Posts Tagged ‘facebook’
Written on August 19th, 2010 by PricesTechno shouts
Senior former executives from Disney and EA have joined forces to form QVIVO, a company that aims to release a free social media centre app that allow users to play and stream movies and music while interacting with their Facebook friends. Former Disney man Jon Niermann and Liam McCallum, who were both serving as executives for EA’s Asian branch, are hoping that the QVIVO app will attract social networking addicts who want to buy, organize and stream their video and audio content. The app is free for PC and Mac, but extenders for other devices such as phones will be paid for.
Written on August 17th, 2010 by PricesTechno shouts
If your social graph on Facebook and/or Twitter happens to consist of people who speak many different languages, it’s not always easy to make sense of their status updates. I know it can be a pain when people I follow constantly switch back and forth from English to Russian, Italian, Hebrew and so forth – because I don’t speak any of their native tongues nearly well enough to get what they’re saying, even though at times I wish I did. Enter the new version of XIHA Life , a social networking service that allows people to easily connect online even when they speak different languages , thanks to its real-time translation capabilities of chat sessions and update streams. With the latest update to the XIHA platform, you can connect to both Facebook and Twitter and gain the ability to translate status updates and comments from your friends on those two major social networks with a single click. The new buttons allow XIHA friends to translate content to over 55 different languages (courtesy of the Google Translate API), making it possible to read updates, polls and interests in one’s native language regardless of the original language of the status update. XIHA says the feature should prove to be particularly helpful for expats and travelers who tend to meet with people from different cultures but still wish to stay connected despite of those pesky language barriers. CrunchBase Information XIHA Facebook Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase
Written on August 17th, 2010 by PricesTechno shouts
Look at the image above. There are three services listed on the San Francisco Giants’ scoreboard during a baseball game. Twitter. Facebook. Foursquare. The first two are ubiquitous. Each has hundreds of millions of users and a firm place in pop culture. The third has about 2.5 million users. And much of the world has no idea what it is. But is it on its way to entering that pantheon of great services? This is a particularly interesting question given that on Wednesday, Facebook is expected to unveil its initial push into the location space. Earlier, BoomTown cited sources stating this would be the case. We’ve since heard from multiple sources as well that location will be at least a part of Facebook’s event (which we’ll obviously be at). With location, Facebook has long been seen as the 800-pound gorilla in the room. And now they appear ready to check-in for the first time, as it were. So Foursquare is dead, right? Don’t count on it. As we’ve been saying for months, it seems highly likely the Facebook is going to take a platform approach to location. That is, they’re more likely to federate other location streams (such as Foursquare’s) while they themselves remain fairly cautious with their own location services. You can probably expect a bare-bones check-in functionality on their mobile apps ( as we spotted months ago ). But just as with their status updates, many people may populate that with location data via third-party services (again, like Foursquare). That’s not to say Facebook won’t be competing with Foursquare at all. My guess is that a big part of their location play is involving places — that is, real world venues that they can get on Facebook in a major way. As we first reported back in June , Facebook likely has a deal in place with Localeze to build out a massive place database that they’ll then populate with all this data they’re federating and creating on their own. The potential problem for Foursquare here is if Facebook decides they want to be the ones that partner with all these venues on loyalty deals and programs. Obviously, that would be a problem for just about every location player as this is how most of them are working on monetizing their products. It would also likely be a problem for Yelp. And even Google, increasingly. That said, Facebook could also choose to promote a service like Foursquare as their check-in partner. The two sides were talking a few months ago when Foursquare was trying to decide whether to sell or raise more money. And while the idea of an acquisition kept coming up, so did other partnership ideas, we hear. Of course, Facebook could also go with Foursquare rival Gowalla for such a deal. After all, the company behind Gowalla, AlamoFire (they’ve since become just Gowalla), got their start doing Facebook games. And early on, many Facebook employees were known to be active Gowalla users rather than Foursquare users. They’re also still undoubtedly on the acquisition radar as Facebook continues to scoop up talent, such as the Hot Potato team . Anyway, back to Foursquare. Assuming Facebook doesn’t kill them (which again, isn’t likely to happen), do they have the momentum now to keep growing and rightfully stand alongside Facebook and Twitter? I already know that all the commenters are going to scream “NO” but let me tell you what I think. I remember very well when it seemed like just about everything I read on the Internet said that Twitter was the dumbest service ever imagined and it would never go anywhere. I disagreed from day one. I didn’t know exactly what Twitter would be useful for. But I knew something was there. Believe it or not, the same was once true of Facebook too. People were already on MySpace, so they couldn’t figure out why they would want to use the boring, more closed version: Facebook. Again, I disagreed. There was something there. With Foursquare, (as should be obvious given how often I write about them) I again believe there is something there. But it’s still in that early Twitter-like stage where I’m not positive what it is yet. (And yes, complete with Twitter-like downtime too .) The problem is that the initial attraction, the game aspect, lost my interest a long time ago already. Now, i mainly keep using it to see where my friends are, to let them know where I am — and maybe most of all, to keep track of my location history. (I think this is going to be something very cool to have in the future.) That combination of things would probably keep me using it indefinitely. The problem is that those things likely won’t keep the rest of my social circle using it. And that’s the glue that holds any of these apps together — the social graph. So Foursquare needs to come up with something else to keep those people using it. I’ve been hearing talk about people getting sick of using Foursquare for some time now. But in recent weeks the talk has gotten louder. It’s not the same check-in fatigue issue that I wrote about several months ago. Instead, it’s a more focused check-in fatigue because many of them just don’t see the point of constantly checking-in place after place — especially if they frequent the same places. Sure, there are check-in deals and mayor deals, but most people I know (many of whom are heavy Foursquare users) never use those deals. The problem is that there simply aren’t enough of them. And the best ones are mayor deals which are basically impossible to get in a big Foursquare city like San Francisco. So instead, everyone is simply checking-in because that’s what their friends are doing. That’s a precarious position. Any number of things could stop that. And a chain reaction would occur. Simply put: Foursquare needs to change their game and needs to do it soon if they want to keep the momentum alive — if they want to reach the pantheon. They obviously know that, and are working on it. And it sounds like they have some of the right ideas. At least part of the upcoming Foursquare 2.0 is said to be about “ choosing your own adventure .” And Foursquare has talked about making the service easier to use by doing things like checking you in if you swipe a loyalty card at a store . That’s a genius idea. That’s also probably the idea that is a viable business model for Foursquare in the long run. It’s something that may subsidize the whole social location aspect of the service. But for right now, that social layer is all that matters. They need to keep users engaged or they run the risk of becoming the Friendster of location. They’re coasting right now because most of the users are still new to the service and don’t have any fatigue just yet. But they’ll get there unless Foursquare keeps things interesting. Photos and comments in the stream couldn’t hurt (yes, like Gowalla). And neither could the ability to “like” check-ins. And a completely reworked point system would be good — maybe more closely tied to just your social graph. And one can never have too many badges. Foursquare is still a very young company. The fact that they were able to secure so many deals with huge brand names early on has perhaps elevated them a bit prematurely. Twitter and Facebook have proven themselves to be indispensable. With Foursquare, there’s still just something there. [photo via Tristan Walker ] CrunchBase Information Foursquare Facebook Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase
Written on August 17th, 2010 by PricesTechno shouts
Dear Mark E. Zuckerberg Harvard ’06, It’s me Alexia , from the future. Just wanted you to know that you’ve come a long long way from The Harvard Crimson’s seminal piece “Hundreds Register for New Facebook Website ” which you probably think is a really big deal right now. Just an FYI, in about six years or so you’ll be counting your accomplishments in the millions and billions, just as long as you listen to whatever Sean Parker says. Trust me, there’s going to be a Hollywood movie where you’re played by a hipster actor and everything. In case you get discouraged on your way over here, the kind folks at www.website-monitoring.com have made this impressive infographic which you should probably print out and fold into your wallet. And just a heads up, it might be a good idea to put a kibosh on the hoodie. Best, Alexia CrunchBase Information Facebook Information provided by CrunchBase
Written on August 16th, 2010 by PricesTechno shouts
Back in February 2009, we wrote about the relaunch of Virb , a social network owned by MediaTemple’s venture platform (mt) Ventures. Instead of trying to take on goliaths like Facebook, the site hoped to offer users a complimentary social network, with features like an activity aggregator (think FriendFeed), theming, and skinning. Unfortunately, it didn’t gain much traction, so today the site is morphing once again to try to find its niche. And it’s returning as a simple, polished website builder. Try not to roll your eyes too hard — Virb CEO Brad Smith knows full well that there are already plenty of website builders out there. But he thinks that there’s room for one more. Smith explains that Virb is setting out to take the simple feature set and high quality design that Tumblr brought to blogging platforms and apply them to the creation of ‘entire websites’. Smith points to Squarespace, a popular website creation tool that just raised $38.5 million, and says that it’s still too complicated for some people. “We’re trying to come in below that demographic,” Smith says. He wants the site to be for people who want to whip up a photo portfolio, band webpage, or wedding site with no development experience needed. In addition to Tumblr’s design sensibility, Virb is also borrowing Tumblr’s ‘follow’ mechanic, with an unintrusive button that appears in the upper right corner of the site. The site is launching with ten themes, most of which are catering towards creative types: musicians, photographers, and others who want to present their portfolios online. But there are also some more standard themes for blogs and businesses. Here are a few examples: http://brianohara.virb.com/ http://rubin.virb.com/ http://sgoralnick.virb.com/ I toyed around with the new tool, and found parts of it to be quite polished — the theme editor is slick and allows you to modify fonts and colors as you’re looking at your site, with the changes appearing immediately. Uploading media in bulk for a photo album or to showcase your band’s new CD is also very straightforward and smooth, and the media is displayed to viewers in nice-looking embedded widgets. Still, I think it has a ways to go before it can really become a ‘Tumblr for entire websites’. After first entering the Virb content/page editor, it took me a few minutes to get my bearings, and the site didn’t do much hand-holding to introduce me to each feature. Granted, I figured it out in less than five minutes, but I suspect the market Virb is targeting — namely, people who want something very straightforward that ‘just works’ — may be a little more confused. That said, this could easily be remedied by a better introduction process and some UI tweaking. Virb’s other issue is that it faces many other competitors — it’s hardly the first company aiming to make website building very easy (see Weebly, Yola, Squarespace, SnapPages and myriad others) and there are services decided to helping artists build online portfolios, like Carbonmade and Viewbook. And Virb is charging money for the service (some of its competitors aren’t): Virb costs $10 a month, though users of the ‘old’ Virb will be able to subscribe for $5. All of that said, Virb could still find a place. After all, there were plenty of other blogging platforms available before Tumblr caught on. CrunchBase Information Virb Information provided by CrunchBase
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