Uba Kontrovasie

My iPhone

I’ve had it for a few months now, yes I was one of those sad people queuing outside the O2 store during the first month they came out.

This little gadget has seriously changed the way I work these days, here’s why:

- It syncs with my calendar at the office
- It syncs with with my work e-mail in real-time via the exchange
- The internet is fast enough for me to read my RSS feeds on it each morning en route to the office
- I have a better back because I do not need to a lug a laptop with me everywhere I go mon-fri

I haven’t massively got into all the fun applications just yet, however, here’s my run down of the ones that I’ve found the most useful:

Shozu - lets you upload pics from your iPhone to Flickr
Evernote - my “cloud” notepad of choice
Facebook for iPhone, need I explain any further
Twittereffic - All things twitter
Wordpress - Blogging on the fly
Google.co.uk/reader/i - access to my feeds
Light Saber - Yes a Light Saber on your iPhone (hours of fun)

Another app I also recommend is EventSync for the Mac, not an iPhone App as such but it lets you sync all Facebook events to iCal and iTunes does the rest by syncing everything to your handset. I’ve given up on the Upcoming + Facebook app working, it just keeps dying and not syncing both ways.

My criticisms? bad battery life, I’ve had to drop the screen brightness right down to make the battery last a full busy day. Also the camera could be better, they could have quite easily incorporated an LED flash like they did on the Sony K750 a few years ago.

Rant and praise over, hope you guys find the tips useful.

Tags: 3G, Apple, eventsync, evernote, facebook, flickr, ical, iphone, phone application, phone applications, shozu, twitteriffic, upcoming, wordpress

Getting it right on Facebook

I received an invite today on Facebook asking me to join a group for a company, my first reactions? Who and what the hell is this? I pretty much rejected it straight away.

There are lot’s of different types of groups on Facebook, fan based groups, interest groups and yes even brand groups.

Brand groups are often just set-up by normal people who are fans of brands or people who work for brands (brand evangelists).

There is a real need for social media marketers to understand how to use Facebook properly, there is no reason to spam people by sending invites to your brand group.

Social Media is all about permission marketing, if people like what you have to offer they will become a member of your Facebook group without any spammy requests.

LG have done good job of plugging their Facebook group on their social media hub (blog).

This allows people to join their group if they want to, in many respects a Facebook group should be seen as a brands own micro-social network.

Wake up people! Stop knocking on doors, provide people what they want by means of content and information, in time you will find people join your brand group automatically.

Tags: facebook, groups, permission marketing, social network

FOWA

I was at FOWA for the second day of the conference last week, it was an insightful day out of the office and I walked out feeling quite informed about all things going on in the world of web apps and social websites.

My day kicked off with Tim Bray giving a good on talk on how we as an industry should move forward, in what now has been dubbed as the “credit crunch”. Open source software, cloud computing, social media, collaboration and multi-skilling were all on the top of his list.

Without sounding cheesy it was quite an inspirational talk from a man who had a frightening amount of knowledge about technology, business and err…the world. Definitely one of those ones that leave you thinking “s*** I should read more”.

One of my favourite quotes from his talk was “monetisation on the point of value”, this referred to how the enterprise will lean towards open source technology and only pay for solutions when they start to deliver value, gone are days of licensing and value delivery after expense and integration.

This made me think about the value of social media more and more. As the use of social media is not as accountable as traditional DM/DR marketing what value does it deliver during a credit crunch?

Personally I believe it allows a brand to get closer to it’s audience during this period of financial uncertainty. People are now more than ever are looking for a value exchange and this is something that can be most effectively delivered by brands through building relationships with audiences.

A typical example would be someone looking to buy a high-end laptop online: Taking the current state of the economy into account, would a cash thrifty consumer buy a laptop from a brand who has no unbiased online feedback? Web commentary, product reviews and integration information? I wouldn’t buy from that brand, I would want to be reassured that during these cash strapped times my investment is a sound one. No form of interrupt marketing will provide me this reassurance until we reach a period of economic stability.

This may not apply to every product, service or vertical but think about it! The people who have the cash, the big spenders, they’re often the wisest ones too!

Moving forward we will see more brands get closer to their existing customers, do the best to provide a pre-purchase value exchange to prospects using social media in conjunction with low cost acquisition methods such as Affiliate Marketing, SEO and low cost CPC advertising.

I digress but that’s what thinking makes me do anyway…

Other highlights of the day included all the sessions on cloud computing, in particular Jeff Bar from Amazon web services made some really good points during his session. Microsoft were also demo’ing all their new bells, whistles and Silverlight but I think my second favourite batch of talks were delivered after lunch.

The interview of Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg was really insightful. It answered a lot of questions about the directions Facebook is taking in regards to making the platform more open, integrating technologies such as oAuth. Zuckerberg said it wasn’t out of the question and it is something that is on the cards, however, timelines are yet to be established. He went on to say that one of the key things that keep him and Facebook going is the passion he has for sharing information and this is why Facebook, overtime will become a more open platform.

Seeing someone soo young, speak with such a forward thinking mindset was definitely good for personal motivation. Roll on FOWA 09!!

Tags: Cloud computing, collaboration, credit crunch, facebook, FOWA, oAuth, open source, social media, web applications, zuckerberg

Is the future of social about real personal space?

So many websites and social networks rise and fall down the Comscore/Neilson ratings and so many social networks are popping up across the internet I ask my-self how many can you actually become a member of and what are the real benefits?

Facebook was/is a phenomenon that took people by storm, however after the honeymoon period you start hearing “Facebook is ruining my life” and “I can’t believe I got tagged in that photo”.

The web is becoming more social and this is evidently true, however with every radical movement comes a back lash. People go through cycles and return to what they’re comfortable with, its habit, we’re humans, its what were programmed to do, end of!

After months of everybody e-mailing each other only through Facebook, poking, tagging etc I find my friends are returning back to good old email. A step back? I don’t think so…people will experiment with platforms like Facebook, get fully involved and then only use features they like, going back to what they know best and what they’re comfortable with is normal. There’s that word again - habit!

Its like fashion for want of a better example, you don’t follow every trend you just buy one piece of this years collection which suits you best.

I personally like the network aspect of Facebook, having nearly everyone I’ve ever known behind one log-in is a neat idea. The other stuff I’m not so concerned about, I think I’ll go back to flickr or istockphoto for photos and I will use email or IM to carry on talking to the people that are close to me.

Do I really want everyone to know my mate had a great time having drink with me on tuesday night? not really!

As much as people love to be social they also love personal space and anything that invades it in any way is bound to progress at a slower rate over time. Facebook will always have a core audience and I think people will start to use it more as a means to purely network and not “entertainment”.

Blogs have been around for years, way before Facebook and any of the other social networks. I still believe they still are the future, why? Well it’s because they’re truly personal and they allow people to be social without having their privacy completely invaded, you can push your thoughts across to your friends via RSS and they can upload photos of you, but there’s little risk of that girl in the accounts dept seeing a photo of you, totally off your rocker last Friday night. This is because she doesn’t have access to your friend’s blogs, even if you have blog rolled them there’s nothing encouraging that person to click through unlike Facebook where people can see things happen via feeds instantly.

Blogs are also neat place to aggregate all kinds of other web apps into your own space in your own way i.e your last fm’s most played list, flickr photo quilt and how you feel on Twitter.

People love customisation, its empowering to show all theses apps in your own way on your own space, even if you can (will be able to) do it on Facebook it’s just not quite the same, people love to host house parties at their own houses and not borrowed space.

Tags: Blogging, blogs, facebook, social, social media, Social networks, web 2.0, web apps