Perry

Hewitt

Tag: snapchat

Friday 5 — 1.15.2016
1. Mobile apps versus native web is a false dichotomy, per Luke Wroblewski. Brands need both: the former offers rich experiences, while the latter provides greater reach (including in-app browser views).
2. We have a longstanding, love-hate relationship with email, where gratifying immediacy for the sender often means notification hell for the recipient. The Atlantic explains how we got here, why email is a cornerstone of the open web, and what may or may not be next.
3. As we cling tenaciously to our remaining New Year’s resolutions, decluttering may still be high on your 2016 agenda. Try these tips on decluttering your digital life — it’s not as daunting as it seems.
4. Noah Brier excerpts an article on a resolution of ditching the executive review. New ways of working transparently using tools like Slack and Trello can provide access to ideas, reinforce social accountability, and avoid the cumbersome “big reveal” of the executive review.
5. First the Wall Street Journal did it. Then the White House did it. Organizations are turning to Snapchat to reach new audiences, particularly since the app is rumored to serve seven million mobile video views each day.
Weekend fun: Have you ever really wanted to reply to a spam email, and see how far you can take it? Luckily for us, James Veitch did.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective pointers to compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Try out the Friday 5 archive, or sign up for a weekly email.
January 15, 2016
Friday 5 — 8.28.2015
1. Why do some videos go viral while others seemingly underperform? HBR looks at how psychological response and social motivation drive video sharing. Apparently it doesn’t hurt to reach the “supersharers,” who are responsible for 82.4% of total video shares.
2. Slack’s integrations — from GitHub to Giphy — make the team collaboration app delightfully sticky. This week Slack announced a new feature providing apps with the native capability to “Add to Slack.” This feature debuts in 13 apps (including my daily favorite, Nuzzel) with more soon to follow.
3. As voice communications continue to spiral — does anyone remember the concept of “rollover minutes”? listen to voicemail anymore? — messaging apps proliferate. However, there are regional differences in adoption. Quartz reviews why WhatsApp lagged in U.S. markets compared to Snapchat and Kik, and what these apps will need to do to fend off Facebook Messenger.
4. The shooting of a news team in Virginia this week, and the rapid dissemination of footage online, led to some somber consideration of the implications of technology. These include the autoplay video behavior on Facebook and Twitter that can cause involuntary viewing, and the phenomenon of a senseless murder planned expressly with social media in mind.
5. Good manners are about making other people feel comfortable, and what feels comfortable has a way of changing over time. Pew breaks down for us all what mobile phone etiquette looks like in 2015. Related (in case you missed it): an excellent primer on how to be polite.
Weekend fun: Ever wanted to just pull up stakes and go? This clever art project has married census data to a “Why I am leaving X” letter format to make your parting thoughts painless. Or stay put; Harvard research says you can manage your stress by getting a dog.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective pointers to compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Try out the Friday 5 archive, or sign up for a weekly email.
August 28, 2015
Friday 5 — 5.1.2015
1. Facebook is up to 4 billion daily video viewers, and some think it may unseat YouTube as the go-to video destination. Not much of a present for YouTube’s 10th birthday.
2. Instead of bucketing content referrals by each social network, BuzzFeed launched a new technology to track content shares across social networks. Dubbed Process for Optimizing and Understanding Network Diffusion (POUND), the system offers a realistic, more nuanced view of how stories spread. Buzzfeed’s own post buried the lead — the data show that sponsored content is shared just like editorial content.
3. Click wisely: Nearly 2% of Gmail messages are designed to trick users into giving up their passwords, and well-crafted phishing schemes are effective 45% of the time. Given those scary statistics, this week Google launched Password Alert to let you know when a password reset may be in order.
4. Why is Snapchat getting into the news business? With hundreds of millions of users, a valuation of $15 billion, Snapchat is becoming one of the fastest-growing media platforms in the world. With a critical new editorial hire, a built-in audience, and the pipes laid, deciding what to flow through seems to be a natural next step. The question is whether the Discover tab can serve as its own destination, or will remain a time-waster between user-generated snaps.
5. In my experience, there are few things more time-consuming or expensive than a free trial of new software. The Chief Marketing Technologist blog includes this advice among other useful suggestions in 8 useful tips for marketing tech companies on pitching CMOs.
Weekend fun: So much for “Canada nice” — the poop emoji is a big hit in Canada. Here’s how emoji usage by country breaks down. A little gross, sure, but a lot less creepy than the selfie arm.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective pointers to compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Try out the Friday 5 archive, or sign up for a weekly email.
May 1, 2015
Friday 5 — 1.30.2015
1. Snapchat aims to become a force in mobile news with this week’s launch of Snapchat Discover. Here are some tips on how to use it.
2. If you’re like 82% of people, you have forgotten a password for a website. Luke Wroblewski has a thoughtful piece on password masking, security, and our one-touch future. Because we’re not getting any smarter about passwords.
3. GIFs are everywhere you look these days, as a recent investment in Giphy, a two-year old GIF search engine, confirms. Imgur has launched a useful new way to make your own (desktop only).
4. Making the move from individual contributor to engineering manager, is not for everyone. Noah Brier shares his thoughts on the need for pragmatism, balancing systems/scale, and a more general point on clarity of assignment.
5. Think we should be taking videogames seriously? Don’t miss the astonishing growth in Twitch’s year end roundup or Steam’s announced $50M in earnings for in-game hats and maps. Pick and shovel plays galore as industries build up around videogames’ burgeoning culture and revenue.
Weekend fun: Not your average armchair quarterbacks, Harvard Business School professors suit up, kind of, to discuss the Super Bowl. Whether you’re a Seahawks or Pats fan, tune in at 2pm today for a Super Bowl-themed #HBXChat.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective pointers to compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Try out the Friday 5 archive, or sign up for a weekly email.
January 30, 2015
Friday 5 — 8.8.2014
1. Snapchat and WhatsApp are emerging as dominant photo sharing platforms. Interesting that a main modality for this sharing is private messaging (quasi-ephemeral in the case of Snapchat) versus Facebook’s one-to-many concept of posting to your profile page.
2. Social networking skeptics often decry the use of “friend” as an organizing principle for everyone from your sister to your teammate on the college lacrosse team a decade ago. Fear not: Foursquare and LinkedIn are embracing the follow model.
3. If you’re still trying to get your head around bitcoin, add Stellar to the list of digital currency projects you’ve got to figure out. Backed in part by online payment innovator Stripe, Stellar is a not-for-profit that seeks to expand digital currencies to a wider audience, and provide an easier way to move money over the internet.
4. Public radio junkies may want to check out the new NPR One app. Native for mobile and web for desktop, the app provides the ability to listen to NPR content in an nonlinear, curated way — and enables serendipitous discovery in the process. Features include the ability to select your home station independent of current location, search from every screen, and an “interesting” button (avoiding the awkward “like” on sobering news pieces). Read an in-depth review.
5. Are your social media posts more popular than you think? This (vendor-written) post explores the varying ratio of creators : commenters : observers online, and offers suggestions for how you might calculate probable reach across the different social networks.
Weekend fun: “We live in a rapidly changing world … the way people get from place to place needs to change, too.” Beyond Uber, there is WYSK.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective pointers to compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Try out the Friday 5 archive, or sign up to get a weekly email.
August 8, 2014
Friday 5 — 5.2.14
1. For a few years now, Foursquare has felt like a location data layer in search of a business model. The company just announced a move toward a more explicit user value proposition by revising its core app and splitting off a new Swarm app — a social heat map that doesn’t require an explicit check-in.
2. How can we stop wasting users’ time? Here are some practical ways to design experiences that avoid common user experience pitfalls. My favorite? Stop the madness of persnickety fields that make for tiresome web forms.
3. User growth is flat and the stock precipitously down — and now Twitter gets its very own eulogy.
4. At Facebook f8, Mark Zuckerberg announced a set of new features, few of which you might associate with Facebook as we know it. They include anonymous login, linking between apps, and a mobile like button. Also, he said trust, stable, and mobile a heck of a lot.
5. Teen-friendly, ephemeral, and visual messaging app Snapchat counters the unbundling trend of Foursquare and Facebook by adding features. Now users can swipe to chat via text or video — and true to brand, the conversation disappears when users leave the app.
Weekend fun: In one minute and twenty-three seconds you could accomplish something productive, like answering an email or flossing your teeth. Or you could watch tiny hamsters eating tiny burritos. And it’s only episode one of the series, so submit your suggestions printed on tiny tortillas via #TinyHamsterIdeas.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
May 2, 2014
Friday 5 — 12.13.2013
1. Instagram Direct lets you send your photos, videos, and messages to select recipients. While comparisons to Snapchat feature prominently in the media coverage, this feels more like a catch-up feature like its video announcement back in June. One new ephemeral capability: you can delete your photos from recipients’ phones.
2. In another Snapchat-response move, Twitter announced you can direct message photos — along with a bunch of other enhancements designed to keep you in-app longer. Smooth new swiping action in the mobile app lets you see activity and “discover” more easily.
3. Canadian messaging company Kik at 100 million registered users may already be bigger than Snapchat, which declines to disclose its numbers. Kik’s support for HTML5-based content provides more flexibility to download games and content in-app — a big bet on the Web as its future.
4. Chart geeks, rejoice! In this season of best-ofs, the Wire has compiled the best 2013 charts. Big momentum behind fruit flavored candy with Jolly Rancher, Twizzler, and Starburst rising in Twitter mentions (and, allegedly, sales).
5. Open source software is eating itself, with more projects emerging and competing with one another throughout the stack. How can an enterprise know where to place its bets? Look for a strong community supporting the project, and code activity (releases, commits/month).
Weekend fun: YouTube Trends tell me that most of the country is watching 2013 rewind, so I guess you should be, too. I mean, it would be really depressing to dwell on the fact that all this stuff from 1994 is now 20 years old.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
December 13, 2013
Friday 5 — 11.15.2013
1. So, lots of talk this week about Snapchat turning down a 3B acquisition offer from Facebook. Was this a shrewd move, or an example of millennial entitlement run amok? Facebook’s 2012 purchase of Instagram for 1B is starting to look like it was a pretty good deal for a company concerned about its waning teen audience. And Google snapping up YouTube for 1.65B in stock back in 2006 now seems like a steal.
2. Where are those teens who are eluding Facebook? A lot of them are immersed in messaging apps like What’s App or Kik. The line between messaging and more traditional social is starting to blur as messaging apps add features like gaming and music. Also unclear: Will these services grow on their own, or be snapped up by the tech giants?
3. Wondering how much effort to put into optimizing your news site for social? 30% of U.S. adults get news on Facebook. And people who get news through social networking sites are more likely to get their news on mobile, underscoring the mobile mandate for publishers.
4. Dropbox announces 200M users and a total revamp of its platform for the relaunch of Dropbox for Business. Which they should totally just call “Dropbox for Business that You Can Admit to Using” because it’s already pervasive in the enterprise in a clunkier and less secure version.
5. How much does employee co-location matter when you’re building a company? According to Automattic’s recent 1B valuation, not a whole heck of a lot. The money quote from Matt Mullenweg: “if you give people autonomy to execute on something meaningful, and bias the environment to moving quickly, amazing things can happen.”
Weekend fun: Want to see something cool, even if it makes you (OK, me) regret your own slacker parenting? Check out Dinovember.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
November 15, 2013
Friday 5 — 10.04.2013
1. Have fun playing with bitly’s new Real Time Media Map, which visualizes how content from different media outlets is being consumed across the U.S. As you can see from the drilldown above, we read a lot of The Onion here in Massachusetts.
2. Next week Google Analytics opens its free, online Analytics Academy. Another example of MOOCs as the new marketing — and a great opportunity for anyone in digital looking to develop skills in a fast-growing segment.
3. Snapchat shifts focus from the fleeting to a full 24-hour window with its move into Snapchat Stories. Users can now construct chains of moments into stories which expire after a day.
4. Group messaging service What’sApp is being billed as another great threat to Facebook. Like WeChat, the service has strongholds in multiple markets outside the U.S.
5. Twitter disclosed its IPO plans to raise $1 billion revealing both lower than anticipated revenue, and 218 million active users/month. Most significantly, 65% of advertising revenue is now from mobile.
Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Please let me know what I’ve missed in the comments below.
October 4, 2013
Friday 5 – 06.14.2013
Every Friday, find five quick links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas. Source: the internet.
1. Twitter quietly opened its analytics platform for general use. Now even small publishers can view and track follows, unfollows, and clicks to gauge performance of an account, and even download a CSV.
2. Facebook embraced the hashtag. This development has been greeted by many as the ultimate victory of advertisers over users. I agree with this Atlantic piece — the pound sign doesn’t signal the apocalypse as much as a desire to engage users more through search and organized conversations and, yes, help those advertisers.
3. It can be tempting to rush to new technologies to pursue the grail rather than optimize what you have. This book excerpt details how the Obama campaign enjoyed success by optimizing a technology people love to declare dead — and by overcoming a dread of being annoying.
4. Kids like the handhelds and grownups like the tablets, according to Pew. Tablets skew toward higher household incomes and educational attainment, but apparently there’s no significant difference in tablet ownership between men and women, or among different racial or ethnic groups.
5. Did you think it was only your preteen obsessed with Snapchat? Apparently it’s the summer of Snapchat for Wall Street bankers as well. Looks like the startup may have a shot at being worth the 100M round it’s rumored to be raising on a half-billion or so valuation.
June 14, 2013