-
A web app in 10k? Surely not!
When @stueccles first encouraged me to enter the 10k apart competition (to create a web app in under 10 kilobytes) I wondered what was really possible in only 10k. After a little tinkering I realised quite a lot.
Introducing the 10k Feed Board
Drawing inspiration from the recently released Flipboard app on the iPad I set about building an app that allowed you to browse Flickr photos and Twitter searches. You can configure a set of panels with different search criteria, choosing from either a Flickr search, Flickr set or a Twitter search. The app then makes use of Yahoo’s YQL service to retrieve the data and populate the panels for you to navigate around. It takes advantage of the new localStorage feature of HTML 5 compliant browsers to persist your queries, meaning that you can come back time and again without losing your search terms. The drawback here, of course, is that you need a modern browser for it to work – Sorry all you IE users – looks like you’ll have to upgrade to a proper browser (IE9 Dev Preview,Firefox or a WebKit browser)!
Take a look at the 10k Feed Board here, your votes are appreciated! ;)
Beyond the 10k limit
With the competition’s 10 kilobyte restrictions I had to limit the content types to Flickr photos and Twitter searches but I will be taking the concept further to include RSS and Atom feed content – it will then become a nice new way to consume all your feed content.
I will also shortly be blogging about the technical aspects of the app – localStorage; how to consume YQL data; and the associated problems of dealing with multiple feed types.
-
Would the real John Hegarty please stand up
About a week ago (August 5th) a new Twitter account appeared. Nothing strange in that. But this one belonged to John Hegarty, Worldwide Creative Director of BBH. The BBH whose offices we share.
His account accumulated over a thousand followers in a matter of hours as word spread that one of the most well known ad agency creatives in the world had joined Twitter.
However, within a day or so people began to suspect that this wasn’t the real deal. The language was poor and the tweeted quotes hackneyed. “Not the language of Hegarty” people cried via Twitter.
On Monday night I tweeted that I was unfollowing the account. The 1990s management speak and trite ‘creative’ blatherings were too much. This was obviously an imposter. And I think I know who it is… Read full post
-
In Conversation With John McCrea
Before his current role as General Manager of Tunerfish, a service that describes itself as a ’social discovery engine for TV, movies and online video’ that was incubated as a skunkworks within Comcast Interactive Media in the US, John McCrea was Vice-President, Marketing at Plaxo. A couple of years ago he wrote about Facebook Connect and OpenID for TechCrunch, and his own post on the topic was mentioned by Wired as a ‘must-read’. He’s been involved with the web since 1994 and co-hosts a weekly internet TV show on subjects related to the social web at SocialWeb.TV with Chris Messina, Joseph Smarr and David Recordon.
We were hoping to catch up with him at SXSW this year, but in the meleé of the event weren’t able to. Recently however, John kindly agreed to answer a few short questions for us via email.
You’ve been active in the web since 1994 – that’s a long time by web standards! Thinking back, what was the most used service or application for you then, and what is it now?
In the very earliest days of the web, the killer app was the browser, specifically Netscape Navigator, and among the first killer sites was Yahoo, which was then a directory of websites. The web would evolve to support many different kinds of activities, but then and now, I’ve always been most attracted to one particular aspect – that it is, among many other things, a new medium.
The social web is one of your passions. As Facebook and Twitter came in a few years ago, you’ve seen it explode, with the power of networks becoming stronger and stronger over time. What’s your personal opinion of Dunbar’s number, and do you think that number is less meaningful now than it would have been a few years ago?
I have always thought that all the chatter about Dunbar’s number in the context of the social web was complete and utter nonsense. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo, and many other services make it possible to maintain and nurture a much larger number of relationships than was previously possible.
You were at Plaxo for over 4 years. As a service, what are Plaxo’s strengths? How did the introduction of Google Profiles and the evolution of LinkedIn affect Plaxo?Plaxo is the granddaddy of the social web, introducing many of its basic concepts years before the rise of social networks. Plaxo has evolved over its eight years as a consumer Internet service, but its core strength has always been working toward the vision of a truly smart, socially-aware, and pervasive address book. And that’s a problem space that has gotten more interesting with the rise of many different services where you can update your profile.
You recently moved to Tunerfish as General Manager. Tell us about the service, what’s unique about it, and what growth plans you have for the business.
Tunerfish is an exciting new service in what is becoming a very hot space, right at the intersection of social and entertainment. It is a social discovery engine for TV, movies, and online video, that makes it easy, fun, and rewarding to share what you’re watching. Our most unique aspect is our game system, which we are developing in collaboration with the TV networks. Today, Tunerfish is just a website, but we have mobile version coming soon, and ultimately plan to take Tunerfish to the TV itself.
How does Tunerfish hope to challenge what Hulu and YouTube are doing in the online video space, including initiatives like YouTube’s Screening Room?
We are in no way competitive with sites for video viewing. Quite the contrary, we are a logical partner for a site, service, or device that lets people watch entertainment.
On Tunerfish, users can ‘earn points and awards’. With the growth of services like Foursquare that offer badges as reward mechanisms, how do you see Tunerfish’s reward system being different?
The Tunerfish game system will seem familiar to those who use Foursquare, but the domain of entertainment is really different from location. There can only be one “Mayor” of a restaurant (and there are only so many people who fit inside it). With TV shows, millions of people can watch, and some people can influence thousands to change the channel. So, we’re exploring rewards in the rich realm of influence.
Where do you see the social web going next – what services do you think are on the brink of breaking new ground?
Among the things that I think will be interesting to see are the new crop of “social web natives” (like Foursquare and Tunerfish) which take social as a given and apply it to a vertical or horizontal market opportunity. Expect to see “checking in” go really mainstream and to apply to a wide variety of human activities.
———
Thanks, John!
-
What’s Next for Location-Based Services?
I wrote about Foursquare recently, and thought it would be interesting to follow up, given the fact that the location-based service recently hit the 2 million users mark. So what’s happened since then in the location-based services world? Some key happenings:
- Gowalla is lagging way behind Foursquare as far as users are concerned, and even advertising on billboards doesn’t really help.
- Nevertheless, Gowalla plods on (as they must), and focuses on beauty with the launch of the iPhone 4. Utility will always trump beauty in my opinion, though obviously both together is ideal.
- Whole Foods agrees to stick Foursquare decals in the windows of their stores.
- The Boston Globe is encouraging people to discover more about the city with a location-based check-in service that is neither Foursquare nor Gowalla: SCVNGRSo things are definitely hotting up. What’s next? Apart from the most obvious – more businesses signing up to services like Foursquare to get to know their customers better and encourage repeat business, here’s what I think:
1. Local governments and city councils will use location-based services to encourage citizens to report instances of crime.
The other day I had a phone call from a research agency on behalf of Westminster Council, where I live, to assess the impact of crime in my area. If I could pin-point any instances that I knew of on a map, I’m sure it would help the police in their efforts. Sort of like the Metropolitan Police Crime Map, but user-generated, so that less resources can be spent on surveys. Of course, I’m assuming some level of digital literacy among the public.
2. Tourism Departments and Transport Departments of different cities will offer incentives for visitors and residents to discover their cities, similar to what the Boston Globe is doing.
I’m thinking of some sort of a combination of the Boston Globe Trek and Chromaroma, basically.
However, it is important to remember the basic tenet behind any kind of social networking, whether location-based or otherwise: humans are social animals, and we like to share.
As Yan-David Ehrlich says in this post,
“Location — the “where” of a social experience — is not the most important characteristic of social media. In order to create lasting value, location-aware social networks need to look at what motivates their users to share with one another and make it central to the app’s design and user experience.“
He also says,
“Features and services should come first, and checking-in should be viewed as an accessory. We have to move from creating services that are location-based to those that are “location-enhanced.”That leads me to my next thought, which is:
3. It’s all going to get more social.
So far, Foursquare’s fun but there’s something missing. In the leaderboard, there are always some people who are Check-In Jedis and some who languish at the bottom. The automatic popping-up of tips (if there are any) when you check in at a venue is useful, but it doesn’t happen all the time, and it’s mostly from a stranger. Checking in is losing its novelty – so making it more shareworthy would change the nature of the game.
Would it be possible, for example, to create a chain of events? I check-in somewhere, leave a tip and pass that on to a friend I think would like the place. If they check in there within, say, a month, I get points. Or perhaps I could create a chain of good – I check-in somewhere and leave a code for a friend to use. If the code is used (i.e if my friend checks in there), I donate a certain amount to charity and my friend gets a code that she can leave for a friend of hers to use in turn. Or, using the Dell Swarm/Groupon/Living Social idea, a certain bunch of people agree to donate something if they all check-in at that place within a certain period of time (obviously the place has to be unusual, not the office local!).
We haven’t heard the last of location-based services. Hopefully in their quest for success, they’ll continue to tap into the human quest for opportunities to engage in social stuff.
Image credit: Erica Marshall of muddyboots.org via Flickr courtesy a Creative Commons license
-
Guardian #Activate2010
Yesterday, I was lucky enough to attend The Guardian’s Acvtivate2010 Summit, which is dedicated to looking at how the Internet is changing the world. The focus seemed to be very much on global good. Props need to go to Robin Hough, Head of Media Events and his team for packing in some of the most fascinating and inspiring speakers into a single day. Although it was fairly exhausting, it was worth being exhausted for.Here are a few themes that stood out for me.
Do what you’re passionate about and the money will come naturally – This sentiment was most convincingly posited by Julie Meyer, CEO of Ariadne Capital but the living embodiment of this was Jamal Edwards of SBTV who started a YouTube channel devoted to urban culture after receiving a video camera for Christmas when he was 17. Now at the grand old age of 19 he’s turning down TV spots from MTV and others because he wants to stick with the Internet and the ad revenue he receives for his content on YouTube. Jamal didn’t start by wondering how he was going to make money out of it, he simply loves creating content for people to enjoy. Julie’s main point was “Don’t try and be the next Google, just do what you’re good at”. This might seem common sense to most but to really put your effort where your passion is isn’t easy for everyone.
Money fuels the engine of social good – Many agreed on the fact that ideas are useless without actions and actions cost money, therefore ideas need to make money. Simple really, but there was a sense that philanthropy isn’t going to save the world alone. A far more sustainable approach is to create businesses that help society but pay for themselves while they’re doing it. Sustainability in every sense. We can’t rely on generosity alone.
Don’t assume anything about those in need – Ethan Zuckerman from Global Voices told us about 1million shirts, an utterly terrible idea for social good that was almost set to destabilise the second-hand clothes trading market. Through some harsh exchanges, the organiser was introduced by Teddy Ruge, a prominent blogger and social entrepreneur in Uganda. After a rocky start they are starting to collaborate on something that makes much more sense. This is really a larger point about collaboration, co-creation and empathy being vital aspects of creation of solutions for those in need. We need to stop trying to fix problems that don’t exist.
The web is increasing our ability to empathise – Ethan proposed that just as transport made the world feel smaller, the Internet is making us cosy up close. And when people begin talking they start to understand one another better.
We’re still leaving people behind – Britain’s Digital Champion Martha Lane-Fox was driving home the inclusion agenda on various panels. Right now, in the UK there are 10m people that have never used the Internet. The people that can benefit most from the Internet are still missing out. One of the most poignant quotes was supplied by Martha regarding her experience when introducing someone to the web for the first time – “I didn’t realise I had such an enquiring mind”. See Martha’s Race Online 2012 project for more on this.
Talkers v.s. Doers – Doers WIN. Well, 9/10 times they fail, but failing is winning right?
Mobile technology is leapfrogging in the developing world – Georgia Arnold from MTV and Jan Chipchase from Frog Design (formerly of Nokia) both touched on the way in which mobile phones have overtaken other technologies such as TVs and PCs and err… indoor toilets* in developing countries and therefore mobile, SMS and WAP all present an enormous amount of potential. But again, Jan was keen to stress the problem of exclusion.
Some priceless soundbites from the day:
- “If I could download a handbag, I would” Bridget Minamore, contributor to Livity
- “We learn by copying, so why is it illegal?” Peter Sunde, Flattr (formerly Pirate Bay)
- “The music industry isn’t in a bad place, it’s thriving, it’s the record industry that is suffering” Peter Sunde
- “We have free art galleries but people still pay millions for art at Christies” Harriet Thomas, iCaring
This is a top-line for now, I will hopefully break out some of the more interesting talks and do full posts on them, so you know, stay tuned.
This event and its predecessor has been such a success that they will be taking it to the US in December and are considering extending it to two days next year. I heartily recommend it.
*Georgia Arnold claimed that 70% of young Kenyans use social media, 80% have mobile phones – only 53% have an indoor toilet. Personally, if I lived in a small, very hot house I probably wouldn’t want an indoor toilet either.
-
Made by Many’s London Digital Event Calendar
London’s a great city to be working in digital/social/whateveryouliketocallit. There are lots of interesting events happening all the time, like the Clay Shirky talk we went to at the RSA a couple of days ago. The problem is that they aren’t easy to keep track of. There’s always Twitter but with the real-time nature of the thing, you’re likely to miss announcements if you aren’t on the service at that particular time. I’ve also heard a few people asking around on Twitter for a calendar that lists events related to our industry, and haven’t found a suitable one yet. So I put together a list of one, which you can access here. If you know of events that should be on the calendar and aren’t, comment on this post, or notify @madebymany on Twitter and I’ll add it. Hope it’s useful!
Read full post -
Clay at The RSA… Yay!
A few of us went to see Clay Shirky last night at the Royal Society of Arts. Some stuff we heard him talk about before, and some new stuff. I had sprinted from Embankment tube to make the 6pm start time, and I couldn’t face using Twitter — and so I tried the visual notetaking methods we enjoyed so much from SxSW (and some inspiration from awesomeist Len Kendall). My first attempts are a bit sh*t by comparison but I found it to be a much more thoughtful way of interacting with a talk than making snarky comments on Twitter. Not that this will stop me in the future…
-
Reviewing Amazon.com
I received this note with a product I bought on Amazon the other day. Leaving aside the horrendous grammar, I got to thinking about the algorithms behind Amazon’s product rankings that render buyers’ reviews and ratings so crucial to sellers (this note asks me to give a favourable seller rating, but I’d like to focus on buyer reviews). Take Kitty Thomas for example. On her blog, she clearly explains why, as an author, Amazon reviews are important:
“When an author gets at least 20 reviews for their book on the site, Amazon starts actively recommending that book to people. And the page gets seen more. And this isn’t just a benefit that dries up. The more reviews you have, the more you get recommended.
There is never a point in time where you can have “too many Amazon reviews” unless there is a point in time where you can have “too many sales” and I’ve yet to meet an author or publisher who thinks you can have too many sales.
This is why I ask for Amazon reviews. It is not to feed my vanity or to make me look cool. It’s because it helps sales. I want my book to be seen and I want my book to be bought. I worked hard on it.”
-
The risks of parasitic apps
Twitter’s new and native URL shortening functionality (t.co) is going to make other URL shorteners such as ow.ly, is.gd and bit.ly totally obsolete.
I guess those businesses could see it coming. URL shortening is fairly basic functionality. It would take a decent developer a couple of days (if that) to comp something together that works well enough. It seems morally bankrupt of large social networks to toss aside small apps that add value to their platform by blatantly copying functionality. However, with URL shorteners it seems like it was simply an oversight not to add them from the off and that their replacement was inevitable. Incidentally, it seems like URL shortening is going to be a key factor in their Promoted Tweets revenue plan. Whereas some applications like Farmville on Facebook seem very difficult to duplicate because of their originality and quirky appeal. It would seem a bit rubbish for Facebook to simply come out with Farmbook as a direct competitor to Farmville once they saw the success of the latter. However, it doesn’t stop them copying the likes of iLike or RockYou. It will be interesting to see how Twitter ‘deals’ with the URL shortening apps. When they omitted search functionality in the early days, they simply bought up Summize and added it to the search subdomain. The sum that Twitter paid for Summize hasn’t been disclosed, however, Summize itself was funded to the tune of $750k so it certainly wasn’t worthless. Suffice to say some developers got jobs out of it.
It’s sad that, as a parasitic app, your success can be your undoing. And developers are going to start trusting large networks less and less. The strategy for many, such as Tweetdeck and Farmville is to use the network as an incubator and then detach themselves from the host like the chestburster scene in Alien, albeit with slightly less blood.
The kind of risk involved in developing a wholly parasitic app is one of the dangers of Technology Remixing – you’re always dependent on the whims of the host.
-
Racking up the points…and the coins
I’m probably not the best company nowadays to non-Foursquare users, because checking in has become almost an obsession. When I’m too immersed in the events or conversation of an evening to check in, I mentally kick myself when I realise the fact later at home. I like that I’m still discovering new things about the service on a regular basis. Of course, it isn’t perfect – there continue to be a few bugs with the service which frustrate me no end when I encounter them, but in general the boys at Foursquare seem to have a good thing going. At 1.3 million users, Foursquare is almost 7 times as popular as the next most popular location-based service, Gowalla, despite the latter winning in the Mobile category at SXSWi 2010. (The latest edition of Wired UK has a nice article about the founders and evolution of both).
What motivated me to write this post was the observation that the Foursquare reward mechanism has recently inspired a couple of other reward ‘programmes’, as it were, in completely different industries.
First, the Huffington Post has started giving badges to members in return for their participation on the site, specifically sharing HuffPo news links via Facebook and Twitter, collecting friends and fans, and flagging inappropriate comments.
And in the automotive industry, Subaru has started a Free Vehicle Badge programme, where they give badges to Subaru owners based on their hobbies (gardening, music/arts, the environment, biking, animals and so on).
You know how they talk about the difference between leaders and followers? Perhaps this is an indication of the fact that Foursquare’s star has hit big time – I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of the badge phenomenon yet.
Friends and family often ask me what I get in return for my check-ins on Foursquare, and my response is social kudos. But with businesses cottoning on to the Foursquare phenomenon (Starbucks being the most well-known recent entrant to the game) and offering Mayors and first-time check-ins discounts, I think there’s going to be more to it. Below are a range of the options that Foursquare offers businesses (taken from their website):
- Mayor Specials: unlocked only by the Mayor of your venue. (the user who has checked in the most in the last 60 days)
- Check-in Specials: unlocked when a user checks in to your venue a certain number of times.
- Frequency-based Specials: unlocked every X check-ins.
- Wildcard Specials: always unlocked, but staff have to verify some extra conditions before awarding the Special.
So far most specials that I’ve heard of or noticed are Mayor specials – I’m waiting for businesses to tap into the others in a bigger way, or even create custom specials in co-ordination with Foursquare. I think this is only the beginning, though. Who was it who said that first a technology needs to become mainstream, then it becomes ubiquitous or accepted behaviour, and finally you master it and the innovations start?
Archive for the ‘Social Web’ Category
You are currently browsing the archives for the Social Web category.
Our latest tweets
- @chrbutler thanks! glad you like it :) RT @chrbutler @madebymany Your blog is great! It's a never-skip for me. 2 days ago
- @chrbutler mentioned our blog in his post on designing for attention, here: http://bit.ly/aTo8eY 2 days ago
- @apophenia in Technology Review says that people will simply carve out a space for privacy as they think best: http://bit.ly/cbbNdy 2 days ago
- More updates...
Most commented
People
Categories
- advertising (9)
- agile (9)
- Clients (29)
- code (1)
- Conferences (41)
- content (6)
- design (17)
- Games (2)
- Great Stuff (13)
- innovation (25)
- interview (3)
- jobs (1)
- Labs (9)
- Made by Many (142)
- mobile (4)
- New connections (2)
- opinion (50)
- play (1)
- publishing (8)
- Social Web (132)
- technology (2)
- Transmedia (1)
Archives
Sites we like
- Aaron Koblin
- Barbarian Group
- BBH Labs
- Big Spaceship
- Big Spaceship – Think
- Bud Caddell – What Consumes Me
- Creative Applications
- David Armano
- Edward Boches
- Faris Yakob
- Ffffound
- Gareth Kay
- Howard Rheingold
- Iain Tait – Crack Unit
- idsgn
- Manuel Lima
- Mike Arauz
- Neil Perkin – Only Dead Fish
- Noah Brier
- Not For Paper
- Paul Davis – Our illustrator
- TED Blog
- Undercurrent
- We Are Social