Amazing maps of Twitter and Flickr activity

Once in a while you come across something that helps highlight a part of life that is perhaps more extensive than we think. This map shows how extensive mobile uploading is nowadays.

The map created by Eric Fischer combines data from the photo-sharing website Flickr and the micro-blogging network Twitter. The orange dots represent pictures uploaded to Flickr, while the blue dots are tweets, and the white dots represent locations that have been both tweeted and uploaded to Flickr.

City and tourist locations show up most – particularly with Flickr uploads

You can see from the map that the UK appears to be a ‘hot spot’ for Twitter and Flickr use, you can also see Paris clearly picked out in northern France. So simple but amazing!

 

This is a brilliant explanation of social media…

This is just brilliant, often the best explanations are the simplest and this hits the nail firmly on the head – and I particularly like the reference to Google+!

 

Is Facebook really the way to get youngsters to vote?

The state of British politics does not appeal to the average 18 year old it seems (or to most of us), the percentage turn out at recent general elections has been getting progressively worse so the question has to be how to get the kids involved as they are our future.

And recent research suggests almost twice as many 18 year olds use Facebook than are actually registered to vote!

The Electoral Commission used Facebook last year to encourage teenagers to get involved, with 15,000 going on to claim their right to vote. But analysis of electoral roll data from hundreds of council areas by Experian found the total number is actually falling.

There are an estimated 1.05 million 18 year olds in the UK with Facebook accounts, but only 520,000 who registered to vote, and that was 3% fewer than in 2010.

.Official figures show that only 56% of 19-24 year olds and 55% of 17 and 18 year olds are on the electoral register.

The Electoral Commissions campaign using social media to attract young voters is clever, but is not the answer. As long as our political system remains in its current ‘tit for tat’ state I can’t see youngsters feeling that they have any part to play in the political system – sad but true. And very unhealthy for the future of our country.

Surely we need to make this part of the education system – otherwise our politicians will always be as they are now – how depressing!

 

Another Google ‘duffer’?

As I have commented before I really like my social media and things – I keep up with the news via a combination of Twitter, RSS feeds and various news apps. But, in the main its the RSS feeds and Twitter that I find most effective, they provide a short headline that I can either ‘ignore’ or dig deeper on. All part of the ‘sound bite’ generation I suppose.

just not 'nice'

So as I blogged about earlier this week I was keen to give Flipboard a go when it came available for the iPhone and it did not disappoint. I am very impressed with it and find it as an iPhone app should be – very intuitive to use and smooth and ‘nice’ to use and look at.

I have been keen to look at Google’s effort in this sector of the market, it’s called Currents and was released a week or so ago – but only in the USA. I have no idea why Google always seem to do this. They are a global brand so you would think it would be possible to release things world-wide at the same time – but apparently not!

Anyway, I remembered that I have a US login for iTunes that I have used previously to access things like this via the US iTunes store. So after a quick reactivation today I downloaded Currents to have a play.

My initial reaction was that it is quite a good attempt at bringing a magazine style experience to this type of feed – and if Flipboard had not been there it might have been quite impressive! But it just does have the same feel as Flipboard. It is not as easy to use or as pleasing to the eye. More importantly it doesn’t work as smoothly and consequently isn’t as ‘special’ an experience.

Particular annoyances?

• You have to swipe sideways to read more in an article rather than the iPhone ‘norm’ of scrolling down.
• It doesn’t show feeds with new stories differently from ones without
• It is like Google+ – not obvious to use

So will I keep trying it out? Possibly for a week or so, but unless I have an ‘epiphany’ I don’t expect it to remain on my iPhone long-term. Is it me or do Google lack a certain something when it comes to design these days?

 

Zeitgeist 2011: Year In Review

I am not a huge fan of Google – any company that has such a significant hold over us all can’t be healthy. However as a company with so much data and access to it they are able to put together a fairly impressive review of the year.

This is a typically ‘flashy’ multimedia tour of the year and is well worth a view.

The review can be seen here – enjoy.

 

Flipboard – the way forward?

one of the 'home' pages

I am a self-confessed ‘geek’ – I love the ability to access things on the road and particularly love social media and the available news and articles via RSS feeds and the like. As such I am always on the look out for some form of aggregator to pull together a number of my ‘feeds’ into one place.

To date this has proved difficult and I have had to use separate apps for things like Twitter (Tweetbot which is great), Facebook (their own app) and news feeds (Byline – another great app), they all work fine but I have now found Flipboard which brings them all together in a very clever and ‘pretty’ manner. This youtube clip explains it really well.

an example of a tweet

I have not switched totally yet, but it all looks pretty promising so far. It is well worth a look, as the way you flip pages is just amazing. The presentation is also rather cool – it is more like a magazine style with pictures. That makes it sound a bit ‘simple’ but as you can see from the attached pictures it makes for a much richer and interesting experience. I for one am sold on it and hope that it develops as time goes by to include even more services – like LinkedIn for example.

news story - tap to read

I am aware that Google have just launched their take on this in the USA (why only there?) and it’s called Google Currents and it would I am sure pull down my Google Reader feeds really well (i currently use Byline). I also assume it would show them in more of a ‘magazine’ view (like Flipboard). However, my big reservation here is that it will be made to link to Google+ and not Facebook – and I really dislike Google+ so this will probably stop me trialing it when (or if) it finally becomes available in Europe.

Flipboard is well worth a look (and its free) – if nothing else it shows how user-friendly and visually exciting apps can be! This has to be the future!

 

Christmas and networking

Now I am probably missing something fundamental here, but can someone explain to me quite why we all feel the urge the increase our business networking ten fold over the weeks leading up to Christmas – a time when we are all very busy at work anyway?

I have been looking at my diary for this week and I am out every evening at a client ‘bash’. Now don’t get me wrong – the chance to get together with other professionals and clients is welcomed, but why do it all over a two-week period? Networking events occur all year but there are always a huge number leading up to Christmas. I can guarantee that I will see certain people at every one of the events I attend this week, surely we don’t need an ‘excuse’ like Christmas to organise this type of get together?

With social media now such a huge part of so many people’s lives it is easier to keep up with others movements and careers, and a ‘face to face’ meeting is a pleasant change, but perhaps spreading them across the year might actually make them more effective? Or is it that in the current (or any economic climate) change is seen by our competitors as something bad?

I really don’t know the answer, but it does make you wonder…..

 

Has email had its day?

Interesting times we live in – the web has become an integral part of our existence. We all have email addresses and even the least “IT savvy” among us have mastered this form of interaction – ask the Post Office!

So when the founder of Facebook announces that “email is dead” should we be worried? Or is he right?

Obviously Facebook have a vested interest in how we all relate to each other via the web, there are a staggeringly large number of Facebook users worldwide. And they can interact without using email!

Google also want us to use their conduit – Google+, but so far this doesn’t appear to be happening. We also have LinkedIn, twitter and other social networks we can use. So does Mr Zuckerburg have a point?

I think he does, only to a point and more because email has become abused so badly. The level of spam in the ether has devalued emails to the point that they have become a daily deluge that has to be filtered by the user. Our office spam filter removes around 97% of our incoming email – a frightening statistic!

But if we ditch email and move to another form of contact there are some issues that need to be dealt with;

How are we to limit its abuse so that it doesn’t go the same way as email?

In business some form of paper trail would still be necessary.

And surely the cycle will turn full circle again and we will find whatever we adopt next becoming ‘flooded’ after a period?

Perhaps what we need are far stronger controls on our current system to prevent spam and put the value back into email?

 

More on Ocado!

I firmly believe in giving credit where it is due – and Ocado have in my view performed very well in sorting out my issues.

Since my blog about them earlier today I have been contacted by Ocado via twitter to confirm they have noted my issue (and to thank me for being nice about them in my blog). The contact came within 45 minutes of my blog going live – so that is pretty quick in my books!

Prior to this they had also converted the £10 voucher they offered for the trouble we had into a direct discount from our bill. This was due to the discount being unusable with any other voucher (like the free wine one we got last week).

So again, a good speedy and acceptable response – I am getting to like Ocado (just incase you hadn’t guessed!)

 

Blogging – good for the soul?

It is now a couple of years since I began my blog. As with most people who start blogging I was tempted to try by seeing what one of my colleagues at work had done through his blog. It has been an enjoyable experience so far, I have found that it makes me read around subjects and the news more widely, so it has to be good for me!

There are those who disagree of course, like Andrew Marr, in his famous tirade about bloggers, he told the Cheltenham literary festival;

“A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting. They are very angry people”

However, I am not aware of any bloggers having to take out super injunctions – so perhaps we can take Mr Marr’s comments and put them to one side?

I have also managed to get a couple of other people interested in blogging, my son Sam and his fencing instructor Chris Beadling. They have both started blogs, both are very different, but it has set me thinking that perhaps more people should try blogging – and particularly from an early age. Let me explain;

Chris Beadling started his blog a few weeks ago and has settled into what I see as the ‘norm’ for bloggers (especially males). He is finding it liberating as far as I can see in enabling him to ‘get things off his chest’ but to also have a voice about things. Like me he is finding it quite addictive – have a look, his blog is here.

Of more interest in this respect is my son’s blog, it is purely based around his current love of gaming – Xbox and the like. Not a subject that I find particularly interesting (although we live it at home). But, since starting his blog a few weeks ago he has managed to publish something almost every day – quite an achievement for a 14-year-old who really isn’t keen on reading or writing things (much like most 14-year-old boys as far as I can gather). His blog is here.

But I believe there is a deeper thing happening here – Sam enjoys blogging, and the writing of the posts is not seen as a chore because he enjoys talking about the subject at hand – spelling and grammar leaves something (ok, a lot!) to be desired but we are working on that (my wife is a very critical editor to us both!)

With social media becoming so much more a part of our everyday lives (many people are now on Twitter that you wouldn’t have imagined would be 12 months ago), is it not time for this element of our lives to become part of the school system as well? Perhaps not as part of the main curriculum, but surely part of the school life in terms of after school activities and similar? If a 14-year-old who really doesn’t ‘get’ reading is happy to spend time away from his Xbox creating blog posts isn’t this something to try more widely with kids?

Is the blog a more ‘useful’ form of social networking?