A lot of 2016 predictions, including Fred Wilson’s excellent list, mention consumer adoption of virtual reality (VR) games and apps. This week, Oculus announced a March release date and a price point just shy of $600. The New York Public Library, often a leader in digital, has released more that 187,000 digitized images in the public domain. You …
Friday 5 — 12.11.2015
Uber expands into food delivery as a standalone app with the launch of UberEats. Debuting in Canada, the app will compete with existing services like Seamless and Postmates, and reflect Uber’s trademark simplicity by offering only five meal choices. You may have noticed a few changes this week to your social media feeds. Facebook now serves up relevant stories when …
Friday 5 — 12.4.2015
Nike shoes, Star Wars droids, and hoverboards were among the popular products shopped for on Black Friday. If you were shopping from the comfort of your couch, you were in good company: Smartphone sales nearly doubled year over year, from 9.1% to 15.2 %. Read the full report PDF, and ignore Wired’s snark that Cyber …
Friday 5 — 11.27.2015
It’s been an odd, three-day work week on the interwebs. We had the #SlackDown maelstrom with an impressive social media save, fake Don DeLillo joined Twitter to announce a fake death, and then a real Jeff Bezos joined Twitter to announce a real disposable rocket launch. Go figure. In more substantive news: WordPress has disrupted itself, according to founder Matt Mullenweg. …
Friday 5 — 11.20.2015
Google just made a big improvement to finding in-app content on mobile. On Android devices, Google will now launch the app if you have it installed, or stream the content to you if you don’t. This is an important step forward in a world where 50% of all online time — not just mobile time — is spent in-app. …
Friday 5 — 11.13.2015
Who are your top 9 — the people who appear in that mysterious box on your Facebook profile page? Turns out it’s not the people whom you stalk (or who stalk you). Instead, Facebook’s algorithm displays these people on your profile page as subtle encouragement for you to interact with them. Benedict Evans has a new post on mobile as the …
Friday 5 — 11.6.2015
Tired of drafting the same email reply over and over? Google is here to help with SmartReply, a new Inbox app feature that suggest replies to your email messages. You can edit the reply as suggested, or delete it and write your own. Extra credit: Geek out on the machine learning under the hood. If you …
Friday 5 — 10.30.2015
In the early 90s, corporate marketing departments produced physical brand books, illustrating dos and don’ts for print, TV, signage, trade shows, etc. Fast forward a couple of decades, and the digital world requires a wide-ranging brand treatment that enables variations in volume, and concepts like stacking. See this gorgeous Netflix brand rollout for a best-in-class example. I’m a longtime …
Friday 5 — 10.23.2015
“Just a Brown Hand” takes a look at the decision process behind a seemingly small detail: the skin color of the hand depicted in the new Add to Slack feature launched this week. It’s a good reminder of the normative defaults often hard coded into software we use. Curious about the future of tech and media? If so, …
Friday 5 — 10.16.2015
When you’re in love, you text daily. Or at least our teenagers do 72% of the time, compared with only 39% who talk on the phone daily. And when they break up? 43% untag or delete photos shared online. Read the full report on teens, technology, and romantic relationships. How do you manage product feedback in …