Face-Stagram

Yes, that's right, according to rumours will be the new hip place where all the cool kids hang out on t'internet - Face-Stagram! Okay, okay so I lied but it's just over a week now since the announcement about Facebook buying Instagram was made and I'm glad the dust has settled.

my home screen: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Camera+ All the my fave apps

It was inevitable that someone was going to buy Instagram. We live in a more visual world than ever before and images are everywhere. Instagram made it easier to share lovely pictures with people across the globe. Adding one of their filters means that even the most kak-handed of us (not me btw!) can post decent enough looking pictures. Our brains process pictures in a different way than words. A famous example is the TV debates between Nixon and Kennedy. Radio debates showed Nixon in the lead, but when they hit TV Kennedy was an outright leader in the polls. He was a master at the little facial expressions, and I think he even wore make up! So you see people judge on site first and foremost and so pictures are real popular.

I've been an avid Instagram user since the week it went public back in October 2010. At the time I only followed a few people I knew on there but slowly over the 2 short years I've built up quite a good little visual playground for myself in the form of my Instagram feed. It's sitting at 205 just now, deliberately much less than Twitter. For you see I don't want to be bombarded with every Tom, Dick or Jason's silly pictures. I've collated a number of cool people and brands from a range of backgrounds and locations across the globe. Aside from Twitter, it's the first place i check each morning when I wake. I like to see what's gone on around the world via the varying images from numerous time-zones. I like to see the photos that have been captured lovingly or on the hoof. Maybe it's my natural nosiness inside.

Anyway, back to the deal. A Billion Dollars. $1Billion. Let's not think about that too much. After all it's not a truck full of cash delivered to the Instagram team is it. There'll be shares and the like. Maybe? But why did Mark Zuckerberg, seemingly on a whim, buy Instagram for that much money? Probably not data, let's Face it they have pretty much cornered the market with that one. Mobile Photography is more like it. Rumour has it (not sure where I got that from) that the deal was done in two days! Zuck to Kev: I wanna buy Instagram, how much will it cost? Kev to Zuck: Errrrr...(leans back in chair and plucks a number out of thin air) A billion?.... (laughs like a child who's just swore for the first time) Zuck to Kev: Okay then! Where do we sign?. Kev: (falls off chair, rolls over, does the dance - you know the one, scrambles back onto the chair, clears his throat) Deal!
And so the deal was done. I'd like to think that's how it went down. In my mind it happened like that. *winky eye face*

Everyone's gone mobile #SadDigitalCamera  ~ Taken on Instagram

So, why did he buy? Mobile! Mobile photography. Mobile. Much has been said about the rubbishness of the Facebook mobile apps and that the photo interface has, until recently, been pretty bland. But now, look what they have. Potential new Facebookers? (we'll come back to this later). I don't know about you but i certainly do hit share to Facebook on some Instagram photos. It even puts them into an Instagram album automagically. I mostly use this method because they're fab pictures of my nephews and my family only follow me on Facebook, especially ones who stay far away. So I like to share those moments I've captured on Facebook too. But it's easy now to with a smart phone and a decent app, enter Instagram.

Some people got a bit hysterical when the deal was announced. "I'm leaving Instagram" was the cry. Well I'm not. Some people were posting links to new photo apps, but the beauty of Instagram for me is the simplicity, the ease of use, the fact that you can follow people and they can follow you, you can share to most social networks (well that ones that everyone's uses lets face it), the filters are pretty (who remembers the astro filter?!) and it was the original. And I like that. It's not always about the next new thing, it's about the original.

One thing I didn't like was a i read a tweet from someone who claimed that 'creatives' like them would all leave and a certain faction would be left. Hmmm... Just because I don't work in the creative industry does not mean i am not creative. It was a silly tweet from someone who has posted no more than twenty photos, if you're lucky! Grrr. Sometimes the downright snobbery in social networks gets right on my nerves. There's a lot of it around.(another post maybe).

mobile photography

I'll end by saying Congrats to the small but perfectly formed Instagram team! I hope that the statements from both Instagram and Facebook are upheld and they don't tinker about with it too much. Perhaps a few extra filters? Perhaps a better Facebook mobile service? who knows. But just like Darcy told Jones in the movie... I like it just the way it is.

ooh! Before I go perhaps you might want to have a watch of this video I found about 6 weeks ago. It's Kevin Rose interviewing Kevin Systrom (co-founder of Instagram). Interesting, inspiring and well worth a watch. Love his thinking behind Instagram - hits thoughts about the early days, focusing on photos only, with XProII being the first filter. Turns out that was a great move!

Angela x

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Is Facebook really ripping families apart?

I never read a physical newspaper these days. I never buy a magazine either. They're probably about 87.6% adverts anyway. I get all my news updates online. But this headline met me when I came into the living room this morning.

How silly is it? It totally got me riled. These kinds of headlines really annoy on me. Like that little bit of skin on the roof of your mouth that would go away, if only you could stop tonguing it. I haven't read the story except the first page. That was enough.

"Social media site Facebook is wrecking marriages and harming family life". That is the first line. There are all sorts of wrong with it in my opinion. Let's see... Facebook isn't wrecking marriages. If your marriage/ relationship is rock solid no amount of social media site browsing is going to wreck it. However, if there is something missing in your relationship and its always been a bit rocky but you just won't admit it then Facebook and other social media/networking sites will make it easier for you to have that much sought after get out clause. They themselves will not wreck your relationship, you will. YOU WILL. You will go on there searching for something because of that missing piece in your life. You might see an old school boyfriend/girlfriend and start the "innocent flirting" thing. But that is you, not Facebook. "..harming family life". Hhmmm let me see. I've always thought 13 was too young for anyone to be on Facebook. For all sorts of reasons. Safety, loss of innocence, not savvy enough, loads more. But here parents should be more aware on behalf of their kids. Learn more about the security features in Facebook. Make sure they're set to the highest level, insist on having the password to the account (too far?), heck even friend your own son/daughter so as to keep an eye on them. Limit their time spent online even! That is a parents responsibility is it not. I think so, at least until the child is 16.

"Facebook Addiction Disorder". I mean what the actual fuck?! That's all anybody is needing. Another label for themselves. I wonder if you can go off sick from work with FAD... Seriously! Sure we all spend a lot more time on various sites, some of us blog, some of us read all the news articles we can, some of us do spend lots of time online the days but where does anyone get 35 hours a week to spend on Facebook. Actually, I take that back, we know many people can.

I think social networking sites get a hard time in stories produced with headlines like that. They are the facility but they are not the cause or reason for your failed marriage/relationship or your wrecked home life. Don't get me wrong, there are some people who openly flirt online, you see it LOTS on Twitter. They may label it "innocent flirting" but is flirting ever really that innocent? Think about the other person in that relationship... Maybe they have no idea that their other half is engaging online in the so called innocent flirting. I wouldn't like that, would you? There are some people who just do it for attention and have no intention of backing it up with any kind of action (for want of a better word). I have one particular person in timeline who is an outrageous flirt. Sends provocative tweets that are begging for a flirty response, then acts all innocent. The thing I can't get over is that the responses come in, lots, from people who we know are married! I mean, come on. That is not Twitter / Facebook making them do that, it's just making it easier for them to do it. They'd probably find another way to do it in an all-offline world too.

It's about time people took responsibility for their actions. Its all too easy to blame outside factors on our own faults and misdemeanors. If you meet an old school boyfriend/girlfriend on Facebook and start something and end up divorced, that's YOU. If you're openly innocently flirting and cause some strife in relationships, that's you. If you're spending all you're waking hours scouring Facebook, online etc, that's you and you need to stop, think, take ownership and do something about it. Don't blame everything else.

Angela x

I should probably add that this story is in today's Sunday Post newspaper. It doesn't really matter because there's probably another story in another paper along the same lines somewhere else.
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Anti-socially too social?

I think we are. This is something I've been thinking about for a while. These days we're all connected in approx. 7.3 kinds of different ways. That's not scientific, just my own conclusions. We're on Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Pinterest, Path, Flickr, Instagram... the list could go on. But yet we're all a bit anti social aren't we?

Admit it. When was the last time you actually wrote on someones Facebook wall? You actually took the time to go to their page and write on their wall. When was the last time you tweeted someone (that wasn't an @ reply) just to say how the hell are you? We're all guilty of this. Being socially anti-social.
 
Is it to do with the overload of information available? I mean we can all see from Facebook if our "friends" are adventuring/having fun/getting married/engaged/announced a pregnancy/been on a date/got dumped.... It's like we're immune to them now. Endless status updates provide these little insights. But in reality they're only a tiny window into someones life.

There was a story (true) of a guy on Twitter who had over 100,00 followers and indeed he followed about the same amount. I always found that bit daft, i mean you can't really keep up with that many people in 140 characters. It must just look like a constant stream of social noise. You can't really be forming any sort of relationship with them all, some yes but certainly not all. Anyway this guy was seen as a bubbly figure, a nice guy, a guy who outwardly it appeared didn't seem to have any troubles. And yet he did, sadly. But how many of his 100,000 or so followers actually noticed or took the time just to send that one tweet (that isn't an @ reply remember) to say how the heck are you? Believe me it can make all the difference.

I'm currently sitting at around 41,000 tweets. I used to feel ashamed by that but I figured at least I'm actually talking to people, getting to know them, forming some sort of relationship. I try to reply to everyone's @ replies too. (Don't you just hate it when people don't reply?). Because to me this is the way that I'm social - I don't get out much. It has brought me some great offline banter too. You could very well do yourself a favour if you work for a brand and actually spoke to people - Engagement Currency? Sometimes a simple little tweet of acknowledgement would suffice.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that we all get too caught up with being on the latest new social play thing that we're there all present and correct, yes, but are we really listening and taking notice of people we are supposed to call friends (or indeed we are trying to sell our clients' product too. Think about that). Don't get caught up in the numbers game. Having been on Facebook for four years I've only just hit 100 'friends' and there's even some people on there I'm thinking of taking off. Having forty squillion (or at least a few hundred) followers on Twitter is nothing if you're not actually having any dialogue with them and by dialogue I mean actual conversations, not you tweeting out the link to the latest cat video or blog post or... well, whatever. Those snippets are all well and good but if you aren't actually (and I'm going to have to use that word that I hate) ENGAGING (cringe) with people, then what's that actual point?

So, go, tweet someone you haven't for a while, if only to say hello. Write on their wall. Comment on their check in at the local sandwich shop. Smile at their Path. Write them a letter. Before it's too late...

Angela x

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Path: find yours

Do you have a Path? Or should that be Path? No, I don't mean some great journey in life that you were always meant to follow, no. I mean another social network. Oh no not another one I hear you cry. Yeah. Another one. I actually joined Path on 17 November 2010. I know this because Path tells me this. I don't think people took it on and so I was left on this Path on my own. No real updates, just a few photos I uploaded. Then a few weeks ago it kinda burst onto the scene again. I'll have to actually find out the reason for this. Probably to do with a new round of funding going around Silicon Valley, or something like that.

Anyway I decided to give it a go again. There's been a few updates but still no iPad app yet. That would be lovely. I like Path. And here's a few reasons why...

Path has a timeline, since way back last year. Not sure who thought about that idea first. Was it Facebook, or was it Path? Who knows. So what's different about it then. Well it's a much slicker interface I think. You have your own Path (let's say it's the Wall if we're to compare it to Facebook). On your Path there is all your photos, check ins, comments, everything you've done on your Path. All dated and timed. Yes! Timed. There's a really cool little feature that appears when you scroll up or down your Path. A little bar and clock appears down the right hand side. You can actually see when you uploaded your update. Pretty neat I think.

Click on your Home page and you can see all the updates from people you share your Path with and who share with you. What i like here are the little icons you see in the updates. There's check ins with knives and forks, coffee cups (a nod to Foursquare perhaps). There's also little sun and moon icons that appear when you change your Path to sleeping and awake.

In the bottom left hand corner there's a red circle with a plus sign in it. Click on that and out spring 6 little black circles with various icons in them. This is how you update your Path. Set your status so to speak. There's photos, people, check in, music, thought and the moon sign. See the picture here. Click the camera icon and your camera pops up. Only, there's quite a few different lenses and filters to play with. Very nice in app feature. Take the photo and you then get the option to leave a note with it, say who you're with, check in/location and then you can also share it to Twitter Facebook etc. All in all a very good feature and the camera filters are lovely.

Click on the person icon and this is basically you saying who you are with at any one time. The check in icon is pretty much the same places that there are on Foursquare. I know this because I added a secret place on Foursquare and it appears in Path too. Again clicking on a place means you can leave a comment and add who you are with. Cool. 

The music icon lets you say what you are listening to. It gives me some suggestions. I don't know where they come from. I've never really used this feature to any real extent. Actually, just tried it. Type in your favourite band and it will give you a list and then you can add it to your Path. A window appears in the middle of the screen, the music plays for about 20 seconds and you have the option of buying it. Hmmm. But I've already got those tunes on my phone? Yes, I think this just gives you the option of letting people know what you're listening to. Oh but in the Home page (timeline) a little orange musical note icon appears. Nice. These little circular icons are a real favourite of mine. No kidding.

Next thing, click the speech bubble. This is your Thought. But again the question is 'what's on your mind?'. This is very much your status update. Go and update it. Again the option to check in and say who you're with is there.

Last of all we have the moon icon. Click that and you get only 2 options. Go to sleep. Or I'm awake. Click on these at the appropriate times and wow! you say your going to sleep and the Path change colour, disappears and a moon appears in its current state - full, half, quarter. Pretty awesome. It also gives the time and then a button to click on Awake when you...well, wake!

Click on that button and you are taken back to your home page. And there's little icons in your Path letting people know when you sleep and are awake. 

The best part I like is that at the top of your Home page there's the option to set your own cover picture. This is like the header photo in your new Facebook page. But the standard Path ones are quite nice too, in fact so much so I haven't changed mine yet.

In the Activity tab you can see who has looked at your Path, who has commented and who has smiled at your check ins, photos etc. Yes for you can also add little smiley faces, sad faces, winky faces and hearts to your friends' photos, check ins, comments etc. These are also little cute features I like.

All in all Path is another social network and you're probably wondering why you'd need it or want it. But I like it. The only downside is that not many people have adopted it yet. Well, not here anyway. I have four friends on there just now. So come on over and join me. If you want to that is. I mean how may social networks do we actually need? I sometimes wonder if too many social networks are making quite unsociable? That will be for another post though.

Angela x

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It's all The Killing and Facebook

Look at that we're a quarter of the way through December already. Technically we're not but those days between Christmas and New Year don't really count do they. The snow has fallen. Not that bad yet. Thankfully the sun has come out and it's probably all melting. Bad news for the photographers, good news for me as i won't need to do my Bambi impression when trying to navigate my way across the ice that's been left by the stupid campus tractor scraping to top layer of snow off in the car park. Follow all that? good...

By the time your read this I'll be deciding if I either go sweating my arse off in a spin class or I'll be at home watching Home and Away. I'm scheduling this post you see. It's what we bloggers can do on this here Internet.

How was your weekends? Good. Bad. Indifferent...? I spent most of mine in shops buying stuff that wasn't for me. But we've been through that so i won't go over it again.

Yesterday, when I came home I jumped on my bed and watched The Killing II from Saturday night on the iPad. It's such a great series. In case you don't know it's a Danish crime drama/thriller series showing on BBC4. I'm loving the relationship developing between Lund (the main female lead character) and her colleague Strange (a detective working alongside Lund). He's very lovely in that 'you would for an older guy' kinda way. Anyway, I'm not going to give away any spoilers but i'm on episode 6 and can't wait for 7 and 8 next weekend!!

I then played about a bit with the iPad. I don't think i can get over how much the screen resolution disapoints me. I don't knwo what i expected but it was something a lot better than that. Especially now i have the iPhone 4S. Perhaps the new iPad will have that, along with a hefty price hike no doubt. I do like having it though as a peaceful calm has been bestowed upon the sanctuary that is my bedroom now that I no longer need to fire up the 2007 Dell Inspiron laptop with it's constantly whirring fan! Thank goodness.

Later I watched the programme about Facebook. The one that in the trailer you got a whole load of Zuckerberg talking and in the actual programme you only got about another 5 minutes of him talking a bit more. It was a lazy programme. I learnt more about people actually entering their credit card details to buy silly things on Farmville than i learnt about the Z-man himself. Oh and for good measure they threw in a question and the VP on policy (or something) looked flummoxed and of course the programme makers kept in the huge gaping awkward pause. It was a cheap shot. She was asking the question of whether a person clicking the 'Like' button were being used to advertise the brand or product they had 'liked' without their knowledge. (In case you didn't know, you can see recommendations or rather 'sponsored stories' usually on the right hand side of your news feed page and your friends may appear there some times. In fact you might appear on your friends pages as a sponsored story / advocate for that brand. Effectively, you are advertising it). The guy wasn't keen on her using 'advertising' as a word. He paused. A huge pause...Massive pause. I'm sure he paused several times during their conversation but it was only this pause they chose to show. Personally I have no problem appearing as a sponsored story on someone else's feed. I choose the brands I 'Like' with care. Therefore I reckon that even the simple act of 'Liking' that brand page is a message in itself. I wouldn't 'Like' something if i didn't really 'Like' it in real life and so I'm not bothered if folk know that. Are you following this? If you didn't see the programme you may be a bit lost. Apologies, go check it out on the iPlayer or something. Anyway... I didn't want all that from the programme.

I wanted an insight into Mark Zuckerberg, the man. His thoughts. How he decides what to do next. Everything. What i found out was that he wears the same jacket nearly every day. But it isn't the same actual jacket, he has several of these jackets in his wardrobe. Insightful! I also found out that hey! The social network is a movie. A fictional movie that may or may not have events embellished so as to make it a box office hit. I knew this already and always wonder at those people tweeting... "watching the social network again for the 50th time. I want to be Zuck!" Ok ok so they don't tweet that but you get the idea... I sometimes think people take The Social Network as being the gods honest truth forgetting the fact that its a Hollywood film. Oh, we also got a whole load of shots of Emily Maitlis strutting around downtown Palo Alto in a vest and jeans. I think she must've only spent about 10 actual minutes in the presence of Zuckerberg. The rest was simply rubbish. Well, it wasn't all rubbish. We got to see Margo from Southend-On-Sea peddling her 'business' around local shop owners. "I can set up and look after your Facebook page" said Margo. "I can do your banner". FFS! Whit?! I about fell off my chair laughing at this point. It was so crude and frankly amateurish. I'm sure they could've gotten a better example than Margo, I mean f*** knows there's plenty of them around.

Anyway, there's only one MZ. We'll probably never get to know the workings of the boy, the man, the brain of the thing that has changed our world. But I'm sure there'll be plenty trying.

Oh btw, the wife wasn't called Margo, nor was she from Southend-On-Sea but i can't quite remember so for the purposes of this post, that's who she was.

Did you watch it? What did you think?

Angela XX

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