Categorie: social

Traffic Vs Friendship: My Tough Decision To Turn On Facebook Subscribe

social, TC

fbsub022012I’ve been using Facebook since its early years. So today it has the most complete and accurate set of connections to people I’ve known throughout my life. Exactly because of its success in assembling this group, I’ve avoided turning on its five month-old Subscribe feature — until now.

For the many others of you who both want attention but don’t want to spam your friends about your work, here’s my reasoning for taking my Facebook profile public.

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What On Earth Is Google Doing With Orkut?

social, TC

logout_logo_2011_no_betaJust spotted in Orkut, Google’s also-ran social networking site: a new Google+ badge, one of the first integrations between the two services. Orkut members who also have a Google+ account are now being rewarded in the form of a badge reading “Google+ user,” which they can choose to make visible on their Orkut profile. No, it’s not a big deal in terms of the feature itself (oooh, a badge), but it’s an indication of Orkut’s current status in Google’s eyes. Orkut and Google+ are different products, and both sites will continue to exist, the company tells us today by way of explanation.

“Orkut has a large user base, especially in Brazil and India, and we will continue to invest in the product,” notes a Google spokesperson. Wait really? How on earth does that fit in with your current social strategy? Sorry, Google, continuing Orkut support just doesn’t make any sense.

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Forkly 2.0 Puts Your Taste Graph To Use With New, Personalized Recommendations

apps, dining, forkly, mobile, recommendations, social, Startups, TC

forkly-1Forkly, the food rating app from Brightkite founders Brady Becker and Martin May, just launched a major update dubbed “Forkly 2.0.” Along with a user interface overhaul which features a faster feed, bigger photos and an upgraded user profile design, the app update also includes improved menus and a “Discover” function to offer better, personalized recommendations. Hey, your Forkly “taste graph” just got useful!

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Serial Entrepreneur & GetTaxi Co-Founder’s ‘Loyalize’ Acquired for $5M

social, Startups, TC

Shahar SmirinLoyalize, a social TV audience platform, has been been acquired by Function(X) for $5M in cash and stock. The company intends to integrate Loyalize into Viggle, a television loyalty product designed for iOS devices.

Loyalize was founded by serial-entrepreneur Shahar Smirin whose current flagship project is GetTaxi, which former TechCrunch Editor Sarah Lacy called ‘Way Beyond Uber‘.

Smirin, along with his GetTaxi co-founder, Roi More, are also the founding duo of Vigoda.ru, a major daily deal site in Russia and the Ukraine with expected revenues for 2012 in the range of $200-250M.

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Housebites Cooks Up A Storm As The New Airbnb-For-Takeout [TCTV]

social, Startups, TC, Video

housebitesI must admit I was skeptical when Housebites first launched last year. It seemed a quaint little business attacking a hugely established market but in a way which looked, as least from the outside, to be unscalable. The premise of Housebites is this: the average person likes the convenience of take-out food (in the UK it’s called takeaway) but the food itself is usually unhealthy and processed. So why not capture all those wanna-be chefs, connect them with customers via location and, voila, you capture a potentially big business? It seemed all very well, but I figured they’d find a handful of chefs, but vetting them would be too slow. After all, Airbnb had scaled because anyone could register their apartment and start trading. How do you do that with your kitchen when you might actually poison someone?

I’m happy to say I was wrong – Housebites is now growing at a fair clip, now with 10,000 registered users. As CEO and founder Simon Prockter told me in the interview below, Housebites has tapped into a very disruptive model which could well change the whole restaurant industry. But more of that in a moment.

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Ad Agency BBH Moves Into Social Gaming, Seeks Developers Who Like Lollipops

chuck studios, facebook, mobile, social, social gaming, TC

Screen shot 2012-02-20 at 06.59.37Bartle Bogle Hegarty today became the latest company to make the leap into social gaming, and it is on the lookout to give seed funding to social gaming developers who want to make the jump with them.

The ad agency’s Asian division, BBH Asia Pacific, has opened a new venture, Chuck Studios, which will be run in partnership with one of its longtime clients, the confectionery giant Perfetti Van Melle — makers of Chupa Chups lollipops. Together, the two will invest in social games promoting the brand, in exchange for a share of whatever revenue is made from the content.

The first product of the venture, Chupa Chucker, made in partnership with studio Atommica, goes live today on Facebook. Future games will also run on iOS, Android, and HTML5, BBH tells us. “The only requirement is that the numbers have to check out.”

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Ad Agency BBH Moves Into Social Gaming, Seeks Developers Who Like Lollipops

bbh, chuck studios, chupa chups, facebook, mobile, social, social gaming, TC

Screen shot 2012-02-20 at 06.59.37Bartle Bogle Hegarty today became the latest company to make the leap into social gaming, and it is on the lookout to give seed funding to social gaming developers who want to make the jump with them.

The ad agency’s Asian division, BBH Asia Pacific, has opened a new venture, Chuck Studios, which will be run in partnership with one of its longtime clients, the confectionery giant Perfetti Van Melle — makers of Chupa Chups lollipops. Together, the two will invest in social games promoting the brand, in exchange for a share of whatever revenue is made from the content.

The first product of the venture, Chupa Chucker, made in partnership with studio Atommica, goes live today on Facebook. Future games will also run on iOS, Android, and HTML5, BBH tells us. “The only requirement is that the numbers have to check out.”

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Beyond Facebook: The Rise Of Interest-Based Social Networks

interest graph, interest-based social networks, Jay Jamison, Opinion, social, social networks, Startups, TC

Social-networks-by-2011-will-be-towards-maturityWith the pending public offering of Facebook anticipated to be the largest tech IPO in history, it’s an interesting time to think about where we go from here. Some say “social is done,” Facebook is all the social media anyone would ever want or need. Unquestionably, as it nears one billion accounts, in the solar system of social media, Facebook is the Sun — the gravitational center around which everything social revolves.

But while some may pronounce that Facebook is all the social we’d ever need, users clearly haven’t gotten the memo.

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Irrationally Paranoid? AdiOS Shows Which Apps Access Your Address Book

apps, mobile, Opinion, social, TC

Address Book ParanoiaDoes Address-gate have you terrified that your mobile apps are secretly slurping up your address book? AdiOS is a free new Mac program that in seconds detects which of your iOS apps have the ability to access your phone numbers and email contacts. AdiOS doesn’t indicate if or how the apps are transmitting your address book, but you should still delete any that access it.

No. That was a joke. This has all gotten ridiculous.

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Syrian Government Blocks Bambuser’s Live Video Of Crisis

apps, bambuser, mobile, qik, social, TC

Skärmavbild 2012-02-15 kl. 07.12.44Bambuser, a live mobile video streaming startup along the lines of Qik, has become something of an underground hit in the last couple of years because of its ability to stream video over poor mobile connections. That’s made it a favourite of emerging markets, in part because it supports over 200 different mobile devices, from cheap Nokias to the latest iPhone. During the Arab Spring last year it was used by protesters to document various uprisings across the region. The platform has lately been used to great effect by anti-government protesters in strife-torn Syria. But this morning the government blocked 3G and desktop Web access to the service.

Yesterday BBC News was carrying Bambuser’s live stream of black smoke billowing from a site in Homs, the scene of much of the uprising against the Syrian regime.

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