Tag Archives: app

Blog Technology

What’s Happening to Twitter?

December 13, 2011 – 1:10 am

Twitter released their latest mobile application and as expected it has met the fury of the user base. Twitter has strayed away from simple “microblogging” to become a full featured ad delivery tool. That’s right, Twitter has finally moved from the simple 140 character status share to a social network tailored to the demands of the marketing gods.

Twitter for iPhone is no longer an interaction tool to create, it has become a tool to consume. Consume what? Well tweets of course, but who’s tweets? Gone is the “mentions” tab. Gone is the presence of direct messages. Now in place you have “Connect” and “Discover”. What do you connect and discover? I’m not exactly sure. Granted I haven’t really used Twitter for iPhone since Tweetie was purchased by Twitter. I have been using Tweetbot (more on that later).

So what’s the deal? Twitter seems to be pushing their product in a new direction — Twitter has made a bold move to make Twitter a place to serve information from people and companies who can afford to push said information to users. The “Discover” tab lets users follow the latest trends and news stories but who cares? It is often filled with items I simply don’t care about. It is items from people I don’t want to know or interact with. Yet it is right there, in my face.

Twitter seems to be moving in a backward direction. While they want to increase participation it is clear that the company is moving in an ad friendly direction. The app went from being Tweetie beautiful to Twitter for iPhone ugly. The app has wasted space, it isn’t efficient, and for the love of all things… what happened to direct messages? What about multiple account support? All of this buried.

It have a sneaking suspicion that Twitter is running out of steam. Sure it’s gaining ads but at what cost? Twitter has always lacked organization and a firm base. The 140 character and @reply system has worked but there was never any structure. No form like Facebook — it is so easy to follow interaction on Facebook. Twitter is going toward a “discovery” focus which is code for ad focus while Facebook is aiming to create a world where people can share ideas, likes, dislikes, and photos.

So all of this rambling, now what? I love Twitter, it has always been my favorite but their seemingly hell bent on serving the advertisers over the users. Remember the #dickbar? Well the new app is more or less just the #DickApp. It sucks. It’s ugly and lacks true function. The redesign leads me to believe I understand why visionary Tweetie creator Loren B left the company recently. If I saw my product get executed I would leave too.

Facebook steams ahead. Never thought I would say that!

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Mobile Web

Facebook Messenger Hurts SMS

August 10, 2011 – 9:33 am

I spent the latter part of the day toying around with Facebook’s new stand alone messaging app that was released earlier. Everyone knows I can’t stand Facebook as a service, I think they are horrible in terms of privacy and function. Of course for all of my disdain I can’t seem to press delete on my account page. Of course this attitude is the perfect biased base to review an app. Let’s begin.

The app itself is built on top of one of my favorite iPhone apps Beluga. Probably the best messenger app released by a third party. Facebook was quick to acquire this app earlier in the year and for good reason. Beluga is/was excellent and I came safely say Facebook Messenger is just as excellent. Yikes.

The real love for me is the blow it deals to the cellular companies. Specifically in terms of SMS and messaging charges. I pay $30 a month an have for the last 3 years to send 160 character messages to friends. This app eliminates the need for that “function”. Keep in mind SMS is free for the cellular companies, it is 100% profit for them. Because FBM works through data there is no SMS charge.

FBM does a great job of being simple and it keeps the stuffy feeling to a minimum. I enjoy interacting with friends on there. It also works nicely with Facebook’s unified Inbox — all of my chats are saved online and I can continue where I left off if I hop on my Macbook or sign on somewhere else. No break in communication.

The app excels because it is Facebook and everyone I know is on Facebook. Where it falls short is it is connected to Facebook. Facebook has enough information on me — I don’t need my personal conversations stored on the Facebook servers. This is the major issue I have with FBM…

And enter iMessages.

Apple has the answer in the pending iOS5 release. Nearly everyone I am friends with has an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad and will soon be able to send messages and pictures for free at excellent speeds to one another! As long as you are on an iOS device we can communicate.

So while Facebook messages is a great step in an important direction (killing the SMS pricing structure) it leaves me quite concerned in terms of privacy. I will continue to use it but iMessages has been excellent thus far. My time spent beta testing iOS5 has me chomping at the bit to kill off my $30 a month SMS plan. No need for it anymore!

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Blog

On the Google+ iOS App

July 19, 2011 – 2:11 pm

Long story short is it needs some work but it really isn’t a terrible start. A short list of initial thoughts are:

  • Needs to have an option (at the very least) to hide the most recent comments left on a status.
  • Needs to add the ability to reply/tag users in a post by typing the + or @ key.
  • Landscape would be nice.
  • The scroll seems a bit “Android” to me. Would be nice to have a more native app and not just an Android port.
  • Thanks to my brother for this one; no way to post from the main screen! What? How!?
  • Suppress the feed! Posts need to be ordered chronologically, not by activity!

Not much of a wish list. I think the app will generate more participation overall obviously but the real question one must ask is “why would I share to Google before Twitter or Facebook?”

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