An Innovative Instagram Use Case

Tags:apps, innovation, instagram, Mobile, photography, Social Networking, startups.

I’m late to the Instagram party (I define late as discovering my first name has already been claimed as a username; if you’re curious I’m grabbed Tylda instead) and I’m hooked. Its simplicity makes discovering images a joy and its community is overwhelmingly positive, lacking the anonymous trolls that usually plague public comment threads.

And, while photos can be posted to multiple other social networks, those connections are not visible to other users, putting the focus squarely on photography. On Instagram, who you are is defined only by how you see the world, a refreshing departure from most social networks profiles.

Most people share photos and interact with others through comments and likes. One user, @assingm3nt, innovatively built a community around his account, posting topics for photo contests to his followers and highlighting the most interesting submissions with a followup photo:

Instagram might not have predicted this use case. That’s one of the fun surprises about building something: You never know how users will interact with your product. If you listen, you can find inspiration to improve, or just enjoy the innovation.

Journalism and the World Cup

Tags:journalism, Mobile, New York Times, news alert, world cup.

I love the World Cup. I love how nearly every bar and restaurant brags about airing all the games, and seeing which ones attract the die-hard fans. I love the fans’ passion and energy and hearing bursts of cheering from my window even when I’m not watching the game.

During a recent game, I watched the referees running alongside the players and thought about the uniqueness of their role. While most everyone playing and watching the games is rooting for one team, the referees watch both sides closely. It’s a bit like being a journalist. No human being is completely objective, but you do all you can to tell both sides of the story.

If you watched the Spain vs. Paraguay game, you know it was intense, with Spain sneaking in a goal near the very end. I got a news alert with the result from the New York Times later that evening. Why did they wait so long to send it out? Even more than online, timing is everything in mobile. When sending alerts via mobile, news orgs should aim to keep pace with, if not beat, word of mouth. The information was really outdated at 7:07pm, and the message linked to the mobile homepage instead of to the story about the game. That’s one goal the Times didn’t score.

(Im)Mobile in a Traffic Jam

Tags:context, Geolocation, Mobile, search, traffic, travel.

I was stuck in a traffic jam yesterday while heading back to New York from a wedding in Virginia. We passed a sign in Maryland announcing the last exit until the state line and regretted not taking it when we stopped moving shortly after.

Because I had an iPhone, I became the default navigator for trip, but the phone failed in finding news about what caused the delay. A Google search brought up sites with traffic cameras, interactive maps showing the same data I’d already found via Google Maps, a couple of “secured” sites requiring a password and one stating its mobile version was disabled to prevent driver distraction.

I’m all for undistracted drivers, but blocking the entire site from mobile is a terrible solution. Most drivers using their phones on the road are unlikely to break the habit due to one site’s block, and depriving passengers of information that could help drivers is a bit of a disservice as well.

A search using Google’s geolocation disappointed with listings for a speedway in
Delaware, a park in Baltimore and a Hospital in Pennsylvania, each at
least 30 miles away. The sponsored links at least seemed related
(“Traffic Conditions I 95 and I 95 Traffic Conditions) but linked to
Ask and Peeplo, which offered advice on coffee shops, SEO and
patio umbrella stands on the first page of results. One site offered
data only via zip code search. That may be a helpful way to search for
locals, but close useless for someone just passing through; zip codes
aren’t exactly labeled on maps and road signs.

I tried searching for news using Google Mobile’s geolocation feature,
but couldn’t find any relevant results. In the meantime, the radio
offered traffic updates on nearby highways that weren’t ours. I found
a twitter account offering news alerts about the interstate, but the
latest tweet was from April.

Why was it so hard to find out what happened? Based on the number of
emergency vehicles and tow trucks we later saw, it was probably a
large enough incident to be mentioned by at least one nearby news
outlet. It’s possible a broadcast network found footage from it, or
that one of those distracted drivers (or passengers) shot some video
with their cell phone. Why couldn’t I find that footage? Mobile search
has so much potential, but still such a long way to reach it.

Context matters in location based services

Tags:advertising, context, Geolocation, information, Mobile.

MobileBehavior has a smart post on geolocation and how knowing where someone is doesn’t tell you why they’re there.

If networks were to push advertising based on location alone, it would most likely be spam. This is because location isn’t the same as context, or the set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event or situation.

Location alone doesn’t tell you whether I’m alone or with friends, whether I’m busy or looking for something to do nor where I’m headed next. Knowing what time of day it is can be a clue, but even then there are many possibilities. Cracking the context code will help information providers and advertisers give us content that is incredibly useful and relevant.

2013: Mobile to overtake PCs for net access

Tags:Gartner, Internet, Mobile, prediction.

Research firm Gartner says mobile phones will overtake computers as the most common web access device by 2013. That’s coming up quickly, but not entirely unfeasible on a global scale, given how quickly mobile  has grown. New devices, like Apple’s rumored tablet, will foster the habit of web browsing on the go. Gartner says, however, that while handsets capable of net access will outnumber PCs in three years, we won’t see people spending more time browsing away from their computers until 2015.