Friday, January 25, 2013
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Roughly a month after launching its YouTube Capture video shooting and sharing application for Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) is rolling out a new update touting enhanced video quality.
YouTube Capture enables users to film videos, apply effects like color correction and music tracks, and share their efforts to YouTube, Google+, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Twitter. Version 1.1 introduces 1080p high-definition video uploads, signaling a significant upgrade over the original release, which limited upload quality to 720p HD. Google also promises improved audio sync, accelerated upload speeds, more detailed upload feedback and assorted bug fixes and stability enhancements.
YouTube Capture complements the standalone YouTube for iOS app, which offers viewing access to YouTube videos and content channel. Google launched the ad-supported app in September after Apple eliminated preloaded YouTube support with the release of its iOS 6 operating system; this week, mobile metrics firm Onavo reported that within weeks of its release, the YouTube app was installed on about 20 percent of all iPhones across the U.S., and by the end of December, that number increased to 44.5 percent.
Google also is overhauling the iOS edition of its Currents newsreader app, which enables users to explore online magazines and other digital content optimized for access via touch-enabled smartphones and tablets. Version 2.0 brings a new sidebar promising more efficient access to categories like business and sports, as well as a "fast scan" feature letting users swipe vertically to scan an edition or swipe horizontally to advance to the next issue. Also new: Breaking stories ranked by Google News, links to full-length content and a saved stories option.
The free Google Currents app features articles, videos, photographs and slideshows from publisher partners including Forbes, The Guardian, PBS and Saveur, alongside thousands of blogs and newsfeeds. Currents also leverages Google translate technology to adapt content into any of 44 supported languages.
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) is blocking Twitter's new Vine video sharing application from accessing its network, further escalating the rivalry between the two social media giants.
Twitter launched Vine Thursday via Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) App Store. The app enables consumers to film and share videos running no longer than six seconds; users can film clips in a single take or pause the recording to string together montages of brief shots. In the first hours after Vine went live, iOS device owners could click the app's "Find People" button to connect to their Facebook friends, but by midday, the feature was replaced by a pop-up error message stating "Vine is not authorized to make this Facebook request."
A Twitter spokesperson told Mashable the company has nothing to share beyond the in-app notification. Facebook has not responded to requests for comment.
Late last week, Facebook abruptly cut off mobile social networking app Voxer's access to its Find Friends data. The Voxer app, which supports communication via voice, text, push-to-talk and other channels, leveraged Find Friends to let users auto-follow and connect with Facebook friends upon joining its service. Voxer CEO Tom Katis told TechCrunch that Facebook considers Voxer a "competitive social network" and that the app ran afoul of Facebook's Platform Policies, which state "You may not use Facebook Platform to export user data into a competing social network without our permission. Apps on Facebook may not integrate, link to, promote, distribute or redirect to any app on any other competing social network."
Facebook said it will enforce the policy on apps that "use its data to bootstrap growth but don't contribute anything." A spokesperson explained that apps that share content like photos or Open Graph stories with Facebook can continue to access Find Friends data, with only messaging apps that don't share content qualifying as competitors. A subsequent TechCrunch report indicates Facebook also has blocked all API calls from Wonder, a new social search app built by Russian search giant Yandex.
The move to block Vine also follows six months after Twitter disabled Facebook-owned photo sharing app Instagram's access to its own Find Your Friends feature: Instagram responded last month by fully terminating Twitter support, meaning users can no longer view Instagram photos via the microblogging platform. Twitter filled the void days later by rolling out Instagram-like mobile photo editing and filtering features.
Monday, January 21, 2013
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Setting up and maintaining a WordPress blog is rather easy, including those who think they don’t know much about websites and how to build one. Installing a theme, widgets and plugins are as simple as searching for them in the built-in search engine and clicking the install button.
Of course knowing a bit more about WordPress will enable you to delve into the code and produce an even better site but at its most basic level, WordPress really is just point and click. Once you have everything set up, just decide what functions you need your blog to accomplish and then search the plugin directory to see what’s available (or check out our Best WordPress Plugins page for ideas). There’s even a plugin for keeping the WordPress version updated (very important).
Our infographic today, courtesy of WP Template.com, is all about the 30 most popular WordPress plugins, as determined by their total number of downloads. Hopefully, if you are planning to set up a WordPress site for the first time, this infographic will give you some ideas and inspiration for which plugins to consider using. Let us know in the comments if any of these plugins are your favourites or if you prefer another instead.
WP Template.com
WP Template.com
Facebook’s new search product gives marketers a powerful new tool to understand their fans and customers.
Graph Search allows users to conduct complex queries about people, places, photos and interests. It begins to open up the wealth of data stored in Facebook and make it accessible to everyday users. Businesses can use this information to conduct market research about their existing fans and potential customers.
Some companies have already been mining Facebook’s Ads API for these types of insights. For instance, Optimal offers tools like “Keyword Expander” and “Audience Matrix” to let businesses dive into Facebook’s graph and gather information that can improve their marketing efforts on and off Facebook, but it charges for this service. Other marketers have tried using Facebook’s free Graph API Explorer or self-serve ad tool to get this type of data, but these were not designed to be used for this purpose and are not as intuitive for less advanced users.
Graph Search, however, uses natural language processing so any user can frame queries in a simple way. For example, “pages liked by people who like Oprah Winfrey” or “music liked by people who work at Facebook.” There are infinite permutations that could help businesses determine what type of content to share with fans, what new audience to reach out to, what type of music would resonate with consumers in a commercial, who might serve as a good celebrity endorser and more. The social network also offers suggestions for related pages and searches, which could lead marketers and advertisers to discover additional insights.
The Graph Search beta is rolling out slowly to English-speaking users. Users can request access here.
Facebook today announced Graph Search, a new way to search for people, places, photos and other things on Facebook.
Rather than indexing the web, Facebook has focused on making it easier to navigate and discover content within the social network. And instead of using keywords, users will combine phrases, such as “photos of me in 2006,” “my friends in San Francisco who like The Lord of the Rings” or “restaurants in New York liked by people who like Top Chef.” Search results will change dynamically as users type. Results are personalized to each user based on their friends, location, Likes and other connections. Users can further refine their query with filters to the right of the results.
Facebook emphasized that Graph Search respects the privacy of each piece of content, so that users never see photos or other information they don’t have permission to see. For example, if a user in New York has hidden their current location from non-friends, they would not appear in a search for “people who live in New York.” On the other hand, if a user makes their current city and photos public, they might appear in a stranger’s search for “photos of people who live in New York.” Facebook says it will begin prompting users to “please take some time to review who can see your stuff.” Users can finely tune their privacy settings from their activity log, which the social networkrecently updated to be more intuitive and give users more control over what they share.
Graph Search is rolling out in limited beta today. For now it is only available in English and exists on only on desktop. Graph Search has indexed people, places, photos and interests, but Facebook says it is working to add posts and Open Graph actions.
“It’s going to take years to really map everything thats out there,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a launch event at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. ”There’s more content that we don’t have than we have.”
For those queries that aren’t answerable by Graph Search, Facebook continues to partner with Bing to offer web search directly from the main search bar. Examples, Zuckerberg suggested are “Rihanna’s latest album” or “Menlo Park weather.” These facts aren’t yet available through Graph Search, so results from Bing will display instead.
Here is a clip of Graph Search in action, as demoed at today’s press event.
Pages and apps can still use Sponsored Results, which appear to people whether or not they have Graph Search. No new ad units were announced today, and Sponsored Results have to be targeted based on a specific entity not search queries. So, for example, a movie page can bid to appear when users search for “Fight Club” but they cannot bid for the query “movies my friends like.”
Foodspotting is a new iOS app from the company of the same name. The app is available as a free download from the App Store, and is currently enjoying a feature spot in the New & Noteworthy section of the App Store front page.
Foodspotting is a location-based social app designed to help food lovers find new dishes and tell others about the things they have eaten. Essentially, it is a natural progression from the number of pictures of food that many social media users already post on services such as Instagram and Twitter; here, it is the sole reason for the service’s being, and it actually turns out to be quite a good idea.
The initial screen a user is confronted with when they open up Foodspotting for the first time is a view of the best food nearby, presented as a strip of images which the user may scroll back and forth through. Each image carries a note saying what the dish is and the name of the establishment where it was spotted, along with the number of “sightings” it has had. From the main page, users may either dismiss dishes they are not interested in or “star” favorites. They may also tap on the picture to find out additional information about the listing, including the address of the establishment, where it is on the map and any additional information relevant to the location such as Yelp reviews. Users may act on a sighting by marking it as Want, Tried or Loved according to their thoughts on it, and tapping on the list of individual sightings allows users to comment on the photograph (or dish) and, instead of a simple “Like,” mark it as either a “great shot” or a “great find.”
Users may also browse food near them by looking on a map, which shows preview images of the various sighted dishes in their correct locations. From here, users may tap on the various dishes to find the same information. A separate tab also allows users to look for places near their current location rather than dishes, and a “Guides” facility allows users to create their own set of locations and dishes detailing the best places and things to eat in the area.
Submitting a new sighting is a simple matter of tapping the “Spot” button in the lower-center of the screen, taking a photograph (or choosing it from the camera roll) and then filling out the relevant information. Photographs may also be imported from Instagram if the user connects their account and uses the hashtags “#foodspotting” or “#food,” but this option is buried in the app’s settings menu and may not be discovered by many users. The same menu also houses options to connect to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare and Flickr.
Foodspotting is an excellent app all-round. Its interface is clean, simple to navigate and intuitive, and the app has a clear, well-defined purpose, unlike many mobile-social apps. It also appears that users are making good use of it — even in the area where I live, which tends to be devoid of people using any social media services more adventurous than Facebook or Twitter, there are a number of listings and interactions showing that the app is getting some use. The app’s usefulness will only improve over time, and with the enhanced visibility gained by its promotion on the App Store front page as well as its comprehensive social media connectivity, things look promising for Foodspotting’s future.
Foodspotting is not currently featured in any leaderboards at the time of writing. Check back shortly to follow its progress with AppData, our tracking service for mobile and social apps and developers — it’s likely to see some growth in the near future.
Disney City Girl is a life simulation Facebook game from Disney Playdom. It first came out in November, and has been showing up on the Emerging Facebook Games charts recently.
Disney City Girl casts players in the role of a girl who has graduated from college and decides to move to New York in an attempt to make something of her life. There is no option to play as a male character — unsurprising, given the title, but there is very little in the game that is not relevant to both genders. It is therefore somewhat surprising to see Playdom limiting its audience like this — the game is clearly heavily inspired by The Sims, which ably caters to players of both genders and all sexualities rather than limiting itself to the narrow stereotype of the shopping-obsessed girl.
It would not have been too much of a stretch for the game to be called something along the lines of “Disney City Life” and provide the ability for both genders to represent themselves as they saw fit, but sadly it is not to be, it seems. According to the developers, this is because the “paper doll” mechanic of dressing up an avatar is supposedly more popular with female players, and that female avatars get more interesting clothing. While this may well be true, it seems unnecessarily exclusionary and feels like pandering to stereotypes.
The game takes heavy cues from The Sims in its gameplay as well as its theme. The player character has a series of “needs” represented at the top of the screen, and these must be satisfied in order to perform certain actions. Keeping needs high turns the player character “dazzling” — similar to The Sims Social’s Inspired condition — which unlocks additional actions and bonuses. If needs drop too low, the player character will refuse to perform certain actions. The character will also refuse to perform the same action too many times in a row, preventing mindless grinding to a certain degree. Interacting with various items around their apartment rewards the player with experience points, currency and items that often have very little to do with the object that was interacted with. Going to sleep in a bed, for example, frequently rewarded me with a washer; using a computer to play games rewarded inexplicably rewarded me with song lyrics. Certain items also allow the player to improve their skills in areas such as cooking, charisma and music.
The player is guided through the game’s possibilities through a series of quests. This to-do list shows the player how to redecorate their apartment, buy new items, go to work, unlock additional activities at work and go shopping. They also offer regular rewards, which help the player to level up and be able to afford more expensive items.
A key part of Disney City Girl’s gameplay is inspired by the numerous “fashion games” in the mobile and social sectors. Every item of clothing the player character wears has a certain “points” value for various different types of outfit — everyday, active and so on — and certain tasks require that the player be wearing an outfit of a particular type of over a certain number of points. Certain jobs also provide bonuses to their payments if the player is wearing the correct type of outfit. This helps encourage the player to keep spending in-game currency on clothing items as they progress through the game.
Social features in the game are relatively conventional for the most part. Players may visit their friends who are also playing the game and develop their relationship statistic with one another. Having a higher relationship with a friend means that additional actions may be performed in their house, but unlike The Sims Social these interactions are only ever positive in nature — there is none of the comic mischief found in EA’s title.
A “daily look” contest encourages players to show off their best outfits and vote on other players’ creations according to a particular theme. Having a higher relationship value with a particular person means that your vote counts for more if you choose them in this aspect of gameplay, so those who get really into the outfit creation side of things will find it beneficial to make a variety of friends among the player base.
Besides these features, the game regularly requires that players bug their friends for various resource items. One of the most frustrating aspects of The Sims Social — furniture items that had to be “built” by requesting the help of several friends — is present and correct here, and it is still extremely annoying to not be able to use your new fridge because apparently your character is unable to take it out of the box by herself. Several quests also require that friends provide items in order to progress — this is a staple of social gameplay, but it is an increasingly outdated mechanic that is starting to turn off more and more players, particularly those who are hesitant about spamming their friends with requests and notifications.
Disney City Girl is quite heavy on the share spam anyway, as every time the player levels up, improves a skill or completes a quest, they are prompted to share this news on their Timeline. The game does not remember the player’s preference as to whether or not they would like to share anything, either, meaning that every time one of these frequent popups appears, the Share box must be unticked. It’s a small annoyance, but when you have to do it several times in the space of a few minutes, it magnifies the frustration factor considerably.
Ultimately, Disney City Girl is a reasonable quality game, and is certainly presented very well with its polygonal characters and good animation. It feels rather soulless, though, and corners have clearly been cut in quite a few places. Early in the game, the player supposedly throws a party, for example, but there is no visual depiction of other characters in the apartment — just the oddly tragic sight of the player character singing karaoke to herself in an empty room. There’s none of the cheeky humor that characterizes the Sims series, and the characters that do help tell the flimsy story of the game are all broadly-drawn stereotypes rather than interesting people.
In short, there’s potential for a good game here, but it needs a bit of work before it can be realized. Whether or not it will be realized — and how the community as a whole will respond to it — remains to be seen.
Disney City Girl is currently in the 100,000+ MAU tier (rank 2,048) and the 10,000+ DAU tier (rank 1,695). Further information on Facebook’s new tier-and-rank system for application data reporting may be found here, and you can continue to follow the game’s progress with AppData, our tracking service for social games and developers.
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| Source: Lifehacker |
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