Informal Insight

cyan1975: Chart: Social media fatigue (via mary1in)

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:28:51 -0500

cyan1975:

Chart: Social media fatigue

(via mary1in)

This Week The Internet Turns 40

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:44:00 -0400

It was 40 years ago this week that two computers transmitted their first message (from UCLA to Stanford). Only the letters “l” and “o” made it through before the two computers crashed. They were trying to send the word “login”.

Popular Science marks the occasion with 5 pivotal moments in the Internet’s history:

1969: Arpanet Connects
1992: The Commercialization of The Network
1993: The Rise of The Web
1999: Napster
2007: The iPhone

Although, I might argue that the Blackberry brought the internet to mobile devices. I do not disagree that iPhone perfected the experience and made it much less cumbersome. Also, it seems that Google should have a place on this list. Although it was not the first search engine, Google really revolutionized how the internet is used, from both a search and an advertising perspective.

Either way, happy birthday, Internet. You’ve had a good run so far.

Coming soon: International Domains This news is really huge for...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:54:00 -0400

Coming soon: International Domains

This news is really huge for the international community. Until now, domain names have been only in Latin based characters, but starting in early/mid 2010, there will be thousands of new characters available in almost any language. This will allow people to use their native characters (and keyboards) for domain names. I’m actually a little surprised this doesn’t already exist, but it is still very exciting.

Via: Mashable & NYTimes

People spent $400 million using this app

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:35:00 -0400

Although this number doesn’t come close to the amount people spend on Ebay.com (59.7 billion), it still seems significant that people are using the Ebay app so much. It is the first time that I’ve personally noticed a retail app that seems to really be generating significant revenue. I don’t use Ebay too much, but I can definitely see the advantage to having mobile access to you bids all day long.

Via

Are you confused by what Google Wave is, and you don’t...

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:28:00 -0400

Are you confused by what Google Wave is, and you don’t want to spend an hour and twenty minutes watching the entire launch speech to figure it out? Me too. Here is the best (2 minute) video summary I’ve seen so far.

Ummmm I need this t-shirt :) [buy.] Via:

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:48:05 -0400

Ummmm I need this t-shirt :)

[buy.]

Via:

Happy 11th Birthday, Google.

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:23:31 -0400

Happy 11th Birthday, Google.

PS4 Concept Ummm… this is Awesome Via:

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:27:01 -0400

PS4 Concept

Ummm… this is Awesome

Via:

Awesome ad for Federico Mauro. Via

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:35:49 -0400

Awesome ad for Federico Mauro.

Via

Dropbox on iPhone / iPod Touch

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:32:10 -0400

First of all, if you haven’t been using Dropbox, you should be. Here is an introduction video. The free software does many things, but the main purpose is that it automatically backs up your files online and gives you the option to share your files. It also has a website that allows you to access your files from any computer. It is essentially like an online USB drive. I’ve been using it for months now, and it is fantastic.

Well, the company has made a couple exciting changes lately. The first is a site redesign that makes navigating and sharing files much easier. The second is that they have submitted an application to Apple to bring access to your files on the iPhone / iPod Touch. The app isn’t out yet, but hopefully soon.

Here is what the application will do:

“Access your Dropbox on the go - All the contents of your Dropbox are available for viewing. You can even stream music and movies in your Dropbox straight to your iPhone.

Download files for offline viewing – Add files to your ‘Favorites’, and they’ll be accessible at any time.

Take photos and videos and sync them to your Dropbox – Take a photo from your iPhone and email its public link to a friend in less than a minute.

Share links to files in your Dropbox – What? Any file in your Dropbox? Srsly?

Photo galleries – Just like the ones online.”

Excellent news. Here is a screen shot:

Monopoly City Streets = Awesome

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:50:00 -0400

Last week, Monopoly and Google Maps launched a site that allows people to buy and trade streets all over the world called Monopoly City Streets. Overall it was a success, drawing 1.7 million people. Unfortunately, this was a few too many people for the servers to handle, so some people were able to buy up all the streets while others could not access the site. This and other problems (it was really easy to cheat) led to a version 2 to be launched last night/this morning, and it is very satisfying.

The rules are simple: Buy/trade streets anywhere in the world, build property on these streets, and use chance cards to either sabotage other players or build improvements on your land. To keep people coming back to the site, an offer on a street you own must be addressed within 7 days or it will automatically be accepted (no matter how crazy). Rent is collected from the property you own. Also, everyone gets a guaranteed $1 million every day.

The new launch completely reset the game, so everyone started over with no property and the default start of $3 million. The reset also introduced some new features like taxes, limits on trading, automatically repossessing all property if you don’t sign in at least once every 2 weeks, and methods for catching cheaters.

As of right now, the game is meant to promote a new version of Monopoly that will come out soon, so the site was intended to be temporary. At the end, a winner would be declared. However, if the site stays as popular as it has been so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if Monopoly City Streets stays around for awhile.

I do think that it would be fun to keep the end date as a time to declare a “winner.” Then they could reset the game and have it start over again. This would make the game more interesting and would give new people a fighting chance in the future.

If you haven’t checked Monopoly City Streets out yet, you should! Today is the “first” day of buying, so you will not be behind.

Predicting the Economy with Google

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:51:43 -0400

According to Google’s economist, Hal Varian, less searches are being made for unemployment benefits. This drop began in March and has continuously declined since. Google has also showed increased interest in the housing market and real estate. This leads some to believe that government agencies should consider using search data as another way of understanding the state of the economy.

In the past, Google has already shown to be good at tracking yearly flu outbreaks with surprising accuracy based on people’s searching habits. It gives a real-time snapshot of who is searching for flu keywords, and is much quicker than relying on hospital data.

It is almost surprising how reliable this data can be, and I can see how it would be useful to begin incorporating this data as another way of testing the state of the economy. In fact, I’m a little surprised that this information hasn’t been used before.

Via: cyan1975

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 11:58:46 -0400

Via: cyan1975

Palm Pre = iPhone copy cat. We all know they are trying to...

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:03:51 -0400

Palm Pre = iPhone copy cat. We all know they are trying to compete with the iPhone, but I didn’t know they were trying to be an exact clone. I saw their commercial on TV last week. Soon after I saw this post on Mashable. Apparently I am not the only one who noticed the overt similarities. It seems to me that people are going to confuse the Palm Pre with the iPhone, and overall this will work in Apple’s favor since they have better brand recognition.

Joe Heller. (Via: thedailywhat:)

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:23:25 -0400

Joe Heller. (Via: thedailywhat:)

Although it is technically impossible to obtain over 100 followers in this hypothetical situation,...

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:18:26 -0400

Although it is technically impossible to obtain over 100 followers in this hypothetical situation, it is still interesting to see Twitter summed up like this.

Via: Mashable

Interesting update on social networking stats. If you want to...

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:15:00 -0400

Interesting update on social networking stats. If you want to check out all the stat sources click here.

Some of the highlights:

If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia
% of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.

It seems anyone who would still consider social media to only be a fad are only kidding themselves. This doesn’t mean that Facebook will remain king (see MySpace a few years ago), but like it or not, social media is here to stay. What is particularly interesting is how social media will be used to deliver tailored content in the future, and I mean more specific than advertising unlimited diaper bags, formula, and diapers to people who are listed as engaged on Facebook. It will actually be advertising that is useful to the targeted person. It’s not quite there yet.

LG New Chocolate BL40 This phone = awesome. Not sure how it...

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:12:44 -0400

LG New Chocolate BL40

This phone = awesome. Not sure how it resembles the previous Chocolate though? Oh well, I’m over it.

Via: geekystuff

Twitter just launched their redesigned their site. Now they...

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:05:06 -0400

Twitter just launched their redesigned their site. Now they assume that new visitors know what Twitter is, so you are no longer greeted with “Twitter in Plain English.” Instead they show you the latest tweeting trends as an effort to become the world’s watercooler. The redesign finally utilizes what Twitter is good at: aggregating what everyone is saying. If you already have a Twitter account, the only way to see this new design is to log out.

It is great to finally see Twitter move out of the stage where they felt like they needed to explain themselves. Now they can actually use the homepage for a purpose beyond convincing people to use Twitter.

Who doesn’t love a good microsite? Mad Men just came out...

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:11:00 -0400

Who doesn’t love a good microsite? Mad Men just came out with a new one that allows you to “Mad Men Yourself” as a way to advertise the upcoming season. The result is a custom character in the 60’s ad style you see above. The concept is simple and borrows from the idea from the Simpsonize Me microsite, but it is always fun to create your own custom character for a show.