July 10, 2009
Staff Picks: Lawsuit Pokes Facebook, Swap Your Pictures, Twilight Mobile, PeopleBrowsr, and More
Matthew
A very interesting lawsuit will be filed today, possibly changing the social networking website landscape in the process. Power.com, which began in Brazil and has been in operation in the United States since December, will be responding to Facebook's suit which was filed in January, with a suit of their own.
Power.com built a portal that allowed users to access their various social network accounts from one location. When it launched, Power.com included sites such as MySpace, Twitter, Linkedin, Hi5, and Facebook. Due to Facebook's allegations of copyright and trademark infringement however, they have been removed from the portal.
Today, Power.com will allege that Facebook's prohibition of its users to access accounts from another site is an attempt to monopolize the social networking market. The suit will include formal charges such as unfair competition, restraint of trade, and monopolization. Although Power.com received a big spike in signups when they first launched, that number has dropped significantly. Last month, the site received only 14,000 American visitors...a number that is dwarfed by Facebook's traffic. Either way, this small and struggling company could very well pave an intriguing path towards challenging the social network giant's domination of the industry.
Allison
Thanks to simple, social blogging platforms like Tumblr, we’re seeing the rise of group blogs like Young Manhattanite, Eat Sleep Draw, This is why you’re fat, or Cute Overload.
These blogs, more about the community than a single author, encourage discussion around topics – kind of like a curated Twitter.
Tumblr is hoping to enable this sort of blogging genre, pointing out that six such sites have gone from Tumblr blog to book deal in the last year. To this end they released Submissions this week, a feature to streamline community-driven blogs that lets readers submit posts via web or email.
Jeremy
Ever since the iPhone, mobile device manufacturers have been heralding the arrival of a new generation of "game-changing" handsets, all meant to bring their devices up to par with Apple's gold-standard device. Some, like Palm's new Pre handset, have done an admirable job, playing on the company's historic strengths in mobile and smartphone OS design.
Others, like Blackberry's "game-changing" Storm handset have been met with indifference or plagued by bugs and upgrades. Recently mobile industry giant Nokia released their newest high-end smartphone, the N97. As this review from Gizmodo indicates, the reception has been mixed, with critiques of its slow CPU and dull Symbian operating system among the major concerns. Nearly 2 years after the iPhone was first released and its competitors still seem to be playing catch-up.
Michael
Last night I had dessert at Café Lalo (you know, the place where Meg Ryan had to wait for her AOL guy to show up) and after uploading a pic of my Triple Fruit Loop Mousse Cake came the response pic from a guy in Sweden of what looked like a chicken casserole. This is a great app for experiencing a unique glimpse into someone else’s life through a real-time photo-based conversation. Now you’re saying to yourself, Mike, you sound so cultured going to fancy-schmancy dessert places. Well, just know this..look at the desserts name and take a stab at why I chose it. Bingo.
Laura
A couple of months ago, Napa Valley wine empire Jackson Valley Wines posted a job opening that elicited as much PR buzz as it did applicants: online “lifestyle correspondent” for its Murphy-Goode brand. The gig? Blog, Tweet and, essentially, ingratiate the product to the social media set for $60K and free Wine Country housing.
Everyone from Matt Lauer to my mom took notice. 2,000 job-seekers created web videos as part of the application process, generating support through their respective social media channels. When all was said and done, Murphy-Goode ignored these factors, throwing a metaphorical “one finger salute” to the very community they claimed to court. The fallout has been nothing short of awesome to watch. Who doesn’t love a little Schadenfreude with their wine?
David
Looks like Nokia is bringing a new level of eco-friendliness to its handsets while giving users more juice for their power-hungry phones. According to the article from the UK's The Guardian, Nokia is working on prototype phones that charge themselves while on standby mode. The new technology allows a phone's battery to charge itself on ambient radiowaves - essentially the weak TV, radio and mobile phone signals that permanently surround us.
The prototypes are projected to harvest as much as a thousand times more power from these waves than existing ambient wave harvesters. Three to five years sounds like a pretty long time to wait for the first commercial handset, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it!
Valerie
While I have yet to read any of the books in the Twilight series, I’m somewhat of a pop culture junkie. Thus, I would have to be living off the grid to miss the enormous following this series, the movies and its newly minted stars have garnered. I read that the publisher behind these books, Little, Brown Book Group, recently announced it was launching an iPhone app reader for this series (as part of an experiment with a few of the publishing house’s titles being made available via such apps).
Initially I did not find the news too interesting, as anything and everything relating to Twilight and iPhone apps receive so much attention in the media I most often read (that is, news about the wireless industry and pop culture). However, once I remembered another recent post I was intrigued. A study sponsored by AdMob and comScore found that “more than 70% of users on both the iPhone and iPod touch are male” and that those 13-24 years of age account for “just 26% of iPhone users.”
While I have not seen any hard stats, as anyone who is familiar with Twilight has seen, its fans are largely female and younger, most likely largely falling into the 13-24 year-old age group. They are also a very enthusiastic group, closely following all products and news relating to Twilight. As evidence of this enthusiasm, I read that teen retailer Hot Topic’s relationship with Twilight has been credited with increasing the company’s sales over the course of several months. This is no small feat during an otherwise dismal retail economy. Thus, the news of this app made me think that it may not be the publishers of Twilight who benefit most from this app. An app that is targeted at the existing large, enthusiastic, young and female Twilight fan base could be more of a win for Apple and exclusive iPhone carrier AT&T.
Tristan
Now that the internet is about offering niche services that directly cater to specific needs, meet PeopleBrowsr. The search engine is the ultimate social network tracker, and has just launched a live search feature. On the main page of PeopleBrowsr, you get a choice of tools depending on what type of search you need, the choice varies from brand/buzz search, news search, conference search, and more. The interface is pretty sleek, and the service is available as a desktop app. Check it out, you won't be disappointed.
