Perry

Hewitt

Tag: whatsapp

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 — 11.28.2014
1. Technology surrounds us, but what do most internet users understand about it? A Pew survey on web and digital technology found that only 23% of adult users are aware that “the Internet” and “the World Wide Web” are not the same thing. And while 83% of those surveyed could correctly identify Bill Gates, fewer than half knew that Facebook started at Harvard. Take the quiz for yourself before you read the report.
2. I enjoyed this post reframing strategy as less of a blueprint, which was better suited to a predictable analog world, but more of an algorithm (rule) that helps you manage for exceptions. As digital marketers operate in an ever-changing mix of channels, tools, and audiences, it’s essential to rely less on a plan and more on an agile approach that enables flexible, distributed decision-making.
3. Twitter is launching a new feature called “app graph,” which tracks all of the apps a user has installed on their mobile device. The goal is to serve users more applicable suggestions for accounts to follow, and add relevant content (including better-targeted ads) to their feeds. Here’s how to disable it.
4. Alex Breuer gave a thoughtful interview on responsive design at the Guardian. The interview provides insights on ways mobile can influence editorial, the evolution of prototyping, and why speed is considered an integral component of design.
5. WhatsApp is emerging in some contexts as a major traffic driver for news sites — and the rise of messaging apps in the West ensures this trend will continue to grow. Site owners should start gathering data on messaging referrals, and evaluate when it’s time to add a button for WhatsApp sharing.
Weekend fun: Here are Richard Scarry’s Busy Town inhabitants cleverly re-imagined with modern-day professions, like “content aggregator” and “tech start up executive.” Beware the pathos casting of Lowly Worm.

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.
November 28, 2014
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 — 2.21.2014
1. Facebook forked over $19 billion for WhatsApp, and the internet is full of articles explaining why. Among the most compelling is Buzzfeed’s take that WhatsApp posed a significant threat. WhatsApp is growing fast globally, consumes a great deal of young users’ smartphone time, and fills that critical “staying in touch” niche that Facebook would like to own.
2. The visual social network Instagram, another Facebook purchase, is looking like it might be living up to its relatively modest $1 billion price tag. Explosive growth and high engagement mean that Instagram is increasingly attractive to brands. It has exceptionally high engagement with affluent, young women — a demographic particularly attractive for retail.
3. If you’re an online publisher — and pretty much all brands are these days — you might be interested in Echobox. This analytics package offers data-driven insights about your content’s performance both on site and as shared across social channels. The end result is fewer charts and numbers, and more specific recommendations for your content.
4. LinkedIn this week entered the realm of “platisher” — the dreadful coinage for part platform and part publisher — as it opened up its content marketing Influencers program to everyone. Like Medium, LinkedIn will cultivate brand names and high-quality submissions, but sees value in building a broad-based content empire.
5. Just where will we wear the internet of things? We’re easing in with wristbands and the stunningly awkward Google Glass, but there’s more to come. Quartz provides a list of body parts likely to be adorned with tech in the near future.
Weekend fun: Jimmy Fallon took over The Tonight Show this week with a celebrity-studded vengeance, but the #hashtag2 performance sealed the deal.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.
February 21, 2014