Our blog contains opinion on current affairs throughout the digital, web and social media world. We aren't always right but it will be interesting to hear your viewpoint on these issues, you never know, we may learn something as well.
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Location based social networking is surely the breakthrough of 2010 with the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla competing for most of the previous year. Facebook Places arrived late onto the scene and, as a result, has not run entirely to plan.
First we had the statement on launch night from Mark Zuckerberg himself that the usefulness of ‘checking in’ at locations via Facebook would allow users to find their friends in the real world.
Come on, we all know the real reason is: more >
The battle between Google TV and Apple TV took another turn this week and there are still no clear victors.
I recently opted for Apple TV because I wanted the original version but wasn’t prepared to pay the price. The re-release and price reduction to £99.99 may prove beneficial in the war as it snapped up early buyers.
Although not instantly blown away by Apple TV, I recognise the potential in what’s to come. Initially, the UK version does not give you access to TV programmes, just films and your own iTunes library. But, that will come in time in addition to apps or extensions similar to that on the iPhone. more >
Google rolled out the AdSense Beta this week to many of their partners.
This is a vast improvement on the old interface and it will improve the usability for the many users they have. It will bring Adsense into the same realm as it’s partners and distinctly brands them with the strong blue against Adwords Green and Analytics Orange. The colour palette has been vastly improved and uses bold colours instead of the bland colours of old. more >
Coast Design attended the UCAS Social Media conference on Monday 18 October at the Russell Hotel. The whole day showed the importance of using these tools in the real world and the underlying message was “you just can’t afford to ignore social networks”.
This point is especially true within the education sector, the 16-25 age group is the key demographic for use of social networks so it bodes the question – why are Universities and HEIs so afraid of implementing a social media strategy as part of their communications? more >
Image courtesy of pocket-lint.com
As soon as Apple made their string of announcements on 1st September 2010, I was straight onto iTunes trying to download the update. After a few hours of re-downloading iTunes 9, I managed to get the 10.0 update.
I quickly set up my account and I was away. Sometimes though, jumping the gun can have it’s pitfalls. There was no one there.
What is this? Google Wave?
Ah, Rick Rubin, I see you are on Ping, a quick follow and I received some very random musical preferences on my profile stream. Great, who else should I follow? Hmm… that looks good, recommendations based on your musical tastes and people you follow. Great! Who’s on there? more >
Image courtesy of JB Chicago
The continued growth of Facebook resulted in the 500 millionth user recently and the exponential advances made have great cause for concern throughout the industry.
The expansion into geolocation with Facebook Places will essentially kill off all competition. Foursquare, Gowalla et al should be quaking in their boots and they had better employ an offensive strategy against Facebook or they will become the next Friendster. Facebook has killed off a lot of competition but a lot of the time they have been better than the competition. more >
MySource Matrix has been slowly but steadily building up steam over the past few years and Squiz, the creators of the popular open source Content Management System recently announced a new era in it’s development.
The Squiz Suite will launch in November 2010 and will contain a multitude of tools to offer a complete solution for enterprises. more >
Image from Wikipedia
So, one of the most anticipated launches of 2009, Google Wave has come to an end less than a year later in 2010. At one point, Google Wave invites were passing hands on eBay for hundreds of dollars but now it’s getting brushed under the carpet. There were definitely some critics of the technology that set out to replace email. On the one hand, it was a concept that was better than email. On the other hand, perhaps this was a step too far ahead of its users but you can’t blame Google for trying.
I don’t think it has all been a waste though. A lot of that innovation won’t end up on the scrap heap, but surely must be reused in alternative projects. more >
We finally received word that the BBC News App would be released on Friday 23 July after months of waiting in the wings at the behest of the BBC Trust and many angry competitors. These competitors claimed that the release of a BBC app would be anti-competitive. But, in a period where news corporations are starting to charge to read their stance on world news, is it really anti-competitive or is it anti-capitalist? more >
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