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UK troops find the iPad to be a magical and revolutionary product. Using an app developed for the device to train for fire mission situations, the Royal School of Artillery in Wiltshire has targeted the iPad, and a specially designed app, to prepare them for battle.

According to a story by the BBC concerning use of the app, “In early trials at the Royal School of Artillery in Wiltshire, troops have learned the jargon and procedures more quickly than before, when they were sat listening to lessons from instructors.”

If we can use this sort of technology, we can probably shorten the amount of training and that is pretty key nowadays when people are so committed to operations in Afghanistan

The app’s design focuses on letting the military practice real-world situations, in hopes that once troops hit the ground, their digital training will have prepared them for all that comes their way.  An added benefit of iPad use for troops is its ability to keep their attention while training.  According to Lance Bombardier Jason Markham from 1st Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, “It makes it more fun instead of being sat in a classroom looking at a presentation being given information”.

Other benefits of iPad use in military training, and any learning experience for that matter, is a decrease in the amount of classroom time required when using the right app for the situation, decreases in costs associated with publishing training materials, and the mobility the iPad offers can transfer learning to any environment.

The  Royal School of Artillery in Wiltshire doesn’t plan to limit their training on iPad to just one app.  According to the Major Rich Gill, a 3D app for army pilots is in the offing which will allow pilots to recognize types of vehicles from the air.

Surprised by UK military’s use of the iPad?  What do you think makes the iPad attractive for military training and other forms of learning?

Original title and link for this post: UK military’s new recruit – an iPad app.

TNW Quick Hit

PeerIndex takes your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn information, then decides how much of an expert you are in various fields.

Love It: Cleaner than others we’ve seen. Better explanation.

Hate It: No algorithm has yet figured out how to factor in human behavior.

The Details

We’ve seen a few of these sorts of “social importance” sites springing up lately. Combine that with pushes from sites such as FastCompany to figure out influence and we’re sitting on top of some pretty interesting information.

PeerIndex seems, however, to clear things up a bit. It will look at 3 categories, then give you an overall PeerIndex score on a 1-100 scale:

Based upon the topics of your status updates/tweets/etc, PeerIndex will assign you as an “expert” in various categories. Apparently I’m an expert in Social Media, Google, Apple and the Tech Industry. Pretty surprising, when you consider that I really don’t know much about Apple or claim to know very much about social media.

Therein lies the problem with PeerIndex and others of its ilk. The authority that these sites try to measure is based on singular comments and not works as a whole. Further, let’s say that I only had an audience of 1, but that 1 had an audience of 100. If they take my idea and run with it, how influential am I in that instance?

Is It Useful?

Honestly? Yes. But probably not for the reasons that it wants to be. Sites that attempt to name people as experts often fall very short. But if you want to find a place where you can search out others on Twitter and the like that have similar interests, PeerIndex is a great stopping point.

The other thing that PeerIndex does that impresses me is that it goes out onto a limb. It gives you a clearly-labeled contact button, right on the front page, that tells you to get in touch if you disagree with your rating.

While I think that the idea of social influence measurement still has a long way to go, PeerIndex still holds some valuable information. It’s certainly worth a look if you want to gather some insight into your own behavior.

Original title and link for this post: Just how important are you? PeerIndex thinks it knows.

After he swam the North Pole, Lewis Pugh vowed never to take another cold-water dip. Then, he heard of Mt. Everest’s Lake Imja — a body of water at an altitude of 5300 m, entirely created by recent glacial melting — and began a journey that would teach him a radical new way to approach swimming and think about climate change. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2010, July 2010 in Oxford, UK. Duration: 9:45)

Watch Lewis Pugh’s talk on TED.com where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 700+ TEDTalks.

One of our favorite things about the iPad is how it never seems to be a burden to carry around. It’s made a number of its users infinitely more productive, just because of its ease of transport. OmniFocus is well aware of this fact, and saw an opportunity to move its fantastic task management software to the platform.

Here’s what we get, with the iPad version:

Cross-Device Sync

No matter where you start your project, you’ll be able to keep track of it across any other device with OmniFocus. Since all devices are able to sync wirelessly, you’ll be on top of your project no matter where you are.

Quick Entry

Think of this like carrying your own little notepad around. When things come to mind, just jot them into the quick entry and then organize them later when time permits. Of course, you can push your quick entry into an appropriate section if you’re ready, but the ability to save for later is awesome.

Contextual Tasks

Want to know what all of your “email” related tasks are? OmniFocus can do that for you. The same for any other category of task that you have in the system. What’s more? OmniFocus will use its own Map feature to let you know where you can go to complete your tasks when you’re out of the office.

Forecast and Review

Need to know what has to be handled? Curious as to where things need to happen? OmniFocus gives a 1-tap access to this information. You can view Overdue items, see things for today or browse in advance.

The review section will help you take an overview of a project and its parts. Use it to keep up with what’s going on in your project and to keep yourself in front of the curve.

The single greatest part about the iPad application? It stands alone. You don’t need to have OmniFocus installed elsewhere in order for it to work, so you can be productive without having to be expensive. At $39.99, it’s not exactly cheap, but it’s a bargain in the world of task management.

Original title and link for this post: OmniFocus for the iPad is here. It’s time to get productive on the go.

You might remember when @Zee wrote about Historious back in the middle of July. At the time, he called it the bookmarking tool that he had been waiting for. Since then, many more have found out how awesome Historious is to use and have adopted it heavily.

I caught an announcement by one of the developers, last night, about some updates to the tool and thought I’d share them with you.

Improved Performance

At launch, Historious could only handle a few requests per minute. With new improvements to the hardware behind it, there has been a pretty vast improvement to the capacity of the service, and newly-bookmarked sites should be ready to index almost immediately.

OpenSearch Integration

You can now search your Historious bookmarks right from your browser’s search bar. It’s a pretty welcome addition, for those of us who rely on Historious heavily.

Public Bookmarks and Sharing

One of the most requested features was to be able to push your bookmarks out into the public. Now you’ll be able to publish on any site and your bookmarks will appear in your public Historious page. The page can be broken down into keywords, which is invaluable for those who have literally thousands of bookmarks shared. If you’ve chosen to share your finds, people browsing your page can use the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button to be taken to a random bookmark in the public cloud.

Subscription Plans

Of course, all of this function doesn’t come easy. For power users of Historious, there is now a subscription program that will open up some added features. While bookmarking of up to 1,000 sites is free (and should cover the vast majority of users), you can go up to 15,000 sites with a $3/month subscription.

The other features? Tagging, no ads and the ability to text search within PDF files. All of these are awesome, but the PDF text search is sure to set a bar.

Overall, these are some great and welcome features to an already-wonderful service. If you’ve not given Historious a try, it’s high time that you do.

Original title and link for this post: Your favorite social bookmarking tool, Historious, gets some major improvements.

As Twitter started to grow in popularity we saw ‘Twestival’ meetup (or ‘tweetup’) events emerge. Maybe it’s a sign of Foursquare’s growth that a UK town is to host a ‘Foursquarestival’, although this is a little more interesting than just being a meetup – it’s a game created to showcase Foursquare’s potential.

Billed as a “Unique participatory event”, Foursquarestival players in the town of Cheltenham “will compete in a foxhunt that will lead them around points of artistic and cultural significance in the town, visiting independent traders along the way and finally finishing at a secret party location.”

The organisers tell us:

“On the event day participants (the ‘hounds’) will have to locate a series of ‘foxes – each one will provide a clue as to the location of the next. Each fox will stay at their location for a certain amount of time before moving on.

If the hounds turn up and the fox isn’t there, the manager/owner will hand over a clue or there will be a notification on the door that the fox has moved to a new location.”

The Cheltenham Foursquarestival has been organised by design agency managing director Andy Thorne and freelance PR Holly Knowlman. They say they’re running the game to test Foursquare’s potential as a tool for organising events and to promote some of their town’s “hidden wonders”.

As Foursquare has extended its userbase beyond early adopter geeks, businesses have been experimenting with uses for the service. Some, such as Brooklyn Museum have been particularly successful in engaging with their audiences via Foursquare.

Whether this Foursquarestival is a success or not, we’re likely to see more experimentation with location-based services around the world as they grow. There’s still a long way to go; figures earlier this week showed that despite the hype, very few people were aware of location based services.

If you’re in the Cheltenham area, the event takes place at 3.30pm on Saturday August 21st at Cheltenham’s Pittville Pump Rooms.

Original title and link for this post: Town Plans Foursquare ‘Foxhunt’

TNW Quick Hit

book.ly is a web-based application that will find your school’s textbooks and get them to you on the cheap.

Love It: Did you see the part where we said cheap?

Hate It: A decent chance that your school isn’t yet supported.

Overall: 4/5

The Details

Let’s face it, one of the worst parts about going back to university is buying the books. You know it’s going to be expensive, and you know that you’re not going to get much of it back when the semester is over. New brick-and-mortar stores are popping up all the time, but book.ly is hoping to grab a share of their market.

Right now book.ly only supports around 500 universities. However, the site encourages you to email them if your school isn’t on that list. Honestly, that’s the only part that we can fault. Otherwise, it’s a great service and we could all use a few extra bucks.

book.ly is dead simple to use. Just look for your school and then look for your books. Beyond that simplicity, though, the site offers a pretty cool value-added bonus. You can actually set up a fundraiser using book.ly and the site will share 20% of its profits with you.

The site claims to save students up to 40% on textbooks, so it’s certainly worth a look.

Original title and link for this post: Book.ly is making back-to-college a little less painful.

TNW Quick Hit

book.ly is a web-based application that will find your school’s textbooks and get them to you on the cheap.

Love It: Did you see the part where we said cheap?

Hate It: A decent chance that your school isn’t yet supported.

Overall: 4/5

The Details

Let’s face it, one of the worst parts about going back to university is buying the books. You know it’s going to be expensive, and you know that you’re not going to get much of it back when the semester is over. New brick-and-mortar stores are popping up all the time, but book.ly is hoping to grab a share of their market.

Right now book.ly only supports around 500 universities. However, the site encourages you to email them if your school isn’t on that list. Honestly, that’s the only part that we can fault. Otherwise, it’s a great service and we could all use a few extra bucks.

book.ly is dead simple to use. Just look for your school and then look for your books. Beyond that simplicity, though, the site offers a pretty cool value-added bonus. You can actually set up a fundraiser using book.ly and the site will share 20% of its profits with you.

The site claims to save students up to 40% on textbooks, so it’s certainly worth a look.

Original title and link for this post: Book.ly is making back-to-college a little less painful.

Got a question you can’t find the answer to or are too lazy to search for?

It’s getting increasingly easy to get good answers from the web quickly. Here are some of the best services to use to get your answer in no time at all.

Aardvark
Best for: Fast answers from people who (hopefully) know what they’re talking about.

Google-owned Aardvark service works by analysing your question, tagging it with a topic and sending it straight to people who have expressed an interest in that topic. What makes Aardvark fast is that many users sign up to receive questions via IM and can reply straight back with an answer if they choose.

Google is currently using Aardvark as a customer support service for YouTube and it’s easy to imagine them transforming it into a fully fledged ‘mutual support network’ for users of all its services in the future.

Quora
Best for: In-depth answers and debates.

Quora looks and feels like a place for serious questions and lengthy answers. It delivers, too; Quora has a community of users who like to give detailed answers and long, informed conversations can often grow out of a simple question.

Elegantly designed, Quora comes highly recommended when you want to start a debate, not just quickly find out who the third king of Spain was.

LinkedIn Answers
Best for: Career and profession-related questions.

Hidden away in the ‘More’ section of LinkedIn’s navigation bar, LinkedIn Answers is focused on professional questions. Categories include “Law and Legal”, “Finance and Accounting” and “Sustainability”. Yes, this is serious stuff but if you need an answer to a work-related question this could well be the best place to go.

Answers are sourced from your connections, their connections and ‘Experts’; people who have answered popular answers in the field you’re interested in.

Yahoo! Answers
Best for: Anything, when you’re not picky about the answers you get.

Predating most of the other question services out there, Yahoo! Answers has a reputation for being full of stupid people. That’s thanks to sites like Yahoo Laughs that post the ridiculous questions people have posted. “Can my neighbors sue me for skinnydipping in their pool when they weren’t home?” for example. LinkedIn Answers or Quora, this isn’t.

Yahoo! Answers is organised into categories and you may well find the answer you’re looking for. However, given the far more elegant solutions offered by Quora and Aardvark, Yahoo Answers looks and feels outdated.

Twitter
Best for: The wisdom of crowds.

Although not a service dedicated to the purpose, it’s worth remembering just how good Twitter can be at answering your questions. There’s no formal way of targeting your question, it’s just a case of hoping that the people who follow you see it and have the right knowledge. It’s a pot-luck approach, but ask the right question at the right time and your followers might just do you proud with high quality answers.

Facebook Questions

Best for: Too soon to say.

At the time of writing, Facebook’s newly-launched question answering service is only available to a small number of users. However when it’s opened up on your account you’ll be able to pose a question as easily as posting a status update. Questions are visible to the whole of the Internet (although they won’t yet show up in search engine results), not just your friends so be careful about what you ask.

We haven’t been able to test Facebook Questions yet so we’ll reserve judgment for now. Time will tell if it’s the new Yahoo Answers or challenger to Quora.

Original title and link for this post: 6 ways to get your burning questions answered online

I have to admit that I don’t have an iPhone, but I’m addicted to my iPod Touch. In fact, I’m pretty sure that it’s the adult version of a DS or PSP. So here are 5 games that I absolutely love, and love them even more because they’re free.

1 – Ancient War

Similar to the popular Cartoon Wars game, Ancient War is part strategy and part tower defense. Send your tribe members towards the coveted totem of the other tribe, fight off the tribe and take out their totem pole.

As you move on through the game, flying units and heavy attack ground units are thrown into the mix. Different tribes to fight come unlocked when you complete each stage. Each stage offers you gold for completion where you upgrade your tribe.

There is one problem with Ancient War. The game is a blatant rip off of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft game. Every tribe you fight are names of the Troll tribes from the fictional world of Azeroth. A lot of reviews on Ancient War are giving the game low ratings based on this fact alone.

Ancient War is an addicting game that takes as much or as little time as you want. You can sit through hours of game time, or just play a stage while you’re waiting for an appointment.

2 – Glass Tower 2

One of the most popular puzzle games on the app store right now. Glass Tower 2 is an addicting game that is similar to Jenga with some twists. Blue and red glass blocks are carefully stacked in different shapes and sizes. Your mission is to break each blue block without breaking a red block. Real physics are simulated in the game, making it a little more challenging.

Each stage gives a different degree of difficulty. New blocks that stand stationary or blocks that uncover a random red or blue block are added at later stages.

Glass Tower 2 isn’t an easy game, but it is fun. You are given a certain amount of “lives” and each red block broken takes a life. When you’re out of lives, it’s game over.

The game is only free for the first 15 levels. Once you pass those levels, you have to pay for extra level packs. The free 15 levels will keep you occupied for a long time if you enjoy puzzle games.

3 – Haypi Kingdom

A strategy, defense and city builder all in one. Haypi Kingdom has been popular on the app store for months and there’s a reason why. The game does start slow while you learn to build your kingdom, train troops and overtake resource areas outside of your kingdom.

The game gets moving along quickly once things are upgraded and you get the hang of the game. Then, it’s time to fight. Other players can attack your kingdom and take resources with their troops. If your defenses and troops are enough, you’ll thwart the attack.

Haypi Kingdom also allows a little social interaction during game play. There is a world chat option where you can talk to other players or you can join a clan. Clans let players group together and help each other during attacks, fights and wars with other clans.

The only problem with Haypi Kingdom is the lag. When the game has a lot of players logged in during peak times, the server is slow to load and notifications are delayed. The app is also prone to crash during heavy load times. It is a great game for anyone who enjoys real time strategy or tower defense style games.

4 – Pocket Legends

An MMORPG for the iPhone. Pocket Legends is a miniature grind fest in a fantasy setting. Players can choose and create characters of different races and classes then enter a realm of their choice.

Characters level up, learn new spells and join with other players through dungeon crawls that scale with level. Players can “rest” in common areas where they can talk to other players and enter more dungeons.

The interface is easy to use and the tutorial helps you get through the beginning areas of the game. As you level up, you gain new spells and new abilities that you can upgrade to fit your class and playstyle.

Beware of your battery! This game seems to suck the battery life out of an iPhone and iPod Touch quickly. It’s best to play it in small bursts or while the iPhone is charging. Pocket Legends is an endless dungeon crawl grind that will suck away hours of your time before you know it.

5 – I Say Free

I Say Free is a spin-off of the classic game “Simon”. Game play is straightforward. Follow the sequence of buttons to move to the next level.

If you’re not familiar with a game like this, it starts with one button push. You have to repeat the action. Then, it moves to 2, 3 and so on. Each time you remember the previous colored buttons and have to press them in sequence.

It’s a bit of a brain flex and a chance to exercise your memory a little bit as well. There isn’t too much to I Say Free except that it’s fun and a great way to kill the time.

So there you go. 5 free games that I play almost every day. Have any suggestions for me? What’s on your must-have list?

Original title and link for this post: 5 Free and Essential iPhone Games

That's what makes it a monster.

In fact, when you look the monster in the eye, when you calmly and carefully inspect the actual monster, you discover that he's not so bad after all. It's just the shadow that's scary.

When in doubt, ignore the shadow.

1. University Website

- Inte ett venndiagram – ibland räcker det med två blobbar… Eller hur?

2. Real-time Twitter streams – excuse me while I go smash my head against the wall

- Jag testkör i både Tweetdeck och Echofon – och det är klart att det är helt obrukbart med för breda sökningar. Men när man smalar av det så är det extremt användbart. Klart att realtid ska vara realtid, allt annat är ju bara handhavandefel (ping@deeped)

Det jag saknat mest i mina twitterklienter idag är att kunna sätta upp den här sökningen http://twitter.com/jocke/status/19892567452

3. How to win Rock-paper-scissors every time

- Amazing!

4. BlogSweden 5

- Kulin levererar enträget sin årliga undersökning. Bloggposten här: http://www.kullin.net/2010/07/blogsweden-5-the-fifth-annual-swedish-blog-survey/

5. Google: The search party is over – Fortune Tech

- Det har ju bubblats länge om Googles problem att hitta fler tillväxtmotorer. Men jag har lite svårt för den kritiken, jag tycker den bygger på en gammal modell. Evig tillväxt måste inte vara en naturlag. Min invändning är istället att Google också verkar lite panikslagna över det faktumet. Avtagande ekonomisk tillväxt behöver inte vara lika med utvecklingsmässig stagnation. Anyway, det är en mycket intressant text.

6. blog.reddit — what’s new on reddit: RMS AMA

- Stallman svarar på frågor. Trotsa trasiga radbrytningar och hitta guldkorn!

7. Back Office Exposed: Bingo Card Creator | Results Junkies

- Jag är mer imponerad av Patrick McKenzie än av Bingo Card Creator – den här posten innehåller många intressanta och konkreta tips.

8. The power of sync

- Aktuellt idag när delar av sverige köar efter en #iphone4 – ”we instantly believe we’re seeing a phenomenon” ;)

9. Big Bang Big Boom: Stop Motion Animation at Its Finest

- Jag missade nog att länka till den här igår. Den förtjänar det!

10. YouTube Blog: Upload limit increases to 15 minutes for all users

- Är det bara jag som inte fattar kopplingen mellan deras arbete med skydd av rättigheter (suck) och deras ökning till 15 minuter?

Anyway, bra där. Hoppas det fortsätter öka i högt tempo nu. Tio minuter har alldeles för ofta varit en gräns som kommit ivägen.

11. Y Combinator’s Paul Graham: Say goodbye to traditional venture rounds | VentureBeat

- Perpetual funding? ”Now, however, more venture rounds aren’t being led by a single investor, and they don’t have an official close date or amount, Graham said.”

12. Best. Ad. Campaign. EVER

- Är inte det här en alldeles fantastisk copy? (alltså i annonsen, inte i bloggtexten…)

13. Twitter / Fredrik Strömberg: @jocke Och här finns det e …

- Gårdagens ord är – utan tvekan – ceremonitroll. Den satte @stroemberg klockrent, i diskussion om Ring P1. Jag tror den här kommer att växa till sig: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=ceremonitroll

14. WordCamp Sverige-nyheter runt hörnet

- Åhh, så förvirrat det blev nu. Men stay tuned för mer spännande nyheter runt den Wordcamp som arrangeras av @tdhse

15. Löspenisar vaskas i omvänd bevisbörda

- Niclas listar aktuella galenskaper. Gårdagens Darwin award går så klart till KD, och jag kan inte riktigt förstå hur smarta människor som Magnus Kolsjö (disclaimer, jag kallar honom gärna min vän) och Göran Hägglund kan gå ihop med sådana pappahammare som Sacrédeus och Enochson. Alla partier har sina tomtar (http://hd.se/bastad/2010/07/29/nordin-tar-paus-fran-politiken/) men visst är andelen i KD osedvanligt hög, och på ett otäckt sätt.

16. Makthavare även under Pridefestivalen

- Ser fram emot att läsa bisons text om makthavares redaktionella lösning, men fram tills dess VB:ar jag gärna hans tips om Pride-bevakningen.

Och noterar i marginalen att inget sliter sönder KD så som HBT-frågorna.

17. Och nu: Polisen vill ha omvänd bevisbörda

- Det är en ding ding värld – har jag sagt det förr? ”Para sedan detta med lite brottsprovokation och justitieministerns idé om att det där med rättegångar inte är så viktigt – sedan är DDR-iseringen av svensk rättvisa ett faktum.”

18. Service är så mycket mer än bara sju bokstäver i ett strategidokument

- Den här reprisposten bygger vidare på det som jag länkade till igår, om nersidan med selfservice.

(för övrigt är det så klart ursmart att ta annonspengarna och lägga på biltvätt istället. Vad kan vara bättre marknadsföring än en skinande merca som rullar på gatorna?)

19. Ugly chart used to confuse readers

- ”To paraphrase one of my favorite quotes: they’re using this chart like a drunken man uses lampposts – for support rather than for illumination.”

20. 3D Door Stickers

- K kommer aldrig att släppa in dem i vårt hus, men så här lite i smyg kan jag erkänna att jag gillade ettan.

Annonsera på sveriges bästa blogg om media | jardenberg kommenterar – 30 Jul, 2010 publicerades på: jardenberg unedited

YouTube has gone arty, rolling out subtle changes to highlight its collaboration with the Guggenheim and HP. Every time you visit YouTube today, you might notice that its logo changes colour on every page load or manual refresh.

Why? You might ask. Lucky, the answer is simple.

As mentioned above, YouTube has partnered with the Guggeheim and HP to create YouTube Play; A Biennial of Creative Video, which launched June 14th 2010. YouTube Play aims to discover and showcase the most exceptional talent working in online video by providing a platform that allows artists and content creators to submit original, creative and surprising videos no matter of their background, genre, technique or budget.

YouTube’s logo is helping to draw visitors attention to the YouTube Play mini-site with the deadline for submissions closing in just under two days. Each logo revision is aimed at highlighting originality and differentiation, something the jury of experts are looking for.

A panel distinguished artists, filmmakers (including noted filmmaker Darren Aronofsky), graphic designers, and musicians,will be asked to select upto 20 videos from a pool of 200 videos already selected by the Guggenheim. The selected videos will then be presented at the Guggenheim Museum in New York during a special event on October 21, 2010, on view to the public October 22–24, with simultaneous presentations at the Guggenheim museums in Berlin, Bilbao, and Venice.

[Thanks - Orli]

Original title and link for this post: YouTube lets you Play with a different logo each time you refresh today

• Mashable: WPEngine Offers an Easier, More Robust Way to Use WordPress

Vi har wordpress.com och vi har egenhostad WordPress. WPEngine vill fylla mellanrummet. Jag kan se logiken men undrar om det kommer innebära att vi ser en början på kannibalisering inom WP-sfären. Frågan är om WordPress håller på att bli för stort för sitt eget bästa? När kommer en förenklad version av Drupal som därmed kan fungera som insteg till att utnyttja den plattformens större flexibilitet (men högre komplexitet och kunskapsbehov)?

• Creating a Social Media Strategy

Själv har jag skrivit om sociala mediestrategi under några år. Raz Chorev har snyggt slimmat ihop mycket av samma tankar som jag arbetar utifrån.

• NYT: Readers Are Abandoning Print, Yet Don’t Trust the Web #sdpr

Färre och färre väljer printeditionerna och menar att den viktiga informationen finns online. Samtidigt är det färre som litar på informationen online än det varit när det gäller print. På nåt sätt känns det snarare som en kris för journalistik i stort än för kanalen…

• Why the Facebook-Amazon.com integration is bigger than you think

Mer analys av Facebook+Amazon=sant.

• Why B2B social media is about making love, not war

Mycket mycket bra skrivet av John Bottom. Bra läsning även för den som jobbar inom B2C.

• AdAge: Study Says Most Brands Still Irrelevant on Twitter #sdpr

Twitter är konsumenternas. Den nya studien visar på att varumärken inte alls har lyckats slå sig in på Twitter. Det är intressanta siffror även om de måste ses för vad de är: amerikanskt inriktade. När det gäller varumärken känns rapporten något felvinklad: den påpekar själv att varumärken misslyckas med att vara konversativa många gånger – men väljer att göra slutsatsen att Twitter inte fungerar för varumärken. Snarare är det marknadsförare som missförstått vad twitter handlar om.

Mer siffror att cruncha i rapporten. Lär återkomma.

• CBS: Facebook Personal Info of 100M Users Published #sdpr

Det här är verkligen att koka soppa på en imaginär spik. Snubben har spindlat öppen profildata dvs. sånt som du och jag valt att låta ”alla” se. Att det skulle visa på Facebooks dåliga säkerhet är märkligt: tyvärr vet jag inte om det är snubben eller media som är mest okunniga och snedvridna i det här.Vidare: det han gjort är samma sak som Wikileaks gjort, bara att nu handlar det om dig och mig och inte om informatörer i Afghanistan… Det här sätter fingret på min problematisering över öppenhet vs. personlig integritet.

• Real-time Twitter streams – excuse me while I go smash my head against the wall

Bra fråga – vill vi ha det här? Jag är skeptisk till om det blir hanterbart.

• Media Culpa: Why we follow brands on Facebook and Twitter #sdpr

Det här är en intressant indikator runt social branding: genom sociala medier skapas möjligheten att snabbt använda varumärken till en markör för ens personlighet – något som varumärken alltid handlat om.

• Trendspotting: Visualization of Real Time Moods #sdpr

Trodde jag postat den här redan men måste missat det. Visualiseringar är oerhört bra att använda – det problem vi svenskar har när det gäller de generella verktyg som finns är helt enkelt att de i det här fallet har lite svårt att förstå vilket ”mood” vi är i :)

• Code for America

Om man bortser från det väldigt hejiga namnet så är det ett oerhört spännande projekt som pågår.

• Microsoft Privacy & Safety: Using Consumer Identities for Business Interactions #sdpr

Identity metasystem and identity mashup. Den stora utmaningen ligger i hur vi både säkert och enkelt kan utnyttja våra olika onlineidentiteter för att kunna göra affärer, identifiera oss mm.

• Creative Professionals can now display their portfolios on LinkedIn

LinkedIn fortsätter att leverera möjligheter. Det är bra.

• KALEX: Samband mellan nätmobbning, anonymitet och tonläge på nät #sdpr

Mycket matigt och bra inlägg om cyberbullying. Det är inte något annat än idioti men på nätet liksom.

• Introduction to social media

En rejäl genomgång fr a inriktad mot utbildning.

• Erenius: Världsbilden #sdpr

Det handlar inte om närhet eller distans – det handlar om en sammankopplad verklighet där värderingar och intressen är gemensamma noder för människor: inte nationer, städer eller härkomst. Bite the bullet, SD.

• Lista.se: 10 typiska twittrare

Rolig lista av @kwasbeb

• Ankarvall: Om vi tog bort diskussionen om sociala medier… #sdpr

Det här är lite i linje med diskursen om det är dags att sluta att prata om sociala medier. Jag är emot det av två anledningar: Internet som fenomen är mycket större än sociala medier och kommer alltid vara det. Internet som verktyg är extremt mycket mer än sociala medier: det är logistiken, själva strukturen. Det är vägen medan sociala medier är bilen.

• JesperAstrom.com: Amazon connects to Facebook – A new era begins! #sdpr

Det är stort även om det var på något sätt väntat efter att Facebook släppte FOG.

• Hon var äldst på Facebook

Hon var äldst, nu är någon annan äldst. Känns lite ointressant som exempel: vi vet att det är de äldre målgrupperna som ökar mest just nu.

Today the sales training release for Motorola’s upcoming Droid 2 leaked, and with it came a very interesting marketing point: agents are to compare the Droid 2’s Android 2.2 OS with other phones which are still stuck on 2.1.

Complaints of fragmentation across versions of Android are nothing new. 2.2 is the newest version of the OS, and yet due development cycles, we’re still seeing 2.1 devices just coming to market (I’m looking at you, Samsung). The G1, which was only killed off a few days ago, never made it past version 1.6. One of my less knowledgeable friends recently made the mistake of buying a Motorola Backflip, and that thing still has 1.5.

The question is this: is Android fragmentation a problem? The short answer to that is yes. As with most things, the long answer is far more convoluted than that.

In the short term, Android is making a whole lot of people a whole lot of money. Take HTC, which in a short period of time has become a company we all know by name. This past quarter, their earnings were up by a jaw-dropping 58%. Motorola was on the brink of obsolescence until it teamed up with Google and Verizon to get the Droid to market, and suddenly it’s making bank again.

The real problem is that customers are not going to come back to Android if the handset makers use different versions of the OS as a marketing tool. Android 2.2 is rocking better Exchange support and portable hotspot capabilities. Both are big deals for perspective buyers, particularly the former as Exchange integration means business customers can use their handsets for work. But when handsets come to market running Android 2.3, you can bet the people stuck on 2.2 are going to feel shafted. When their contracts are up, a lot of those people are going to jump to the iPhone or something else where they always know that they’re going to at least be capable of running the latest software.

The handset makers could fix this problem. The solution is to hire more coders to get the software running. Instead you have companies like Samsung which are waiting until September to push 2.2 to their phones. Before you say that updating software that quickly isn’t possible, consider the Android ROM community. If you’re so inclined, you can root your phone and install the newest version of Android within a week or two of Google’s release.

The problem is that ROM tinkerers make up a small percentage of the market. By and large, people don’t want to think about what they can do to get their phones to run optimally. And the problem isn’t hardware – even the G1 was bumped up to Android 2.2 by ROM hackers. No one wants to see that their cool new gadget is suddenly unable to do all the things that the new stuff can do. So if Android handset makers don’t work as hard to update older handsets as they do to make new ones, they may not enjoy good sales for too much longer.

Original title and link for this post: If Android remains this fragmented, consumers won’t stick around

TNW Quick Hit

Feature Creature – Funny Shoppers is the free iPhone app version of PeopleofWalmart.com.

Love it: One of the greatest and most hilarious internet time kills is now available on the iPhone.

Hate it: Inability to post favorites and personal discoveries to social networks.  Having a constant reminder that those featured on the site and now, app, inhabit the same earth as I do.

Overall: 4/5

The Details:

PeopleOfWalmart.com, one of the great websites for viewing odd humans and in the process making oneself feel normal, has launched an iPhone app which brings the best of its website straight to your phone.

The app, called “Feature Creature – Funny Shoppers,” has removed Walmart  from its name (probably to avoid a potentially filthy lawsuit) but has kept all the fun.

According to the developers, ALA Design, LLC, the app can be described in the following way, “You know that person you spot every time you go shopping at certain chain department store? That’s Feature Creature. It’s like spotting the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot, only this creature is shopping for Doritos and wearing a camouflage moo-moo at your local store. Snap a picture, tell us about your spotting and we’ll share it with the world.”

The Feature Creature iPhone app allows one to browse all of the hilarious archived photos, share a picture of your own by choosing a photo of an existing person from your iPhone’s photos, or snap a picture while in the app, and then sending the photo to Feature Creature with the built-in photo submission capabilities.

Feature Creature – Funny Shoppers is a good, not great, app at this point.  Their are occasional crashes, and it would be nice to email images and post great finds to social networks.  The developers will no doubt add these features in the future, with, “future updates and features will be dependent upon the feedback we receive and the users we reach.”

Original title and link for this post: PeopleofWalmart.com slums up the iPhone with Feature Creature – Funny Shoppers app.

For people around the world who already have access to the iPhone4 it might be hard to understand how people are still so fanatical about lining up for the device – but they are, and the launch in Sydney, Australia, is a perfect example

At the main Optus Mobile store in Sydney, the line extended around the block then half way around again as people braved the cold for the midnight launch.

The star of the show, other than the iPhone, was international superstar Kelly Rowland who, earlier in the night, treated the first 50 people who lined up with a private show.

Around the city, other Telcos had reality TV stars, sporting personalities and other celebrities. It really  was one of the biggest product launches the city has ever seen.

Below is a video showing the magical store opening  moment (the countdown starts about 15 secs in) that Aussie iphone fans have been waiting for, including a cameo by a couple of particularly happy fellows. Love it!

Original title and link for this post: Sydney goes crazy as iPhone4 launches in 17 new countries [with video]

Google’s China services availability dashboard, which seems to be at the root of the misreporting that happened earlier today that Google was blocked in China – it is not, Google has confirmed that – seems to have suffered from a hiccup that “overestimated” a small (perceived perhaps?) service blockage in the middle of the night. This in turn somehow translated to the dashboard, which showed blockages in most of Google’s services in China – which was never true, at least not for more than a possibly very small amount of time, and/or intermittently for a short time.

Of course, relying solely on this dashboard as the measure of whether to break the rather serious news that Google is blocked in China was a mistake – especially without confirmation from any of China’s 420 million Internet users – but part of the blame here may also rest with Google.

Google apparently has not fully explained how this dashboard works (partly perhaps because they don’t want it to be circumnavigated?) and the dashboard is not real-time or in fact has some kind of button that says “We’ve confirmed that we are DOWN” or something similar that confirms service is not only truly down, but also for an extended time.

After today’s incident, it may be advisable for Google to either fix this dashboard, highly educate people about what to expect from it, or scrap it altogether. We’re all for transparency, but when it causes much larger problems than it solves, things should be reevaluated at least. Oh, and as we said in our previous story – unless multiple trusted people in multiple locations confirm that a service is not accessible over a fair amount of time, best to just put it down to a glitch in the Great Firewall and leave it at that.

For some great reporting on this whole incident, read Rebecca MacKinnon’s great roundup.

Original title and link for this post: Should Google scrap its China services availability dashboard?

Here we are again. Another week of lovely technology banter and…wisdom? OK, maybe not wisdom, but we do share some thoughts on the week’s happenings and then some. Join us, won’t you?

Subscribe to The Next Web Podcast on iTunes!
If you prefer the good-old XML feed, we’re at http://feeds.feedburner.com/TNW

On this week’s show: Brad McCarty (Nashville), Matt Brian (Essex), Alex Wilhelm (Palo Alto), Chad Catacchio (Los Angeles)Martin Bryant (Manchester)Michael Backes (Hamburg)

Download / Listen:

In this week’s episode:

Apple launches Multi-touch Trackpad, 12-core Mac Pro and 27″ Cinema Display

Twitter in real time. Mind. Blown.

Facebook Testing “Delete Account” Option.

Amazon Expects eBooks To Outsell Paperbacks By Next Year

And the headline that we all wish we had written:

Magic Trackpad or tragic Mac pad?

Original title and link for this post: The Next Web Podcast – Episode 21: Update the Image Immediately