Review: Working'!! Season 2

I missed the apostrophe  the first time I saw this

Not much has changed between the first and second seasons of the slice-of-life comedy Working. All they did to differentiate the Japanese titles of first and second seasons was add an apostrophe to the title of the second season, which I know is giving a headache to many of you grammar fiends out there. “Working’!!” has not changed the whimsical character interactions and the light-hearted themes found in the first season of “Working!!”, but there have been subtle changes in the second season which have given new life to the staff of Wagnaria.

The Paul Christoforo Story: PR Failure to Internet Meme In Less Than 24 Hours

Today much of the enthusiast video game community have been abuzz talking about the saga of Paul Christoforo and the Avenger video game controller add-on for the Xbox 360 and PS3 Controllers. When Dave, a concerned customer that had bought the Avenger product early this month, sent a concerned email to Paul Christoforo, the now-former PR representative for the Avenger product, he received several unfortunate and unprofessional responses from Paul.

My Thoughts on the Facebook Timeline

Facebook's Timeline has been out for over a week now and so far the the popular reception has been mixed. The majority people I know personally and online have either ignored it or have been ambivalent towards Timeline. The concept of organizing events, interactions, and photos on the profile page to create a personal narrative is compelling, but as is the norm with Facebook, the concept has not quite matched its implementation.

One of the main issues is that Techcrunch's Josh Constine explored is that even though Facebook's Timeline works well with the current privacy controls, there are many things that users can easily overlook or forget to remove from the Timeline. For any avid Facebook user there are potentially thousands of Facebook photos, comments, and events that could show up on the Timeline, and not all users fully understand that events on the Activity Log in the distant past can show up again. 

Potential privacy headaches aside, the Facebook Timeline also feels like a half-hearted throwback to the bygone days of Myspace personal profiles. Users have long desired the ability to customize their profile pages, and while the Timeline is a start in helping satisfy those desires, it does not offer up the ability to embed media or fully customize themes. Giving users more options would have gone a long way in giving Timeline much more substance, since as it is right now it feels more like a time-consuming gimmick rather than a desirable enhancement to Facebook. 

It is easy to understand Facebook's approach with Timeline: It is a addition that gives users power to curate and record their relationships with other people. However, is it something that the majority of Facebook users have wanted or even find useful? Doubtful. It seems to me that the Timeline is a project that was born primarily out of Facebook's desire to further cement their hold on the market, rather than being born from the desire to provide users with tools that they want to use. 

Finding the Boundaries of Social and Personal With Between

I saw an interesting post over at the Geek Dad blog on Wired about Between, a mobile app made by a South Korean start up that is a social network for two people. In many Asian cultures sharing photos and other details about personal lives is against the norm, so Between was created to be a social network for people in intimate relationships to give them some of the advantages of a traditional social network while keeping things private.

In all of our admiration of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Anybeat, it can be easy to forget where our boundaries of our personal lives end and our online social networking lives begin. It is easier to find these boundaries on some social networks as opposed to others, but regardless our constant connection to the online world has made us take for granted the value of intimate moments and relationships.

There is always room for socializing with other people, but it is ideas and apps like Between that really let us appreciate human connections instead of casual connections. Some of us can still have intimate moments without anybody intruding on Facebook, and some of us can even have similar moments with people outside our traditional friends list on networks like Anybeat, but for those of us that want something that is purely intimate, Between looks like a great app.


Source: Wired Geek Dad

Spotify No Longer In Beta For Blackberry

Christmas has come early for Blackberry lovers that use Spotify. Today Spotify announced that the Spotify app for Blackberry is now available to compatible Blackberry  phones, which are the Bold 9780, Bold 9700, Curve 9300, Bold 9000 and the Curve 8520.

Even though the app is only available to premium Spotify subscribers, it is still a welcome addition in the relatively deserted Blackberry app marketplace. Blackberry users now have a great alternative to the Pandora and the Blackberry Music subscriptions services to satisfy their music needs on the go. Before today Pandora was the only quality streaming experience on the device, so now Blackberry users can feel a bit more comfortable knowing that they actually have options now.

Source: Geeky Gadgets, Spotify

Predicting the Future of Social Networking in 2012

2012 will be the year for alternative social networks like Anybeat.

An interesting point that was brought up in a recent Forbes article on megatrends in social media for 2012 was the growing importance of our roles as curators and transmitters of online content. As inconsequential as posting a interesting news link or linking a video to our friends and family may seem to be, it is this process that is fast becoming a major online ecosystem in which corporations are starting to invest time and money into.

Corporate and marketing focus aside, social media and the Internet has also played an important part in organizing and supporting protests and revolutions around the world in 2011, and our roles as transmitters of online news and videos of events were key to the unprecedented global spread of political awareness. This trend will continue in 2012, and the rise of alternative social networks will continue to expand our roles as curators of online content.

The Digital Evolution of the Global Protest Movement

The global trend of political activity by the Facebook Generation has continued with the Occupy protests in the United States and the recent protests in Russia against election corruption. As the younger generations of the world have found themselves increasingly empowered thanks to social media and social networks, in turn the Internet has increasingly found itself to be the location of battles for free speech and political freedom. The recent Russian spam attacks on Twitter this past week have been the latest volleys in this battle and are a sign that the conflict is intensifying.