Author Archives: Kristen Nicole

With the coming of the iPad, we’re sure to see a lot more wireless keyboard and mouse functionality. While development around such technology has been moving along for some time, we don’t yet have many good use cases for it. Nevertheless, a new interface option for a keypad comes ready-made–on your hand! Skinput has created an armband that projects a keypad onto your own skin, which can then be used as a keypad.

Interesting stuff, for sure, but it gets better. Skinput’s armband also has an acoustic sensor so it can further determine which buttons you intend on pushing based on the sound it makes when you touch your skin. It makes sense, particularly as things like heat sensors may have a tendency to vary too widely across different bodies. Sound, on the other hand, is something that can be used on small scales for such machines, despite our own inability to make heads or tails of a body tap on the forearm versus the palm.

As more touch-sensitive devices emerge, we’re going to see an increased amount of inclusion from different factors beyond just the touch itself. HTC made its touch-screen phones stand apart from the iPhone’s by incorporating heat sensors for fluidity and increased sensitivity towards a user’s intent.

Determining that intent is what Skinput and similar companies developing this type of technology is after. It makes for highly aware devices that can work in different scenarios, including a projected keypad on our own bodies. Finding different ways in which to incorporate touch-sensitive technology is a huge push towards ongoing mobile device development, especially as companies look to create the next revolutionary mobile phone.

As Apple has filed suit against HTC for patent infringement, it becomes even more important that device manufacturers look to new technology they can incorporate into upcoming products. Even as Apple has created standards around its sleek and innovative touch screen phone, there’s room for improvement. Yet those standards, which call for smaller devices and improved interactivity, are also helping to drive interest behind that desire for touch-technology.

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I had a little spa day with friends yesterday, and it was the welcome reprieve I’d hoped it would be. But the subject of social media found its way into career-oriented conversation, and I found myself warning my friends against the perils of spending too much time in our growing world of on-demand work and entertainment. It takes away from the personal development that needs to go into the building of our relationships in the offline world.

I’m not saying that we should move away from social media outlets all together, but specifically for the business and marketing use of social media, a balance needs to be met. One of my friends yesterday noted the amount of time needed to maintain a social media presence, which cuts into her actual time spent with customers that are in her shop at any given point of the day.

The conversion factor for moving relationships from the online world into the offline world is still a matter of large concern, particularly when it comes to building one’s brand. Yes, you need a web presence. Yes, you need to find a way to quickly and effectively share information with your customers and clients. Yes, you need to become a resource for others seeking industry-related information, for the purpose of becoming discovered by those using search mechanisms. And yes, you need to engage your customers to maintain open correspondence and receive valuable feedback to use towards the development of your brand.

But find some time towards converting all of that social media activity into something you can benefit from offline. We all know that popularity in the online realm means little for brands with a focus on bricks and mortar locations, unless there’s a way in which they can easily turn that popularity into something more monetizable.

Finding a way to develop those relationships both offline and online is a serious focus for brand owners and those seeking a more powerful association with their company and its principles. Otherwise, brands will be able to hide behind their avatars, getting little out of everyday experiences that lend towards the betterment of in-person correspondence.

As brands seek more social media involvement, it’s important to take a few cues from the course social media has taken for individuals that have already learned this lesson.

Using social media to save lives, or generally make a difference outside of the online realm, is something we don’t often think about. We theorize about it all the time, for sure. Bu actual execution is far and few between, and hardly makes for interesting news coverage when there’s other things to talk about, such as a phising scam on Twitter or a new tool launched by Google.

Nevertheless, the real-life, game-changing stories are some of the ones that interest me the most. It’s partially because the real-world effect of social media changed my own life, as it offered an outlet to the world when I had few other options. It really is the ability to connect people that are in need of advice or information that lets social media become a powerful tool, and one man is out to prove that to the rest of us.

Jonathan Akwue of Digital Public sought a way to leverage social media for the greater good, connecting people that essentially don’t want to be identified. One group in particular were teen females avoiding or dealing with unwanted pregnancy. It’s a tough topic to tackle, but it was all the more reason for Akwue to turn to social media in order to provide a safe haven for giving people information in an environment that make it easier for an audience to access and connect with.

In this way, it seems like the Internet is a solution for many of our problems concerning limited access to information or the people that may need the information the most. Yet it’s becoming more and more evident that such social media tools can in fact be used for these purposes. The far-reaching effects of social media as we know it have penetrated our culture to the point where it is no longer a foreign concept, and can be readily utilized for the purpose of seeking like minds.

The capacity of the web to develop relationships around niche user groups is another basic we rarely apply to the real-world benefits of social media, but there it is, staring us in the face. Akwue’s desire to reduce teen pregnancies resulted in a delivery method that targeted young teens and mothers in places they were willing to meet halfway, successfully making a difference for many of the individuals involved.

As social media increases its capabilities to improve targeting for the inclusion of geographic data, we’re likely to see more projects and programs that seek to utilize the web for similar just causes. I think we can mark this as a win for social media.

How much time are we really spending on the social media, and would we even really be able to measure that? Nielsen released its report today indicating how much time we’re currently spending on social media, and it averages out to five hours per month for each user. That’s an 82% increase from last year, with the use of social media continuing to increase over the past three years.

The Nielsen study looked at social media users across ten countries, including The United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, Japan, Australia, Spain, Brazil and the United States. It was actually Australia that won out, with its residents averaging over 6 hours per month spent on social media sites.

The stats are important to know, especially as social media becomes a hub for all sorts of intersecting channels of entertainment, correspondence and search. Nielsen’s blog post regarding this study also notes social media usage in comparison to other reasons for accessing the Internet, with social media and blogs dominating the list for the month of December 2009. Online gaming and instant-messaging were the next two reasons for logging on, giving us a good glimpse as to the reason why it’s going to be increasingly difficult to look at social media as a stand-alone category for these types of studies.

Online gaming and instant messaging are both aspects of web-based activities that are being categorically rolled into social media outlets. Social media sites such as Facebook are becoming platforms for several other facets of our online activity, whether it be a casual game or a conversation with a co-worker.

As services like Gmail incorporate chat tools, live-streaming communication portals such as Wave, and socially-engineered sharing mechanisms such as Google Buzz, the very definition of what constitutes as social media changes as well. Tack on the mobile factor, and you’ve got a pretty widespread look at what could be considered social media and its point of access.

Pretty soon it won’t be a matter of how long we’re spending on social media, but how long we’re spending on game-apps with social media, or link-sharing. How frequently are we posting to our wall or updating our status? This information will also become important as advertising continues to look to social media, offline and on, for marketing purposes.

Developers of Apple iPhone apps have noticed something new on their end–an Explicit category for iPhone apps. While the new category isn’t available in the iTunes store yet, its presence on the developers side of things suggests that Apple is looking to modify its app store and the criteria that goes along with a given application being accepted into the iTunes App Store itself.

The discovery comes shortly after Apple banned an overtly sexual app that was created for the iPhone’s mobile app platform, despite it being no more explicit than other apps already accepted into the App Store. The app banning was the last straw for many developers that have been seeking clarification from Apple as to what can and cannot be incorporated into a particular iPhone app. With confusion rising around the criteria Apple uses to determine which apps make it through the approval process and which apps are rejected, Apple has been stirring the pot and having to deal with a lot of frustrated developers, more than two years after launching the iPhone.

Some had even hoped that the Explicit category would appear with the latest iPhone device release, tough that didn’t happen. It’s a step that many platforms used for media distribution are hesitant to make, for mobile platforms, on-demand television and film content, and user-generated content. Finding the best way to deal with new and budding platforms as well as the established concept of tiered distribution to fit everyone’s needs is something that has not sped along with the mainstream adoption of certain technology, at least not without being labeled as taboo.

What this particular situation does highlight, however, is the need for Apple to improve its relationships with its developers and end users. The addition of an explicit category could prove to be an acceptable answer for dealing with the plight of concerned parents as well as developers looking for answers.

This is also something other developers and platforms can learn from. Google’s Android platform is open source, meaning it’s a great deal easier to push an app through to the Android market in comparison to the iTunes App Store. The open source tactic has caused its own set of problems for Google, given the security breaches some apps have benefited from for certain banking apps. So it’s clear that an acceptable medium needs to be met. For the time being, we’ll just look forward to the Explicit category from Apple, which would come just in time for the iPad release.