and share great places and events around them.” The release goes on to explain that… Roamz’ new features make learning about exciting local events even easier. The update has a revamped interface with new search tiles, which…