Pebble Watch: Precious Stone or Brick?

I received my Pebble Watch in the mail two weeks ago today, marking the end of a long wait since funding the Kickstarter campaign last Spring and the beginning of my next phase of obsession with wearable technology. As a dedicated Fitbit user, a guy fortunate enough to have tried out Google Glass a few times, and an experimenter with many other gadgets in the space, I am proud to be an early adopter and advocate for the benefits of technology that can keep us coneected in more seamless and less disruptive ways. I jumped on board with the Pebble, because, at a minimum, it offered the promise of bringing the most important notifications from my phone to my wrist, allowing me to decide whether or not to interrupt my life by pulling my phone out of my pocket. So, how does it live up to that promise?

The short answer: It does send certain notifications to my wrist, which allows me to make decisions about when to interact with my phone more seamlessly, but not much more, at this point. After two weeks, it is more of a “nice to have” than a “must have” to me. I am certainly enjoying it, especially in social situations and when on the run (commuting, walking the dog, etc.), but it’s very rudimentary right now. The potential is huge, but the jury is out whether Pebble will own the space, or just be amongst the first to market. 

 

What I like the most 

SMS notifications: it really is great to be able to glance down at my wrist when I get a text, rather than compulsively pulling out my phone. This is much less disruptive when I am having a conversation, walking my dog or I am otherwise engaged in an activity. I have realized that I do not need to address a lot of text messages as soon as I get them, so this is a great way for me to be alerted of messages that are coming in, which I can make split second decisions about. Overall, this has helped me to be more present in my life, while staying attentive to pressing messages that might come in. 

Caller ID: Like SMS, it is extremely helpful to see who is calling without pulling out my phone. This is especially true because I really don’t like speaking on the phone and often just let calls go to voicemail. Now, I can be minimally interrupted by calls by just glancing at my wrist and ignoring calls from there, instead of pulling out my phone. 

Music player control: The Pebble also allows me to control whatever music app is playing on my iPhone (Spotify, Stitcher, iTunes, etc.). This isn’t a huge benefit for me, as my headphones have volume and skip control on the wire, but it’s nice to be able to glance down, see what track is playing and/or who the artist is, and control it if I choose. 

Calendar alerts: I often leave my phone on my desk at work, so I can now be confident that I won’t miss an appointment if I step away to speak to someone or grab a glass of water. It’s also helpful when I’m on the go to be able to look at the location information for a meeting, instead of fumbling with my phone. 

The Clock: Oh yeah, it’s a watch too, huh? I haven’t worn a watch for years, happy with the clock on my phone. Over the last few weeks, though, I’ve been reminded how nice it is to have the time readily available on my wrist, instead of having to pull out my phone and turn on the screen every time. I also really like the watch face with the time in words, for some reason, although there are a number of more creative ones as well. 

Really easy setup and syncing: It only took a few seconds from unpacking to being fully functional on my wrist. You can see how simple it is to set up the watch on iOS here, and on Android here (sounds like it’s a bit more complicated). All of the notification settings are controlled in the Settings app on iOS, so it’s really just a matter of tweaking a few things here and there to get the right ones to show up on the Pebble. As new capabilities develop, it will get more complicated, but for now it’s pretty straightforward. 

Simple, sleek and attractive design: The watch itself is comfortable, clean and understated. I haven’t worn a watch for years, because I’m not a big fan of accessories, so I’m happy that this addition to my arm is reserved, looks modern and cool. 

 

What I don’t like/wish for 

Limited notification options: First, I’ll say that I can only speak to the iPhone experience, and am aware that the options on Android are much more extensive (another reason to switch?). I am also aware that a lot of these limitations come from iOS, not a shortcoming in the abilities of the Pebble developers. That said, the only notifications I can get right now are SMS, caller ID, email, calendar and a silent vibrating alarm. On Android, I believe you can get notifications from Facebook and Twitter as well, but not on iOS. This raises the question: how much do I really want my wrist buzzing, in reality? Not that much (I turned off email notifications as soon as I finished testing them), but I’d like to have a wider range of choice about which apps communicate with the device. Hopefully, shortcomings like this will be quickly resolved with future software updates, but that probably depends to some extent on the reality of Apple’s plans for an iWatch. 

Voice inputs: This would be a truly killer device if I could use voice controls and dictate to my phone without pulling it out of my pocket. Think about how great it would be to be able to respond to a text message alert on my wrist by dictating a quick response, all without pulling out my phone. There are people that think this Bond-like behavior is really wonky, but I use the dictation feature on the iOS keyboard all the time when I’m walking, driving or one hand is holding my dog’s leash. While having a phone conversation would probably be a bit much, I would welcome, the opportunity to do so withough having to pull out my phone. 

Weak support/help: There are some helpful guides and FAQs on the Pebble site, but they’re limited. I’ve seen some info saying that I can send notifications from any iOS app to the Pebble, but haven’t been able to verify that beyond SMS, email and the others listed above. The Pebble team seems pretty overwhelmed trying to meet manufacturing demands, and have added a few new support staffers, but there’s a lot that is still a bit unclear. Growing pains for a new company, indeed, but it can be frustrating at times. 

 

Summary

I’m very happy that I supported this project and will continue wearing my Pebble. It has made certain aspects of my digital life less intrusive and I missed it on the day that I accidentally left it at home. I am extremely excited about wearable technology, in general, and about where this and similar devices could go very quickly. 

Do I think the wrist is the ultimate destination for wearable tech like this? I don’t know, but it seems to make sense for now. Google Glass will certainly test a whole other use case, including two-way communication with devices, when it launches soon. In the meantime, congratulations to the Pebble team on raising astounding funds and support for a solid early entry to this space. 

 

Read More

• TechCrunch review, including Android and iPhone 
• Slideshow of “smart watches” from PC Mag
• PC Mag review, including Android and iPhone 
• The Pebble site

Facebook Gifts: they’re going to make a lot of money with this

So when Facebook served me up this little prompt this morning, I decided to finally check out Gifts. I mean, I had looked at it before, because it’s kind of my job, but I had never gone through the whole process through checkout. When I saw that I could give Anjali (my wife) a Valentine’s Day gift in the form of a charity donation of her choice, I was sold.

The whole process took seconds and I was impressed with the breadth of options on there, including both virtual and real products. This is so easy, so quick, so seamless. Facebook should be able to make ridiculous amounts of money from this product. 

5 Ways For Marketers to Get Started on Twitter’s Vine App

My latest post on iCrossing’s blog. What do you think about Vine for marketers?

In today?s rapidly evolving marketing landscape, new platforms and opportunities to reach customers emerge on a regular basis. When Twitter launched the Vine App last week, Twitter entered and, to an extent, legitimized the growing fray of video sharing applications (see end of post for a list of other apps). While it is easy to groan and exclaim, ?Ugh, another social network?!,? marketers can also view this new wave of applications as a way to streamline the creation and sharing of accessible, bite-sized video content, just as Instagram did for photography. 

The first question that may arise in many marketers? minds: ?I already have my YouTube channel. Why do I need to post videos through the Vine App?? It is certainly possible that posting videos through Vine is not appropriate for your brand. As with any content strategy, you have to carefully consider your own marketing goals and audience to determine the optimal platforms on which to distribute your content. However, Vine has several elements that make it quite attractive for many marketers, even if just for a test: 

• It?s owned by Twitter. Because Twitter is one of the ?big three? social networks (along with Facebook and Google ), we can be quite confident that Vine will have significant visibility on the platform. While Vine?s functionality is not yet integrated into Twitter.com or Twitter app themselves, videos posted through the app are fully and immediately viewable in the Twitter timeline with no need for a click-through, which suggests that full integration is not far away. If Twitter is important to your marketing and communication strategies, Vine is probably worth a try.
• Videos are only six seconds long. Just as Twitter has done with its 140-character limit, this video length cap immediately establishes a unique context and best use of the app. While YouTube offers a great place to showcase a variety of video content, from advertising to original, editorial content, Vine seems more fit to tap into the real-time conversation, more informally and authentically.
• It?s easy. It won?t take too much effort to shoot and post six-second videos. These are not intended to be great works of art or to last forever; these can be shot on camera phones and posted in minutes. All you really need is a fun idea that fits into the brand guidelines. 

Because this app is extremely simple and the already-established style of most videos being posted is quite casual, marketers can get started rather quickly. Here are five considerations for your approach:

1.  Experiment and learn. How can video bring you closer to your audience, on a regular basis, without immense effort or cost? Vine represents an extremely easy way to create some fun, bite-sized content to see if your audience is interested in communicating with you in this fashion. It might be right for you, if you fit into one of these categories:

• You want to use video in a different way than you have in the past
• You haven?t used video in the past, because of cost or other barriers, but are eager to add video to your marketing mix 
• You are looking for new ways to distinguish yourself from your competitors

2.  Use it as a teaser. Have you just launched a really cool content series, a new product, or promotion? You know that your audience has extremely short attention spans, but maybe they?ll take six seconds to find out about that new sweepstakes, to get a sneak peek at your newest offering before it hits the shelves, or to check out your newest hashtag campaign (like this). It will be interesting to watch whether Vine videos can drive higher click-through rates in certain cases. 

3.  Be authentic. People don?t necessarily expect high production values or deeply thought out stories in a six-second video. Let Vine liberate you to have some fun and be creative, without seeking the polish and perfection that 30-second spots and your other marketing content usually requires. Be real and let your audience see that you?re not all about special effects and high gloss. 

• Try your hand at stop motion video 
• Have an employee contest for the best six-second video about your brand
• Let your audience see behind the scenes
  

4.  Be helpful. Post (extremely) quick tips. Answer customer service tweets with a six-second video instead of a mere text tweet. 

5.  Celebrate your brand. Express the pure love and joy that you (and hopefully others) have for your brand. Do something unexpected with your product, like this, this or this. Show that your product is fun and loved, and get others to do the same, like this or this.

Try it out and let us know in the comments where we can see your videos!

? Tarah Feinberg, head of The Studio @ iCrossing.

Dive Deeper

Some other video applications we recommend checking out as well, which are more platform-agnostic: 

• Cinemagram: share videos with Instagram-like filters
• Montaj: automatically edits videos
• Tout: create 15 second video status updates
• Also note that Facebook released a similar feature with in-app video capture days after Vine App premiered

More reading: 

• 15 brands already using Vine (SocialFresh)
• Can Brands Tell A Story in Six Seconds or Fewer? (TechCrunch)
• Brands Introduce Ads on Vine (Mashable)
• Will Vine App become bigger than Instagram and Flickr? (The Street)
  

via thecontentlab.icrossing.com

Facebook #Fail: I really am just talking to myself, aren’t I?

Yes, Facebook, you got it – all I want to see on my News Feed are my own posts. Your algorithm just gets better and better. #epicfail

Will everyone please join me on Google+ already?

Insta-Policy: You Are Always the Product on “Free” Platforms

Instagram announced updates to its Terms of Service (TOS) this week, including an aggressive statement of rights regarding the use of photos, names and likenesses for advertising and a wide range of other uses. This action has caused an uproar amongst the Internet community, as is often the case when a ?free? platform begins to make moves to monetize.

The fact is, every ?free? platform will have ads or will sell your content, eventually. I?ve said it once and I?m sure I?ll say it a million more times: if you?re using a free service/platform, you are the product. Now that Instagram is owned by Facebook, we can only expect that the platforms will become more integrated and, Facebook, a public company, will seek ways to monetize its investment to please its shareholders.

It amazes me that people continue to be surprised by this reality time and time again, especially after they?ve seen Facebook, and many other free services, do this in numerous ways over the last few years. It?s very simple: if you want to retain rights over all of your digital content and personas, then you must only use paid services, which already have established business models (e.g., Flickr Pro). Business Insider has a good post about this topic here.

What Does All The Legal Stuff Actually Mean? 

I agree with a lot of the critics that the language included in the updated TOS is extremely aggressive, especially this section:

Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.

The New York Times published a quick guide to what each of these elements means for you, which is helpful to better understand your rights (or lack thereof). Essentially, though, Instagram (and by extension, Facebook) is claiming the right to do pretty much anything it wants with your photos, your name, your profile image and anything else you share on the platform, including your metadata (e.g. location, device used to upload). This proviso means that Instagram can use your content and persona in its own marketing efforts, as well as those of partners. Really, it?s not much different than what Facebook is already doing with Sponsored Stories.

I?m no legal expert, but it?s possible that some of the terms might not even be legal in some states because of privacy protections. There is also the possibility that their claim that ?you acknowledge that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such? might violate the Federal Trade Commission?s requirement that all ads be identified as such. We?ll leave these debates to the lawyers and policymakers, but there seem to be a number of issues to resolve in this area of law, which is still in its formative stages. All said, it is very likely that these TOS will change, based on user, government and legal feedback.

Do I Stay or Do I Go?

As people think about whether to stick with Instagram or take their photos elsewhere, it is interesting to look at the policies of other photo services, which are much less aggressive. Google, for example, does not claim the right to sell photos uploaded through Picasa or Google in its policy. Yahoo?s Flickr policies also state that the service can use your images ?solely for the purpose for which such content was submitted or made available.? 

As a rather digitally fluent person, I participate and share content online with a general understanding that I give up a large part of the control over what I share as soon as I publish it. That understanding does not mean that I expect digital companies to skirt ethical, legal standards and that I expect to relinquish any rights, but I go in with a certain level of realism about the way the web works.

This reality is especially clear to me when I participate in free services. As startups, they are most focused on gaining users, but I am fully aware that they will want to monetize someday. There is always a cost to using a platform ? if you?re not paying a service fee, then, again, you are the product. Therefore, it is vital to carefully consider how you participate and what content you share there from the very beginning.

For me, I look at the value of the community and the platform. So far, Instagram has offered me a phenomenal group of people with whom I share very enjoyable visual moments from our lives. I have also been helping brands to get onto the platform for a few years professionally, so I understand its value in connecting consumers with companies around moments of affinity or passion as well.

Professional photographers should view Instagram more as a promotional vehicle than a publishing platform or a gallery of work to be sold. People that make a living off of their images have to be careful not to give away the rights to the very products that pay their bills, but they also should not ignore the fact that it could be a great way to expand their audiences and customer base.

Amateur photographers and people that enjoy sharing visual moments should be careful to only put up images that they are comfortable being re-appropriated and used by companies and brands, outside of their control. This realization very well might mean deleting their accounts, for some. If you do decide to delete your account, here?s a quick way to download all of your Instagram photos.

How Will the Updated TOS Affect Instagram?

My hope is that ads and brands will be integrated into Instagram in a holistic way, adding organically to the experience, rather than ruining it. However, organic use of ads continues to be a major challenge for online communities and social platforms, like Facebook, so Instagram will require significant innovation and respect for ongoing audience feedback.

It is very likely that the updated terms of service will stem the immense growth in users that Instagram has seen during its short life, and it might even see a reduction. However, I believe that Facebook eventually wants to wrap its photo offering all under one umbrella, so it is likely that Facebook plans on integrating the Instagram functionality into its photo offering more and more, making the Instagram brand less and less important. Therefore, it ultimately becomes more a choice of whether people want to abandon Facebook or not. Some people have begun to deactivate their accounts, but mostly people have stuck around.

The new TOS goes into effect on January 16, 2013. Until then, I am sure we will hear a lot more complaints, revisions to the Terms and, hopefully, a more reasonable and fair set of policies in the end, so that the platform?s strong community is not alienated.

In the end, the great thing about digital platforms is that audiences have a lot of power. They can easily vote for what they will and won?t put up with, by using platforms until they no longer serve them, at which point they can just go elsewhere. These companies know this, so they are trying to walk a fine line. 

? Tarah Feinberg, head of the Studio @ iCrossing

via thecontentlab.icrossing.com

Innovative Content and Social Savvy the Keys to Success for Brands in Latin America

My latest blog post on the state of digital marketing in Latin America, based on my experiences at the Seminarium Per?/Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB Per?) NED conference last week.

Latin America is a quickly expanding digital market with audiences that have a large appetite for digital content and social behaviors. Brands are beginning to move beyond basic display advertising and direct marketing to engage their audiences with content and social programs, capitalizing on local and global trends in digital marketing. 

Last week, I traveled to Lima, Peru, to speak at and attend Seminarium and IAB?s first conference on Business in the Digital Era (?Negocios en la Era Digital? or NED) ? an impressive collection of brands, agencies, and publishers sharing case studies and discussing the path forward for the region. 

While researching the state of digital in Latin America and, specifically, Peru, I learned that it is largely considered the most social region in the world, and other important digital platforms are rapidly growing as well. Social networking counts for more than 30 percent of minutes spent online, and the region hosts five of the most engaged social networking markets (more here). 

In Peru, specifically, portals still account for the largest amount of time spent online (mostly Google and Microsoft sites), with instant messaging and Facebook accounting for the lion?s share of the rest. 

Hearing brand case studies and agencies at the event discuss their work in the region reminded me somewhat of conferences I attended in the United States several years ago, as they explored ways to bring their efforts online for the first time, how to launch an e-commerce platform, and how to engage their audiences in a more editorial fashion, beyond overt marketing messages. However, there are some major differences that, although daunting at first, offer South American marketers opportunities to innovate and capitalize quickly: 

• The digital media landscape has expanded and matured ? it?s not just banner ads anymore
• Facebook, and social media as a whole, has reached global scale and adoption; viable advertising models are emerging
• Audiences everywhere are becoming accustomed to and comfortable with the idea of brands as publishers ? if it?s good, they?ll consume it
• A plethora of case studies, successes and failures alike, exist from which marketers in the region can quickly learn and adapt

As I watched the presentations, shared my own thoughts with the audience on a better way to produce content for brands, and discussed individual challenges with brand executives, it became clear that, while many of the Latin American markets may be considered ?emerging,? the road to scale and success will be short. Marketers seeking success in this region should: 

• Gather and interpret audience data. What are the audience segments that matter to you? What do they care about? Where do they spend their time? How are they already interacting with and/or discussing brands? 
• Establish a social presence. Give audiences the opportunity to get to know your brand on a personal level. Show an interest in their lives and passions and drive conversation around relevant categories.
• Experiment and innovate, especially with content. Victory is there to be taken. Creativity, great brand storytelling and clear communication will penetrate a relatively open marketplace, so now is the time to lead. 

I feel extremely fortunate to work at a global marketing agency like iCrossing, with multiple offices in this exciting region leading the way forward (Chile, Peru, Argentina, and Mexico to the north).

iCrossing Peru hosts iCrossing USA?s Rob Garner and Tarah Feinberg

Working at iCrossing allows me to delve into deep conversation about marketing challenges and opportunities with leading brands in retail, transportation, auto, consumer-packaged goods, and more. (In fact, at NED, one of my iCrossing colleagues, Rob Garner, discussed how brands can combine content with social and search to become more effective real-time marketers; he drew upon ideas in his new book, Search and Social: The Definitive Guide to Real-Time Content Marketing.)

iCrossing?s Rob Garner presenting on how to construct and measure connected brands in real-time

Rob Garner (iCrossing), Charlene Li (Altimeter Group), and Tarah Feinberg (iCrossing).

With strong agency leadership and audience management platforms, like iCrossing?s Core Audience, to synthesize the massive amounts of data available, Latin America will continue to grow as a powerful market that any of the world?s major brands would be foolish to ignore. 

? Tarah Feinberg, head of The Studio @ iCrossing

via thecontentlab.icrossing.com

@gemsie @HeatherPark Glad you both had good days. :)

via TweetDeck

InstaBest: Statigram vs Pinstagram for better Instagram browsing and management

The Instagram app is one of my favorite social networks and mobile apps, but it has some limitations:

• The experience is limited to mobile devices – not always ideal. 
• Vertical, chronological feed, forcing me to catch up one photo at a time, from newest posts to oldest.
• Minimal filtering – search, but no way to create lists or otherwise filter my feed.

I really enjoy Instagram. I like it enough to seek the best experience possible, so I’ve been testing out different browser-based Instagram viewers. It came down to a close race between Pinstagram and Statigram, and I will probably continue to use both for different reasons, as neither of them is quite perfect yet. If I had to choose one, Statigram probably has the edge for me, but it really depends on your priorities:

• Choose Statigram, if filtering your feed and analytics are key.
• Choose Pinstagram, if you like Pinterest’s design motif and want an iOS app that allows you to browse lots of Instagram photos quickly. 

STATIGRAM
Analytics, filtering and promotion

Statigram is a great tool for the Instagram poweruser and digital nerd, like me. In addition to a clean interface that allows quick browsing and interaction with your whole feed, it offers a wide variety of analytics and infographic reports, ways to promote your account and photos, Instagram contests to enter and even the ability to print your photos. 

While Statigram displays less photos in the browser than Pinstagram (10, as opposed to 15, on my Cinema Display), it allows full interaction with the photos – like, comment, share to other social networks within a grid. This allows me to quickly scan a large portion of my feed, like and comment the few that grab me, and move on. This is perfect for my needs when viewing Instagram in a browser, as I’m usually at work, which means that I don’t have that much time and I’m viewing it on a large monitor. My one gripe, which is not necessarily small, is that you can’t see the captions without maximizing each photo. That seems like a big miss to me.

The top navigation and subnavigation is clear and complete, which holds true for the information architecture across the site. 

The number one killer feature for me is probably the ability to filter my Instagram feed. Unlike Twitter, I don’t believe Instagram should be like drinking from a firehose, so I’m extremely selective about who I follow on this network and really do try to see everyone’s photos. That said, sometimes you just get busy and don’t want to miss the posts from your closest contacts; or sometimes you’re just in the mood to look at food porn and nothing else. Statigram’s solution allows me to create smaller groups of my contacts, which allows me to filter when it makes sense.

The single photo view is great as well, except that I wish I could flip through the feed in this view, instead of having to go back to the grid to zoom in on each one. I like that the caption, location information and a wide variety of sharing options are right below the photo, including Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Tumblr, Pinterest and the ability to get a permalink. In addition, there is a “Repost this” button, which creates an image with the creator’s name and a repost symbol overlayed to email for uploading. The only drawbacks are that it does not appear that you can upload it directly to Instagram from there, so it’s a multi-step process.

On the right side, I like the clean presentation of the user, which links to a Statigram version of the Instagram profile page, complete with stats and that person’s photo library. I also like the clean presentation of tags (all active links to browse similarly tagged photos), likes and comments, with an available comment box. 

Where Statigram really shines is in providing analytics on your Instagram account, in a very pleasing, visual fashion. If you’re like me, you enjoy geeking out on the trends and stats of your social accounts; this allows you to track your effectiveness on the platform in a general way, or to dig deeper into monthly analyses, trends and performance of content (including a pie graph of your usage of filters), engagement, opportunities for optimization, and stats on how you interact with your community.

Another fun feature of Statigram is the ability to export Snapshots of your account. These are infographics and visual representations of stats, trends and recent events that you can export, share and hang on your fridge. Oh, and they’re all formatted for the Instagram square, so you can share them on the network, of course. So meta…

Totally nerdy? Yes. Totally awesome? Definitely. 

Positioning themselves as your partner to truly maximize your Instagram account, Statigram offers options to promote your account, with HTML code, tips, links, plugins to add your feed to Facebook fan pages and other quick solutions that can raise the visibility and engagement with your account. This is a great resource to have, all in one place. 

Finally, Statigram curates a collection of Instagram-based contests that are running, at any given time. I pretty much never enter these, but it’s a good resource for me, as a brand marketing professional, and is another way that they truly are an Instagrammer’s partner for any needs related to the network. They also offer a contest toolkit for marketers. 

Pros:

• Feed filtering
• Well-designed analytics, reports and account snapshots
• Extensive sharing options
• Browse lots of photos quickly
• Interact with photos quickly without having to click through/maximize
• Intuitive, clean, visual interface

Cons:

• No mobile app, although it does look quite good in Mobile Safari
• Can’t see captions on photos in grid view.

 

PINSTAGRAM
Browse, interact and discover with ease in an aesthetically pleasing environment

Pinstagram’s user experience and functionality is quite similar to Statigram, so I’ll be a bit more concise on this one. As stated above, Pinstagram’s interface shows about five more photos on the screen than Statigram and also allows full interaction with the photos within a Pinterest-type grid (hence their name, obviously). It is set on a white background and is very clean throughout, focusing completely on browsing Instagram photos, without the added features of Statigram.

The single photo viewer is not bad, but it does not include the location of the photo (very strange to me) and the sharing features are more limited than Statigram. Each photo contains a link to Stickygram, which allows you to create magnets out of your photos. They must have a partnership. Like Statigram, it also does not allow me to flip through the feed in this view, which is a big miss in both.

The interface also allows me to view a number of suggested “channels”, curated categories that users can submit to by including the hashtags #pinstagram and the #channel_name on Twitter. This is a fun feature, as it allows me to discover new Instagram users that I might want to follow, or allows me to satisfy a specific craving, like food or, professionally, to check in on what brands are doing on the platform.

Pinstagram also has an iPad app, which is pretty solid and offers a similar experience. The navigation and functionality mirror the broswer experience and are pretty straightforward. The first time you open the app, a simple tutorial screen appears, which gives you pretty much all the information you need.

Also, in the app, when a photo is maximized, you can flip through your feed in full screen by swiping left and right, unlike the browser experience. In some moods, this is even better for me than either browser experience and definitely better than the Instagram app experience. The one big miss in the app is that you can’t like photos in the maximized view. Double-clicking doesn’t do it and there’s no heart icon to click. This means you have to close the photo and go back to the grid to like each photo. That seems silly to me.

Pros: 

• Browse lots of photos quickly
• Interact with photos quickly without having to click through/maximize
• Intuitive, clean, visual interface
• Good iPad app

Cons: 

• Can’t create my own lists/filters
• Does not offer analytics on my Instagram account
• Can’t like photos in maximized view in app

CONCLUSION

Deciding which to choose really comes down to your personal style and what is most important to you when browsing your Instagram account. For me, Statigram solves most of the problems and offers most of the features that are most important to me:

• Filtering is really important to me, as I like to control and curate my feeds on all digital platforms.
• I really like looking behind the curtain at what is happening with my content and community. 
• I also like the clean, dark background that Statigram offers, for photos. 

That said, I’ll probably continue to use the Pinstagram app on my iPad, when I want to quickly browse all of the updates to my feed, rather than leisurely work my way through it in the Instagram app. 

What’s your style? Is there another killer app that I’ve missed? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. 

Apple vs. Samsung verdict: who were the real winners and losers?

I’m a big fan of Apple, as you might know. I was amongst the first to snatch up the first generation iPhone and owned iPods, Macs and other offerings for years before. I’m also a big fan of companies having the right to protect their intellectual property and collect profits from their innovations.

However, there seem to be some serious issues with our current patent system. I’m not a lawyer, but I see patent wars increasing in intensity all over the US, especially in the tech and Internet industries. With more and more consolidation of companies, sometimes largely for the purpose of patent ownership, like Google’s acquisition of Motorola, and court decisions like this, it seems that the patent land grab is stunting innovation in certain cases. 

By all means, Apple should be able to own its place in the market, which it largely created through true creativity, but are we really all better off if others can’t improve on the foundation that has been set, because they’re too afraid to create something too similar? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Here’s an excerpt from a great Slate post about this case. I highly recommend that you read the whole thing to get a better sense of who could benefit and who could suffer as a result of this decision.

Apple’s $1.05 billion jury verdict, which held that Samsung, the world’s No. 1 manufacturer of mobile phones, had violated several patents owned by Apple, the world’s most valuable company, will cause huge aftershocks in the cellphone, software, and Internet industries.

Samsung was found to have violated Apple’s “trade dress” by in essence making smartphones that look too similar to the iPhone. More consequently, Samsung was found to be in violation of several Apple software patents covering elements of the smartphone user interface. Apple, for example, was the first company to market a touch-screen interface featuring the ability to zoom in and out by pinching your fingers. Apple also owns patents on certain aspects of screen scrolling behavior, including the particular way a scrolling screen bounces if you push it too far.

via slate.com

Another interesting article here from The Washington Post about the difficulties that arise when a patented feature, like pinch-and-zoom, becomes industry standard. Does everyone have to pay royalties?

Know your rights: police brutality [INFOGRAPHIC]

Once in a while, having a blog causes people doing great work to contact you to request that you post about their content on your site. Recently, a member of the design team at Criminology.com contacted me about their fascinating, important (and a little scary) inforgraphic on police brutality. 

Check it out and make sure you know your rights. If you share this, please make sure you link back to Criminology.com.

Created by: Criminology.com