Apple adds to the trendy social networks Ping, a platform designed to support its model of selling music. Ping is integrated into iTunes in October, and part with a great advantage over other similar social networks: it has a potential audience 160 million users, ie all the people who use iTunes.
After testing a while for this morning, I think Ping is very green. It presents very basic errors, like the fact that nothing else you sign up send an email in English, or try five minutes after you can not successfully load a profile photo. At least the process to complete your profile is very simple: try to upload the avatar, write your biography, choose your favorite genres and set your privacy options.
The starting point is that Ping "Knowing your friends, learn a lot about music, and not without reason.Apple's intentions are clear: to enhance its business model of selling music through iTunes socialization. Amazon has taken a similar step quite recently, and given the loss of credibility of traditional advertising this move makes sense.
I guess if Ping is successful, it will not take long to broaden its contents to everything that Apple sells. Cease to be just a music platform on which you can follow your friends and your favorite music artists, to enter the world of film, video games and other digital content.
Apple is very accurate pointing. He knows that those who can sustain their business of selling music is not the "normal" users, but the fans. Those who are able to travel to attend a concert of his idols, or buy the latest DVD of your favorite band are the ones paying the amount of 0.99 euros for a song that, if they wished, could be downloaded for free off iTunes .
Have you tried Ping? Do you think he will succeed?
Several weeks ago I bought a 16-gigabyte iPhone 4. After all these days of intensive use, I think I've done a pretty good idea of what you can offer this product for Apple, and I'd like to share with you all. My first main advice is: if you already have an iPhone 3G, do not buy an iPhone in April.
The new Apple smartphone only offers significant improvements compared to the iPhone 3G. New design (some worse than before), best camera to take pictures and videos and especially the retina screen. In my opinion all these improvements do not justify its high price to pay.However, things change when compared with the iPhone 3G, a mobile terminal which has already been two years in the Spanish market. In this case the differences between both phones themselves are notable:
Display retina: Its screen is the best I've seen on a mobile phone. I can not remember who you heard that "after fiddling with an iPhone in April, the rest of the screens will look blurry."
Multitasking: The SOI 4 for the 3G iPhone did not support multitasking, so this is an important added. Although the manner in which Apple has implemented this feature disappointed many, I have no complaint.
Increased battery life: Although still very limited autonomy, is not it that there is a noticeable improvement in this regard, especially with the phone on hold. However, if you start surfing the Internet, while listening to music and have several applications in multitasking you will see that the battery is discharged very quickly.
Video recording and better camera: A must and that Apple should talk included in their first iPhone. Needless to say more, except that this time both the videos as the photos are of excellent quality for a mobile phone.
IO 4, now: The latest update of Apple's operating system in the 3G was a disaster and could not stand the multitasking and its operation was slow. What in the iPhone 3G was torture becomes the best operating system for mobile phones in the iPhone 4. Android also seems to me a fantastic platform, but each is free to choose, no matter who he gets upset.
Regarding "antennagate" if it is true that the bars that show the coverage change depending on the manner in which subject to the iPhone in April, I assure you I have not had any problems. I have used to make and receive calls both in Madrid and Segovia, and the result was always the same: no effect and excellent sound quality.
I'm glad I bought the iPhone 4. I got to the point system Movistar, which gave me about 130,000 points to renew my old phone. In total, and after waiting several days to call me in the store because when I had none for him, cost me 250 euros plus the points he had accumulated. A very high spending but made up for a bit to sell my 3G iPhone for 100 euros.
What do you think this phone? I leave you with the official Apple video, which shows the capabilities of the iPhone in April, and several links of interest:
Go ahead I am user of Windows and MAC for years, both at home and in my work. For some time I have noticed that if you say you like Apple, are quickly identified as a "fanboy". In case you do not know, according to Wikipedia a
Used Fanboy is a term to describe a male Devoted and Who is highly biased in opinion towards a new single subject or hobby Within a Given Field.
Are all football fans are hooligans ? Yes, we must recognize that Apple has done what all brands and very few seek to get it: enter the heart of its consumers to become fans. And yes, Apple products are very expensive, Windows is much better if you want to play video games, Steve Jobs sometimes spent with their restrictions on the App Store and etc etc etc. We already know all. Can not we go beyond the obvious? Returning to the football metaphor, I am a supporter of Real Madrid and I do not recognize the superiority prevents current FC Barcelona, Iniesta and Messi or are exceptional players. However, surveys like this are becoming harder to see in the field of technology and the Internet.
Whether you like Apple does not mean you're a mindless fanboy (forgive the redundancy). Competition between brands is good and benefits all consumers. And, regrettably for the legion of seasoned preachers anti-Apple, the Apple brand also has good things. I do not go telling people that hate Apple (yes, even these extremes come) that if there are many more Windows viruses and Trojans, that if the chances of a MAC hangs are much smaller, and so on. Simply respect the difference, I try all possible alternatives and try to judge accordingly. Who is really the fanboy?
I just found this in Google Reader graphics. I have found an excellent metaphor for the current state of Web 2.0: great empires such as Facebook and emerging countries such as Foursquare ... ... I wonder what the state border next year.
I found this graphic on Tumblr. It has made me reflect on why we love Twitter so much, and I've come to the conclusion that the limitations imposed on us. Such restrictions make the best of our creativity, and that force us to express ourselves with the fewest possible resources.
Google Wave was launched in May 2009. The first invitations were auctioned on eBay ...
Google is also wrong. The service that promised to end the email as we know it and, incidentally, to revolutionize the Internet, will cease to be developed. In the official statement on his blog, Google said yesterday he was proud of his mistakes, and would implement the lessons learned from Wave in future products. A lot of this press do not care, because it seems that almost no one used Google Wave. However, a few of us took the end of this application as a bad news that has caught us all by surprise.
Wave Google generated expectations too high. So users stopped using so fast, because they thought it would be a kind of substitute Facebook. The most anticipated application became one of the great failures of the year. But Google Wave was something else. You have blamed failures of privacy and usability, but my experience with him has been good. Some say it is a tool ahead of its time, but I think it was a useful application that has not received sufficient support from users, which has meant that Google will close later this year.
I used it exclusively on my work. Although attempts had been using it for recreational purposes, it was useful to me when working in groups with fellow agency. Therein lay its full potential: to collaborate with others in real time was an experience in Wave. Google Docs can provide a similar result, but I was more comfortable and faster to use Google Wave. However, I must confess that I was the only one who intended to use this tool, and never was able to win the confidence of my coworkers. They preferred the chains of emails to do when brainstorming distance ...
Are you for people like me will miss at Google Wave?And if so, what use you gave you?
Flipboard is a free application for IPAD which describes itself as "The world's first social magazine. If not the first, but after a few days to try it I assure you it is worth. If you have an IPAD, is a must given a chance. Why? Because it offers a novel way of consuming digital content through an interface fully adapted to the Apple tablet.
Flipboard has two basic ingredients for success: it's free and quality is evident. That meant that, during the first days of its launch, demand for user requests to synchronize your Twitter and Facebook accounts with this application could not be served. A This is called "dying of success." I had to wait two days until, after receiving several emails in which the team Flipboard apologized and thanked me my interest, I could connect the two accounts.
The contents that share our contacts on Twitter and Facebook are in a very attractive, as if it were a magazine (digital). We can see their tweets, share the links on Facebook and other information supplied by other means perfectly integrated into the application, and we also have the option of posting to Twitter with just one click.
Will you save applications like this to traditional journalism? I think not, because the future of journalism has always been quality information, not the format or media. What is certain is that these new inventions will provide attractive opportunities to invent new forms of advertising, and will strengthen an unstoppable trend: the power of users and prescribers of view (at the expense of journalists).
If you still have doubts I leave you with a video showing the operation of Flipboard. What do you think?
On August 6 hits theaters Spanish Origin, "the latest film by Christopher Nolan. Its original title is "Inception" and, according to Nolan,is a thriller based on the architecture of the mind. What struck me about this film, aside from its quality, is a detail of his class. Nolan, already used viral marketing techniques to publicize his film "The Dark Knight gives us the opportunity to meet the prologue of what we will be in the film with a comic book:" The Cobol Job. "
This is nothing new. Wachowki The brothers were pioneers in telling stories in multiple formats, changing the way in which stories are told in cinema. Before, they wrote the screenplay, the movie was filmed, the public saw and that was the whole process. Now, movies are not created, but "parallel universes" which also give rise to video games, comics, soundtracks, books, etc. Not to mention applications for mobile phones and increasingly used technique of augmented reality.
Coinciding with the release of Matrix Reloaded in 2003, the Wachowski contacted some of the most famous animation directors to film "Animatrix," a series of shorts that extended the story we were counting on his films. And then come some games on the series (rather poor quality .)
This allows for two readings:
Now the experience of consuming culture has been enriched considerably, improving the user experience, they can choose many ways to enjoy the same story.
Now as every story we also likely to continue giving money is exploited in all ways imaginable s: aftermath more or less relevant, of questionable quality video games ... we all have many examples come to mind.
No one has reflected on this phenomenon that Henry Jenkins in his book "Convergence.Culture.The culture of the convergence of media " . So if you want to know more about the new ways of telling stories that have emerged in the twenty-first century do not stop reading it.
I'm already impatient to see "Origin" in any theater of Madrid ... But I think I'll read the comic before
A good book to understand the new form of storytelling in this century.
A week ago today I bought the 64-gigabyte 3G IPAD. I think it's time to have evaluated it easy, and I would like to present some conclusions about this from Apple. I anticipate that I'm a fan of the apple brand for two years, particularly since I bought the iPhone 3G that still remains my phone, but try to be as objective as possible:
The case I bought, it was not Apple, can also be used to support .*
Is heavy: His size is ideal for reading books, but I think his weight is excessive. When you hold in your hands for several minutes and start getting tired, nothing to do with other products that are more or less direct competition like the Kindle DX. Fortunately, if I'm home and I want to watch a movie, I can use the cover I bought for support. Which leads me to point 2.
Steve Jobs is a marketing genius: Since the IPAD is an expensive product, would not be bad to come accompanied by a cover, or headphones, or a screen saver. Unfortunately, this is not true. It is quite painful for the pocket, after almost 800 euros to spend on what many describe as an "iPhone on steroids," you have to pay another 50 euros in a case and 20 euros in the screen saver, for example.
Impressive screen burn retinas: The color, definition, their response to every time we touch ... everything is at a very high level, which enriches the user experience to make a device IPAD addictive. And here comes the problem: if you wear glasses, or if you are used to watching movies in the dark, and spend long periods of time looking at your screen, your eyes are going to notice. And this brings us to point 4.
iBooks is one promising thing I mentioned in the previous sub overuse affects how our eyes, also applies to iBooks. That reading a book for hours, as once we have all our favorite best-selling paper, it becomes nearly risk activity with IPAD. Joking aside, iBooks promises to revolutionize the way we read many books, for convenience, price, interactivity, and many other reasons that are beyond the scope of this post. That was the main reason I bought the IPAD, although still a variety of titles, both pay and free.
The battery life is pretty fair: It becomes so small as the iPhone, but had not been bad that their autonomy was a little older. Although intensively use it do not have to charge daily, as is the case with his "little brother." Now, you can not load it on all computers. In fact, I was quite surprised when I connected for the first time and saw in the upper right corner of the screen the phrase "is not being charged." And it is the only IPAD load USB ports for the latest MAC computers (my MacBook Pro purchased just a year ago should not be "recent"), which always charge your battery by connecting it to the wall charger.
Movistar MicroSim card works perfectly: It takes about twenty minutes to activate, so you can take it on the spot. Yes, I attended the business told me that if he shared the tariff already had contracted with the iPhone (flat fee of 15 euros per month) would have problems, so I decided not to swing the lead with speed and extended it to 25 euros. So far I have no complaints about the speed of the connection of Movistar MicroSim.
Its size is almost the same as that of a netbook .*
Abstract: IPAD is an expensive product but delivers what it promises. All who go to the store know what there is, because we have heard a thousand times its many shortcomings and its many virtues. So only recommend their purchase to Apple fans have vented economy, or people for work has to be trendy in new technologies and formats of digital content.
Revolutionary? So far only one product with a great commercial success, so we have to wait to draw conclusions. I, as I had made unwarranted expectations before purchase, I am satisfied with my IPAD.
* The photos that illustrate this post were taken with my iPhone 3G.
This is a post for geeks. I mean, the hardened tuiteros desvirtualizarnos we usually once in a while, and recently attended a meeting in Madrid. In it, David Bayon said: "To write posts about Twitter, that really is sad." All those present burst into laughter. So if you have not laughed with a knowing smile, I recommend you stop reading
Anyway, I spend time on public transport. As I am a little anxious, I love messing with my iPhone during the journey I do every day. I was testing iBooks, Apple's new application that aims to become the iTunes of books. I recognize that the iPhone screen is not the best to read a book, but I decide to download one: Fortunata and Jacinta, by Benito Pérez Galdós. In Castilian and free.
I download at a time, and I start looking through it (maybe I should say "browse", because the pages that simulates iBooks are not true leaves). Soon there is a phrase that catches my attention and I would love to share with others:
This is the phrase I wanted to share.
Select the text and update it as a quote in my Tumblr, I have also installed application on my iPhone, and whose contents are also posted on my Twitter account automatically. I've been reading books all my life and this feeling had not felt before: enjoy any time of any book just download, and share content that my friends call me the attention, in real time.
Tumblr I use this account to publish the phrases that I call the attention of the books I read.
Of course, printed books are more grateful to the senses. Each has his touch, his own odor, weight and look different. But the possibilities offered by the digitization of content we make up. I know many of you will think that no, nothing is comparable to open a new book, spend your pages and smell it first ...
And I understand, but I believe that digital books are the future, but live together for a long time with traditional books. What do you think?
