Facebook has launched its Camera app, which is very similar to Instagram, right down to the photo filters.
This is a smart move from Facebook. It will increase mobile engagement, which Facebook itself says is a problem, both by offering a more pleasant way to view photos (which is very slow on the native app), and by nudging people towards sharing photos on Facebook rather than Twitter (which is built into iOS).
It’s an interesting step in Facebook’s move towards mobile, but it is going to have to make bigger ones.
Facebook IPO: NONE OF THIS IS GOING TO MATTER
This essentially sums up the media storm over the Facebook IPO - nobody cares.
Following the money leads you to ask the wrong questions. While all the talking heads shout themselves hoarse, Mark Zuckerberg is back at at the Starship Enterprise, where it remains Warp Factor 5, Scotty, plotting his next step against the Klingons, um Google, et. al. He’s still buying up companies — Facebook snagged another on Friday — and Facebook continues to hire like crazy.
Google’s Motorola deal finally passed. What now?
Google has spent an awful lot of money in its acquisition of Motorola, which was finally approved today.
There’s some good background reading as well from Businessweek and Splatf.
To pass the deal, Google has had to promise to keep Motorola at arm’s length so as to not give it an advantage on the Android OS over the likes of Samsung and HTC, but I wonder how long that promise will be kept.
Google has an extraordinary opportunity to make something amazing here and it’s inevitable that Motorola will get a head start on other Android manufacturers. Which could, of course, mean Samsung and HTC feeling threatened and hedging their bets by really giving Windows Phone a go.
This is gonna be good.
I’m excited about this. Sam Mendes, of American Beauty and Road to Perdition is directing, which should mean less of the Bourne Identity nonsense from Quantum of Solace - “A mess and a half of a film.”
Congratulations to Mark and Priscilla. He even got rid of the hoody.
The problem with the Guardian's Facebook strategy
A good takedown of the Guardian’s ‘seismic’ Facebook shift by Andrew Hunter can be found here.
If the app’s job is to drive traffic to guardian.co.uk, then its referral power will diminish as more websites download it and bypass guardian.co.uk
Martin Belam, who works on the app, responds in the comments to the piece with some interesting points, specifically that ‘it’s a no-brainer’ to try and reach Facebook’s 900 million users.
Social readers are an interesting experiment, but its hard to see how a Facebook app drives traffic to the site, and thus generates revenue.
The whole discussion may be irrelevant anyway. Social reader usage is falling off a cliff.
Throw in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this to create a real mainstream ebooks market
This is part of an email Steve Jobs sent to one of the ‘conspiring publishers’ on the wrong end of the current antitrust ebooks lawsuit in America.
He became fully involved in January 2010, just before the launch of the iPad and iBookstore. Here’s the quote in full:
1. Throw in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this to create a real mainstream ebooks market at $12.99 and $14.99.
2. Keep going with Amazon at $9.99. You will make a bit more money in the short term, but in the medium term Amazon will tell you they will be paying you 70% of $9.99. They have shareholders too.
3. Hold back your books from Amazon. Without a way for customers to buy your ebooks, they will steal them. This will be the start of piracy and once started, there will be no stopping it. Trust me, I’ve seen this happen with my own eyes.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see any other alternatives. Do you?
Ebook pricing is a thorny issue at the moment: Apple claim Amazon wants to control the market so it can force prices down, hurting publishers. The counter argument, put forward by the US government, is that Apple colluded with the publishers to artificially raise the prices of ebooks. Here’s my explanation.
The argument that ebooks should cost a lot less than print books is flawed - printing and distribution cost very little, the majority of a publisher’s costs is royalties, marketing and administration. However, I just don’t believe people are willing to pay full price for something that isn’t physical.
One option would be to bundle an ebook edition with hardback books - publishers would still have an income from premium sales, consumers would have both a glossy book for their shelves and a convenient digital version, and it would drive the ebook market, allowing retailers such as Amazon to sell e-readers.
This is why Twitter bought Summify
Twitter has announced it will be rolling out weekly email digests - with the most shared links among people you follow (and the people they follow).
An interesting development - Twitter’s CEO has said its difficult to show the benefit of Twitter to the unconverted - which explains January’s purchase of Tweet summariser Summify.
Summify is a great service - a daily email digest of the most shared links from the people you follow. It made it easier to keep on top of Twitter without actually being on it.
The emails have continued after Summify’s acquisition and I still find them useful. It would be a shame if Twitter cancels the Summify service.
As for Twitter, news digests are an interesting string to their bow - but a weekly email is a tad too infrequent. News, especially on the internet, moves quickly.
Nokia's chief designer: iOS and Android are 'dated'
Wired’s recent interview with Marko Ahtisaari, Nokia’s chief designer, has a couple of interesting lines. He says Nokia and Windows Phone can make space for themselves in the smartphone market by going a separate way from Android and Apple, which are similar and “dated”.
We can re-do the user experience in a new way that’s based on different principles. It cannot be the case that this is all there is. There is no industrial logic to say that there should be only one approach.
This is a laudable aim, but I wonder if iOS and Android are too established in the smartphone market.
Is the Nokia/Windows partnership in a position where radical innovation will encourage consumers to switch platforms before Google and Apple imitate these innovations?
Part of the reason Android and iOS are so similar is the app ecosystem. If Nokia/Windows goes a completely different way, will developers bother with it?
Nokia should be praised for thinking differently, but it sounds like one last roll of the dice.
Hairdryergate: How the News of the World’s closure is still causing problems for The Sun
Before the News of the World was abruptly closed in July of last year, the Sunday red-top was due to give away thousands of free hairdryers.
The hacking scandal somewhat scuppered those plans, and the hairdryers sat in a warehouse for almost a year, as Private Eye took great pleasure in pointing out.
The Sun started to shift them in its Sunday edition a few weeks ago (luckily, they were branded with the logo of Fabulous magazine, which has shifted from the News of the World to the Sun on Sunday).
Alas, the spectre of the News of the World refuses to go away - Today’s Sun orders a product recall on the hairdryers, stating “a risk of personal injury and even electrocution”.
The hacking scandal continues to have embarrassing consequences.
