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.

Reasons to Have Faith in the Google Music Beta

Many people were slightly underwhelmed at what functionalities went live at the Google Music beta’s launch. Not only was support missing from the world’s second largest music publisher Warner Music Group, but the Google Music beta was also missing core functionality to purchase music on Android devices and PCs. Google has started to roll out music purchases to specific Android phones since the original announcement, but it is still easy to sense that there is a cloud of uncertainty hanging over Google’s latest project.

To further complicate the situation, Google is not entering the cloud-based music market alone. Amazon’s Cloud Player and Apple’s iCloud and iTunes Match services already exist and are competing for money and mind share.  There are also other music services that offer alternative music purchasing services that have gained traction such as Spotify and Pandora that the Google Music beta has to compete with. With such well-established competition, it can be easy to dismiss Google Music to be another one of Google’s ill-fated ventures.

Siri's Impact in the Battle of the Smart Phones

The iPhone 4S and Siri

The recent launch of the 5^th generation iPhone 4S has not generated the stir that its legendary predecessor has four years ago, but while it does not compare to the original iPhone on the number of revolutionary functions, the iPhone 4S has one function that is poised to change the face of mobile devics; Siri.

As a comprehensive virtual assistant that accompanies iOS 5 on the iPhone 4S, Siri has disappointed those expecting a bit more versatility. In terms of potential and design direction though, Siri actually is a revolutionary function that is poised to change the way phones are used, and this is why Siri is Apple’s biggest salvo across the bows of Google and Microsoft’s mobile aspirations.

The Wii U Unveiling Debacle

If Nintendo’s unveiling of the Wii U left you somewhat confused, rest assured that you are not alone. The Wii U unveiling was so underwhelming that Nintendo stock prices dropped to levels never before seen since the original Wii’s launch in 2006. The Wii U unveiling undoubtedly had the biggest splash at this year's E3; it was topic of conversation for everybody who attended E3, and has left the Internet abuzz ever since it was announced. So if the Wii U announcement was successful in getting the new console name out into the public imagination, why did the stockholder exodus occur?

Putting it simply, the Wii U is both too extreme and not extreme enough, and this awkward position means that Nintendo can potentially end up in last place in the home console race. As the core of Nintendo’s strategy to cement their lead in the home gaming console race for the future, Nintendo did not prove that the Wii U and its tablet controller was innovative or advanced enough to keep it at the forefront of the race when the next Xbox or Playstation would eventually come out. Indeed, when compared against Microsoft’s current Kinect controller-less motion capturing technology, to many people the Wii U tablet controller almost looks like a step backwards in terms of pushing the envelope of video gaming.

The Political Reality of the Facebook Generation

Activists and bloggers in Cairo's Tahrir Square during the height of the protests

Our generation has created new markets our relentless demand for online media, changed the Internet with the Web 2.0 movement, and has helped globalize pop culture. Yet despite these accomplishments, many doubted that we would have a substantial lasting impact on the world beyond our media consumption. The advent of the Arab Spring and our leadership of the democratic revolutions in nations across the globe have silenced these doubts. Our generation can now add another accomplishment on the growing list, along with a new nickname; the Facebook generation.

Privacy and the digital future

The digitized future. As a term it's rather innocuous, but as a concept it carries some strong negative connotations in our current culture. In the film Minority Report, there's a scene (embedded above) where Tom Cruise walks into a Gap and is 'recognized' by the billboard, which then goes on to greet him and recommend some products based on his past shopping history. I'm taking the scene a bit out of context, but it's impossible to escape the fact that in that scene and throughout the movie, the integration of technology with normal life is more frightening than awe-inspiring.

Oil and dirty water ahead

The BP oil spill in the Gulf is the worst environmental disaster in history. The fact that it's still growing is baffling people. There's just one question they are asking right now; "We managed to put man on the moon in the 1960's, but fifty years later we can't plug a hole at the bottom of the ocean?" Working the phones at Senator Boxer's office, I had one constituent scream his disbelief that the U.S. government wasn't sending NASA to plug the leak.

Last time I checked, NASA specializes in rockets and spacecraft technology. They don't specialize in plugging a broken and brittle oil pipe 5,000 feet down that's spewing thousands of gallons of oil at 9,000 psi. Quite different from building a rocket to brute-force Earth's gravitational field.

In summary, the Gulf oil spill has been an act of technological arrogance, so it's not surprising that we have been trying to find technological solutions to help stop the leak and help clean up the devastated Gulf ecosystems. From smartphone apps to help chart the widespread damage to the Gulf coastline to massive supercomputers calculating fluid simulations in an effort to find a method to plug the leak, there's no shortage of tech that has been deployed.

But we always have to remember that technology isn't the be-all-end-all solution.

Those smart phone apps? It's useless if there aren't already people on the ground trying to clean up. Those supercomputers? Only tools to aid the engineering and scientific minds working to find a solution to this crisis. And let us not forget that it was human error that allowed the safety equipment in the oil rig to fail at that critical moment. 

So the lesson to this slightly rambling rant? Don't idolize technology. We can't brute force issues and problems with tech; it can only aid us in finding solutions to the various problems in our lives and in our society. It's made living our lives easier, but we shouldn't let it define our lives. This is a call of caution against the looming technology-dominated future, and a reminder that even our technological brilliance cannot save us if we lay waste to Mother Earth.

Rant over. While we're talking about BP, be sure one of the funniest twitter parodies I've ever seen.

2010, Year of the Touchscreen Tablet PCs

Nuh-uh. Not the iPad. This is the HP Slate. 
 

The iPad might not be worth all the hype, but it sure as hell has kicked off a craze for touchscreen tablet PCs, and they all the new touchscreen tablet PCs happen to look disturbingly similar to the iPad. As much as I docked points for the iPad's lack of certain features earlier, there's no denying it's appeal to the casual user. You don't need amazing computer knowledge to operate one, and chances are most people will overlook the iPad's weaknesses thanks to how intuitive the touchscreen interface is. Touchscreen tablets have great potential to expand the market for portable computers, and this is why everybody's banking on tablet PCs this year thanks to the hype that the iPad has created.

Nope. It's the Fusion Garage JooJoo.

Besides the iPad, the other tablet PCs that I can name off the top of my head are the HP Slate, Archos 7 Home Tablet, and the Fusion Garage JooJoo. Hell, even Dell is rumored to be making one. Quite a lot of tablet PCs, considering touchscreen tablet PCs didn't really fly off shelves before the iPad was launched.

With numerous alternatives to choose from, the future computing is slowly being set into place. It doesn't matter if these tablet PCs lack the processing power and other functionalities of traditional computers, since there touchscreen tablet PCs are promoting the future of multiple-computer household. No matter how much techies and purists like me rail against how trends like these promote aestheticism over functionality, it's undeniably where the consumer culture is currently taking us.

Of course, it's not set in stone that tablet PCs will really take off, as it depends on how Apple and other companies build services around the hardware. But in one day, 300,000 of you seemed determined to make 2010 the Year of the Touchscreen Tablet PCs, so I expect tablet PCs to be here for good.

The Price of Pushing Internet Freedom

This kind of tech drama doesn't happen too often folks. Ever since several accounts at Google got hacked by someone in China earlier in December 2009, Google has taken the gloves off and announced that they were no longer censoring search results. Of course, the Chinese government simply flipped some switches on the Great Firewall of China, and started blocking various Google services. The response from within China has been somewhat varied, ranging from cautious support to nationalistic outrage.

So what happens now?

The obvious answer is that Google loses, big time. China's 384 million plus internet users will probably turn to the domestic search engine Baidu, and Google will no longer have a foothold in the world's fastest growing tech market. Of course, Sergey Brin expected this, and this was a decision based on personal rather than business ideals.

But the more disturbing answer is that US tech companies working with China will face this sort of treatment for the indefinite future. Google hasn't been the only high-profile company that has had trouble recently working with the Chinese government. Activision-Blizzard also has experienced its fair share of troubles in its efforts to renew the World of Warcraft license with the Chinese government, even though it has done exactly the opposite of what Google has chosen to do.

With an increasingly nationalistic and inward-focused China protests about intellectual property violations, hacking attacks, and censorship will fall on mostly deaf ears. As Western tech services and firms are handicapped by the Chinese government, Chinese copycats will continue to flourish. The digital divide between China and the rest of the world is growing day by day, it's clear that the digital landscapes on both sides of this divide will be very different.

Update: Oh, and it was confirmed that Yahoo had several email accounts hacked very recently. Starting to see a trend here?

Image courtesy AFP

Breaking News: Windows Phone 7 Announced

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, Microsoft announced their newest mobile smart phone OS platform, the Windows Phone 7.

*yawn* 

Let's be honest, Microsoft has a tendency to promise big and fail utterly in recent years. I think Windows 7 has been their only major product they released that was a success, and that's because we hit them over the head enough times because of Vista. Plus we're getting into smart phone territory here, in which the popular mind-share of this market has long been captured by the iPhone.

Don't get me wrong, I think Windows Phone 7 is a really slick mobile OS, and it's integration with Xbox Live has great potential. But the success of integration like that is highly dependent on the existence of a diversity of content for it (e.g. games), and there won't be enough Window Phone 7 users to justify developers investing in games for the platform when they can make so much more money off of the wildly popular iPhone app store.

Long story short, I'll be excited if Xbox Live integration isn't just a gimmick a year or so from now. But I'm willing to put down money that nobody will care about it then.

Source and image: Gizmodo

The Google Behemoth Strikes Again: Google Buzz

If you accessed your Gmail today, you've probably noticed that Google's added something called Buzz. Some people are calling it Google's answer to Facebook, but that's really a poor way to describing Buzz. Yes, Buzz is Google's new social networking add-on to Gmail, but the two services aren't really comparable beyond that. And that's the problem; Facebook is by far still offers more features, and Buzz doesn't offer anything radically compelling to justify being labeled a 'competitor' to Facebook.

Instead, I think the best way to think about Buzz is that it's enhancing your Gmail experience.You can upload and share decently-sized photos, and if you have Buzz on your smartphone you can 'tweet' your status with a geo-location tag on it so your friends can see where you 'tweeted' from, and all of this is integrated in the Gmail browser. Of course, there's some features that you'll recognize from Twitter and Facebook. Like your Facebook posts, your friends in Gmail can now comment on your Buzz post, and you can have people 'following' you.

Honestly, even if you think of Buzz being an add-on to Gmail, it doesn't really enhance the Gmail experience by much. I have at least 100 friends on Facebook who are constantly on Facebook-stalking, but I have about 10 people on my Gmail list who actively use it for stuff like Gmail chat. Whether you like Facebook's user interface or not, it's impossible to deny the fact that it's much more intuitive and efficient for socializing than Gmail's user interface is.

That said, the additions in Buzz make it a better competitor to Twitter, since it allows much more social interaction with your posts. Even with this positive outlook though, it's hard to deny that it's the awkward late comer to the party; it wants to be popular to be like Twitter and Facebook, but instead of being original, it tries to act like them and fails to appeal to anyone. C'mon Google. We expected more from you.

Favorite Superbowl Commercials For 2010

 

This year's game between the Saints and the Colts was really entertaining, but this year's crop of Superbowl commercials were a bit lacking. But there were a few good ones, and surprisingly this time my favorite commercial wasn't one by Bud Light or Budweiser. No, I didn't like the Motorola commercial (above) just because Megan Fox was half naked in it...well, actually I did since that was the whole joke, but that's besides the point. Props to Motorola for a commercial that was classy and funny, and props to Megan for being more entertaining than she was in Transformers 2. I was more entertained by this than I was for most of that movie, and I didn't get a headache watching it either. 

The honorable mention here is the Google ad. It's rather subtle, and I admit I kind of missed the point the first time I watched it. Luckily, thanks to the magic of Youtube, you can experience the simplistic but heart-warming ad as many times as you want. Pay attention to the ad closely if you watch it. It's definitely not the funniest or catchiest of the ads that aired, but it sure stood out for it's simplicity and cleverness among the screaming chicken ads Denny's ran. The screaming chickens were funny the first time, amusing the second, and really annoying the third time.

"Timmy, what are you doing?"

Not so breaking news: the iPad

I told you so. Not that you needed me to tell you guys the obvious, after all these year of tablet rumors and dancing around that Apple has done. But the iPad finally official, and predictably it's also taken the tech world by storm.

Overall, I'm not surprised with the features that Apple has offered with the iPad. It's all standard fare; magazine and book reading, a online store for those publications, some basic web functionality, and music and movie playback. Even though I'm not surprised with the features, there's no denying the impact the iPad can potentially have on not only the tech world, but also the ancient and declining world of publishing. With Apple's new tablet, magazines are no longer obsolete dinosaurs, out of touch with the increasingly wired universe.

So will the iPad herald a new revolution of online publishing? I sure hope so. Apple has established the beachhead in this battle; it's up to those publishers to create viable strategies and push attractive content to win the war. On the ultra-portable computing front, the iPad isn't quite the revolution that some people were hoping. The inability to multitask, the inefficient virtual keypad, and lack of Flash functionality means that the best bang-for-the-buck for ultra-portable computing still lies in the sub-$400 netbooks. Sure, there's an attachable physical keyboard, but honestly having to lug that around is a deal-breaker.

 

Revolutionary or not revolutionary, the iPad will be successful. Why? Because Apple knows that to be successful, you don't just sell a product, you sell a lifestyle. The iPod came with iTunes, the iPhone came with its massive app store, and the iPad will come all of those things plus the iBook store. With the ability to download and organize music/movies in iTunes, use/play/downlad apps, and buy books on the iPad, it's a multimedia powerhouse. Even despite not being quite as good as a netbook for web surfing or word processing, there's promise in what the iPad represents.

Oh, and the base model starts at $499. Easy on the wallet, decent on the features, and pretty to look at. Not too bad if you ask me. Now, about that name...

Images courtesy Gizmodo

Edit: Upon further reflection, I ended a bit too much on a positive note. The iPad is promising, but as a device it's still not quite good enough for me to give a wholehearted recommendation.  Apple needs to fix the issues (lack of multitasking is the big one), but I'm confident they will. So final verdict? Wait a year or so till a newer version comes out.

Tech Predictions for 2010

Instead of having a Best Game of The Year or a List of 10 Things in 2009 That Were Hella Cool, I shall now gaze into the all-seeing crystal ball and look into the future. Let's just hope that I don't look in the wrong place and see my roommate naked or something. Ugh. Anyways, without further ado, Justin's Totally Thought-out Predictions for 2010.

1. 2010 will be a year dominated by gaming sequels - Sequels to Gears of War, Resistance, Halo (ok maybe not a sequel, but it's close), Gran Turismo, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Splinter Cell, and Call of Duty will almost certainly coming out next year. And there isn't an original IP that looks like it will stand out from the crowd.
   
2. The Wii will see a gajillion consoles - Duh.
3. Google will release their much hyped 'Google' phone - Because they can. Headline in 2012: Google takes over the World, Bill Gates sobs.
4. Speaking of Google, Chrome OS will not be released - Official word says late 2010, but I personally doubt it. There's some tech hurdles that need to be jumped, a highly skeptical public that needs to be convinced, and more solid-state netbooks that need to be released.
5. Japan will make another robot for...something weird - Another duh. But I gotta have these freebies in here so this list sounds somewhat legit.
6. The Xbox 360 will continue to be in 3rd place behind the PS3 in monthly sales - This might seem like blasphemy coming from me, but the future for the 360 isn't bright. Of course, I have a very good chance of being wrong, especially if Natal comes out in 2010. But otherwise, Halo: Reach and Gears of War 3 won't guarantee sustained dominance over the PS3 for 2010.
   
7. Apple tablet announced - Cupertino has been playing around with us for so long that it's impossible to deny the existence of one without angering legions of Apple fanboys. Plus, it's guaranteed to sell like hotcakes, and it does make sense, so it's a win-win situation.
8. More torrent trackers will bite the dust - With the departure of Mininova and Pirate Bay to more legitimate shores, it's only a matter of time before unregulated torrent trackers die off. But hey, someone can always place a tracker in Russia or China...
9. Yahoo will be bought by someone - Yahoo's sucking right now, and they're overdue for a change in direction and focus. Either someone's going to shake up the leadership over there, or Yahoo will go the way of Earthlink into irrelevance.
10. I will continue to make a fool out of myself on this blog - Guaranteed.

And yes, I did say hella.

Yea, Another New iPod

But this time, this one has radio functionality, voice recording features, and a freaking camera. Why? God knows. Maybe Steve woke up one day and said; "THERE SHALL BE A CAMERA IN THE NANO, SINCE OBVIOUSLY THE NANO NEEDS THE ABILITY TO CAPTURE SHITTY FOOTAGE."

Crummy camera aside, Apple is brilliantly solidifying their grip on the portable electronic market. Why buy a full on digital camera when you're just filming some hijinks with your friends? Just pull out your iPod, which you'll have on you anyways.

A lot of the popular consumer electronics are low-cost, 'good-enough' items. Cheap items like the Acer Aspire Netbook and Flip Ultra have taken over their respective markets with their versatility and low price points. And Apple is using this strategy to aim straight for dominance. With the 16GB Nano clocking in at only $180, it's bound for success.

I don't like this, but it doesn't mean other people won't. We may be in the age of High Definition, but many of us are perfectly happy with 'Good-Enough' Definition.

Marketing 101: A Lesson In Tastefulness

OMG GIRLZ PLAY GAMUZ TOO! AND THEY ALL LIKE PINK AND PURPLE! AND THEY ALL SAY 'LIKE, ZOMG!'. ALSO, CAPS.

Was that enough caps for ya? No? Then the folks at whatever dumbass firm Sony has hired for marketing are calling. They want to hire you.

Sony's done enough stupid marketing for the PS3 and PSP, so I wasn't going to post about it till I actually saw this ad in person at the Americana shopping center in Glendale. I'm pretty sure the girls who DO play games would be offended by this ad, and the girl demographic that this ad is targeting could care less about gaming.

GG, Sony. May you forever have half-assed marketing so we can all laugh at your stupidity.