Turn your selfie Into an Emoji With The New iPhone App Imoji

By Jason Hahn at Digital Trends:


That standard set of yellow-faced emojis is so 2013. If you really want to leave your emotive mark on your text messages, consider downloading a new iPhone app called (what else) imoji, which lets you turn your selfies or other beloved images into stickers you can send to your friends.

“Imoji makes your texts more you,” the app’s website declares. The way it works is straightforward enough: Take a selfie or upload a photo of your choice, crop and edit it, and turn it into a sticker you can include in your text messages.

To be clear, imoji isn’t a standalone messaging app like WhatsApp, KakaoTalk or Line. Rather, it’s an app that links itself to the iOS iMessage app. User-created imojis can be made private or public, the latter being visible to all the app’s users, who can also search through a preexisting selection of imojis set up and shared by other users.

Imoji was tested with 100 “content creators” ahead of its official release as a free iOS app on July 24, and the app boasts thousands of stickers already. Users can expect the app to roll out more features in the future, including an Instagram-like “follow” feature, enabling users to keep up-to-date on their preferred imoji creators. Brands will eventually have the opportunity to sponsor imojis.
“Where we think things are heading is a more flexible and creative form of communication, one which adds a new dimension to a text message,” said creator Tom Smith, formerly of Apple. “We’ve designed imoji to be just that.”

The Next Age Of Foursquare Begins Today

By Ellis Hamburger at The Verge:  


In mid-May, Foursquare decided to split itself in two. The first half is Swarm, an app that lets you find friends nearby and check in. The second half is the forthcoming Foursquare 8.0, a complete redesign of the company’s existing app that has until now been kept secret. It's launching in just a few weeks. In the words of CEO Dennis Crowley, the new Foursquare is the app he always wanted to build — an exploration app unhindered by the check-ins that previously held center stage. Now we’re finally getting to see how it looks.

The new Foursquare swaps the service’s trademark green for pink ("watermelon"), and ditches its famous bouncing-ball logo for a vibrant "F" flag. Foursquare’s new wordmark is bold and grown-up instead of a playful doodle. The company looks nothing like before, and that’s the point. Battling the world’s preconceptions about the company is seemingly just as important as battling Yelp and Google.

"The check-in story has dominated the brand and user experience," says Crowley. "We’d hear people say ‘I had no idea I could use this app to search for places.’" So, the new Foursquare puts personalization front and center. Every piece of the new app that’s customized just for you, like your favorite foods served at nearby places, is accentuated in pink. Crowley calls Foursquare’s hyper-contextual recommendations "superpowers," a theme that has become increasingly prominent within the company in recent years. Crowley repeats again and again that Foursquare should help you see through walls and find the best places instantly in a city across the world.


In early brainstorming sessions, the company tried globes, magnifying glasses, and other symbols of exploration to represent the company. More than twenty-five different Foursquare icons rotated across the home screens of the company’s many employees, a series of A/B tests to see what felt right. But eventually, the company rallied around Crowley’s "super" vision. The new Foursquare icon’s blocky pink "F" is Crowley’s superhero emblem as much as it is a flag, or a location pin. Instead of saving the world, however, Crowley’s app might help you find the best soba in SoHo.

Foursquare hopes that its new design will make the service’s strengths more obvious, and provide more room for experimentation. "The existing version of Foursquare didn’t have enough room for us to flex all the things we wanted to do," says Crowley. "There’s been so much stuff locked up in admin tools and insider Foursquare views. Adding a 'most popular this month' section would’ve been awesome, but where are you gonna put it?" As part of today’s announcement, Foursquare is also teasing a few features of its new app, one of which is a Billboard-style "Most Popular" module that lets users see which places nearby are hottest right now. Thanks to its users who still check in, Foursquare is perhaps the only company that can track up and coming places with so much precision. But even without check-ins, Crowley argues, Foursquare’s unique "Pilgrim" location engine can pin you down at specific places better than any other app.

While many of Swarm’s user reviews have been disappointing — the app holds a 1.5 star rating in the App Store as of this writing — COO Jeff Glueck says that current users are checking in more than ever. "People are using Foursquare and Swarm better," he says. "They check in more often on Swarm according to our data, and are using Foursquare more often to explore. We’re seeing more Explore queries once people migrated." Glueck emphasizes that it’s a very vocal minority of Foursquare users who have opposed the company’s changes, which not only moved check-ins out of Foursquare but largely removed mayorships and the app’s points system for competing with friends for check-ins. Foursquare has since added back some of these features to Swarm.

Foursquare admits that it could’ve managed expectations a bit better, and timed the two app launches closer together so users weren’t confused. "It wasn’t a mistake. There is no prior arc with someone trying to do an unbundling like this before," says Crowley, "but I don’t think there’s any real perfect way to do it." In the next few weeks, the company plans to finish pushing all of its users to Swarm before completely removing the check-in from Foursquare once and for all. Another big change it will have to communicate is that Foursquare and Swarm will soon contain two separate friends lists. Foursquare will let you follow people and tastemakers you like, while Swarm will let you pick who you want to share your general location with, which is likely a much smaller group. This distinction perfectly exemplifies why Foursquare struggled as an app containing two often-separate utilities.

One year ago, rumors swirled that morale at Foursquare had hit a new low. The company’s two focuses, check-ins and local recommendations, seemed interminably at odds. Only 5 percent of its users did both when they opened Foursquare each time. Today, Foursquare is getting the fresh start it always wanted — a chance to look different, and an opportunity to take on not one but two important new roles in peoples’ lives. Crowley and co. are betting that with their two new apps, people will finally understand exactly what Foursquare is for.

Facebook Save Lets You Bookmark For Later

By Selena Larson at ReadWrite:  


Since you're not spending enough time on Facebook, you can now save things to read or view later ... on Facebook.

On Monday, the company announced the Save feature, which allows users to bookmark things like links, photos or videos to view when they actually have time to sit down and enjoy them. It's Facebook's answer to Pocket and Evernote—sort of.

Unlike these other services, stuff saved on Facebook can only be saved and viewed while using Facebook mobile and Web services.

Though the feature lets you bookmark things like pictures, it's clear this is geared more towards news and information shared on Facebook—the stuff we usually don't have time to check out when we're quickly scrolling through the news feed. The company has put an increased focus on putting news higher in your feed than, say, pictures of Grumpy Cat.

Good on Facebook for calling this feature "Save" instead of "Read Later," because, let's be real, who has time to read it later anyway?

Apple Is Giving Access to OS X Yosemite Public Beta Tomorrow

By Nick Summers at TNW:


Apple will soon allow any Mac user to download the beta version of OS X Yosemite, the latest version of its desktop operating system.

To access Yosemite, you’ll need to head to the OS X Beta Program page and submit your details. As Engadget reports, only one million people will be accepted into the scheme, so if you’re interested sign up now.

By registering an email address, Apple says it will notify you shortly about the OS X Yosemite beta. The early preview should be available at around 1PM Eastern/10am Pacific tomorrow (July 24), meaning there’s just over 24 hours for you to sit and gaze longingly at these screenshots.

OS X Yosemite sports a flat design inspired by iOS 7, including a new dark theme and translucent layers for the Finder and Dock. There’s also an Alfred-style productivity and app launcher, iCloud Drive and ‘Continuity,’ which makes it easier to switch between your Mac and iOS devices.

Google Analytics Finally Gets an iPhone App

By Josh Wolford at WebProNews:  


In pretty big good lord, finally news, Google has released a native Google Analytics apps for iOS. Available in 39 languages, Google Analytics for iPhone promised to let you “access all of your Google Analytics web and app data from your mobile device, monitor recent changes with Real Time reports, and easily get your Analytics data anytime, anywhere.”

Considering Android has had a version of a Google Analytics apps for years, it’s high time that iOS was invited to the party.

The app is plain but functional, with an overview tab that shows real time visitors to pages, total audience visits and a location breakdown, traffic sources, and a pageview grid.

Airbnb Updates Design Introduces New Logo

By Roberto Baldwin at TNW:  


Airbnb today unveiled a new flat site and mobile design and replaced its logo with something that resembles an upper-case A, amongst other things. One glaring issue is that it looks nearly identical to the logo for Automation Anywhere.

The new design removes all the drop shadows from the site and mobile apps (iOS and Android) and uses a system-wide font. It’s cleaner and easier to navigate which is helpful when you’re trying to book a spare bedroom in Hawaii for your next vacation.

'Kim Kardashian: Hollywood' Game Could Make $200m a Year

By Carl Franzen at The Verge:   


The hit mobile game of the summer has a familiar face behind it. Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is an adventure game for iOS and Android that lets players create their own celebrity and interact with the titular reality show star, her friends, and her frenemies. Following its release on June 25th, the game has quickly risen to become the third most popular free app in Apple's App Store and is in the top 10 free games on Google Play. It's also received a nearly perfect overall rating in both stores.

And although the game is free to download, the company that created it, Glu Mobile Inc., stands to make a pretty penny thanks to all of the in-app purchases that players are making (one player reported spending nearly $500 within the app in just a few days). One analyst projects that the "freemium" game could make up to $200 million annually from advertising and in-app purchase revenue, as Bloomberg reported recently. Glu Mobile's stock has also been on a tear since the release of the game.

BBM Messenger Is Finally On Windows Phone In Open Beta

By Kaylene Hong at TNW:  


If you thought that BlackBerry’s messaging service landed on iOS and Android several years too late, its (late) arrival on Windows Phone takes it to the next level. BlackBerry teased the launch of its BBM messaging service on Windows Phone back in February, and now users can finally get their hands on a beta version, the company announced today.

The app boasts a native experience that makes use of the Windows Phone user interface and focuses on three areas: Contacts, Chats and Feeds. Swiping left and right will move you between the three pages, while common actions are found at the bottom of the page, and additional controls can be accessed in the menu through the button with three dots.

One of the more unique features BBM for Windows Phone has is the ability to pin a contact to the Start menu for easy access — when you select that BBM contact right from the Start menu, you’ll be taken directly to a chat window with them.

Similar to other iterations of the app, users can chat with one or many BBM contacts and have the ability to share pictures, voice notes, contacts and location. However, the beta version is still lacking stickers — which BlackBerry finally introduced earlier this year – BBM Voice, BBM Channels and location sharing powered by Glympse. BlackBerry says these will be landing in the “coming months.”

There is also a feature known as BBM Groups, which not only has a private group chat, but a shared photo album where group members can chat about pictures, as well as shared calendars and shared lists.

BBM features feeds too, which lets you see when contacts update their status or profile photo (think Facebook updates in a chat app). If you want to chat with your friends about their latest updates, you just have to tap on their name to be redirected to a chat.

BlackBerry is opening up the beta version of BBM for Windows Phone so users can test it and provide feedback, but if you’re waiting for the full release, the company advises you to wait “just a bit longer.”

Twitter Tests WhatsApp Share button in its Android App

By Nick Summers at TNW:  


Twitter appears to be testing a dedicated WhatsApp share button inside its mobile apps. A number of screenshots, mostly from users in India, were tweeted earlier today showing the experimental feature running inside the company’s Android app.

In some instances it can be seen at the top of the screen, next to the search icon. In others, it’s located next to the existing share button underneath the tweet itself. Normally, you would need to tap the generic share button to quickly post a tweet on Facebook, WhatsApp, or any other connected Android app.

Back in April, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum said India was one of the countries where his cross-platform messaging app was growing the fastest. If Twitter wants to increase its popularity in the region, it would make sense to encourage tweet-sharing inside the now Facebook-owned chat app.

At the moment it’s unclear how many users are involved in the experiment, or whether the company plans to test the button in other markets. Twitter declined to comment and we’re currently awaiting a response from WhatsApp.

3 Best Tools to Gain More Twitter Followers

By Ryan Lum at Social Media Today:  


Gaining Twitter followers is no easy task. Well, for some anyways. There are many articles on the subject of gaining Twitter followers, but in this article I've boiled down the 3 best tools and services to jumpstart your Twitter marketing efforts and gain a following fast.

It is important to note that follower count is only a number. What really matters is engagement. I'll talk about  that in a future blog post. So for now, here are the 3 best tools to gain more Twitter followers.


1) Fiverr

There are many people on this site that are offering 10,000 followers to your Twitter account for a mere $5. Awesome! Keep in mind that most if not all of these users WILL BE FAKE. This is a very controversial subject regarding buying followers. To me, it really depends on what you plan on doing with your account. Take for instance two different scenarios.

The first scenario is if you later plan on running Twitter ads for promoting a product or service later down the road. If you were to buy followers and you run an ad to serve to your audience, it would then be highly ineffective knowing that a considerable portion of ad will be "seen" by fake accounts that won't do anything. If this is the case, buying followers does not make sense.

The second scenario is if you run advertising on your site. If you plan on selling tweets to potential advertisers, they generally care about reach. True, if they get no engagement, they will most likely not send another tweet ad on your account.

Ok, so is buying followers all that bad?I believe it can work for some. It helps build social credibility. If you just started an account that only has 5 followers, it's obvious that the account is new and most likely I won't follow you. Now imagine you have 10,000 followers. Well, that might be someone worth following. So, how do you make this worth your while? Well, that's where the second tool comes in.


2) Manage Flitter

I discovered this tool awhile back and noticed it greatly supercharged my Twitter growth efforts. This tool allows you to discover users you should be following and find the users that you should probably unfollow. The reason why you'd want to do this is based on the golden ratio as covered in TechCrunch.

If a person has more followers than they are following, they’re probably a good person to at least consider following. If they are following more than they have more followers, the opposite may be true. The greater the discrepancy between the two numbers, the more likely each of those is true — to a certain point, since celebrities like Oprah throw this system out of whack. But for regular, non-Hollywood celebrities, the system works remarkably well as a filter.

I use this tool to then start adding real and engaged followersto my account. Usually fake followers will start to unfollow, which is perfect. This allows you to then capture a better audience who is more likely to follow you because right now, your ratio is well, pretty awesome!


3) Twibble 

Of course this is plugging our tool, but I do so with great reason. The whole reason it was created was to help grow engagement and following, and it's quite effective in doing so.

In a recent social media study via Social Media Today, it was discovered that tweeting twice as often produced about 38% more retweets, about 14% less mentions and about 70% more favorites. It also led to 124.60% increase in referral traffic.


Twibble is basically an RSS to Twitter service much like Twitterfeed, Dlvr.it or IFTTT. Those are all very good services; however, I wanted to create something where simplicity, design and usability was the core focus. So how do you use Twibble?



Imagine you're a social media consultant. You can now regularly feed relevant content to your Twitter account such as Mashable, Tech Crunch, Jay Baer, Mari Smith, etc. This allows you to keep your account active and relevant to your users. By no means am I saying you should only do this. Using a RSS to Twitter service is only meant to supplement your current social media efforts. You can also add relevant hashtags so that your content is seen by a much larger audience. This way when people discover your content, you'll already have a great following and you're regularly providing relevant and engaging content.

So there you have it! I'd love to hear what other tools you use. Let us know in the comments below!

Microsoft Unveils Real-Time Translation for Skype

Microsoft's new CEO, Satya Nadella, just steered the company into exciting and relatively uncharted territory: near real-time speech-to-speech translation.

"It’s been a dream of humanity ever since we started to speak and we wanted to cross the language boundary," said Nadella.

Speaking at Re/Code's inaugural Code Conference (formerly the "D Conference") in Southern California, Nadella and Skype Corporate VP Gurdeep Singh Pall made a Skype call to a non-English-speaking German friend. Then both parties spoke to and understood each other thanks to the live translation capabilities of the Skype Translator pre-beta.

"No one else does this," Pall told me, adding, "It's the first time something like this has been attempted." And it’s probably something we need.

English is not the most commonly spoken language in the world. By some estimates, it's third behind Chinese (and all its variants) and Hindi. However, our increasingly globalized society all but demands that we find a way to communicate across language barriers. Skype already, by Microsoft’s measure, boasts more than 300 million active members and handles roughly one third of international call traffic. Imagine what it could do with built-in voice translation.

Microsoft is not new to the speech recognition game. You'll find the same technology in the recently launched Cortana personal assistant in Windows Phone 8.1 and in the speech recognition that been live on Xbox 360, and now Xbox One, for over a year. Skype Translator, which comes out of Microsoft Research, is actually three technologies: speech recognition, text-to-speech and machine translation.

“The Skype community is big — REALLY big," wrote Peter Lee, Head of Microsoft Research in an email to Mashable."To make Skype Translator a reality, it needed great research to get the science right, and great engineering to make it practical and scalable."




Read the full story at Mashable.

Apple Partnering With Shazam to Integrate Song-ID features

By Trevor Mogg at Digital Trends: 


Apple and song-ID service Shazam have struck a deal that could see elements of the popular cross-platform music app brought to a future version of iOS, sources with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg Wednesday.

As anyone familiar with Shazam knows, the software allows users to quickly identify a music track simply by holding a mobile device’s mic close to the sound source and waiting a few seconds for the result to return.

It’s not entirely clear if the app itself would be baked into iOS or if its technology would be incorporated into Apple’s mobile operating system in other ways. For example, Bloomberg’s report talks of a song-discovery “feature” being integrated into iOS, while also suggesting it could be incorporated in the same way as the Twitter app, which has been baked into the operating system of iDevices since version 5.

The report also says Shazam is likely to be integrated with Siri, allowing a user to ask, “What song is playing?”, in which case everyone within a five-meter radius will also discover the name of the music track you wanted to ID. Google Now for Android has long had a voice-activated song-ID tool, while Microsoft’s new virtual assistant for Windows Phone, Cortana, also offers a similar feature, so many will see Apple’s entry into the space as long overdue.

Twitter Launches Mobile App Promotion Suite

By Chris Crum at WebProNews:  


As expected, Twitter announced the launch of a new mobile app promotion suite, enabling app developers to use mobile app-install ads on Twitter, and throughout the MoPub Marketplace, which spans over a billion Android and iOS devices.

The suite is in the beta testing phase, but includes tools for targeting, creative, and measurement. Partners so far include Spotify, HotelTonight, Kabam, SeatGeek, GREE, GetTaxi, and Deezer. It’s entirely possible that you’ve already seen ads from them.

“Advertisers can now set up campaigns directly on ads.twitter.com to run across the Twitter Publisher Network, which is comprised of the thousands of apps and over 1 billion monthly devices the MoPub mobile advertising exchange reaches,” says product manager Kelton Lynn. “Advertising campaigns run across the Twitter Publisher Network are automatically translated into programmatic bids on the MoPub exchange, on a level playing field with MoPub’s existing DSP partners. This is now available to U.S. advertisers in a private beta. Combined with the targeting and measurement features in the mobile app promotion suite, this affords advertisers the ability to easily run on-Twitter app promotion via Promoted Tweets, while simultaneously running off-Twitter advertising via the MoPub Marketplace.”

“We are excited to offer new ways for marketers and developers to drive mobile app installs and app engagements, using Twitter Cards and Promoted Tweets on Twitter, and leveraging the scale of MoPub and the Twitter Publisher Network across the rest of the mobile ecosystem,” Lynn adds. “This is the first of many opportunities to join Twitter and MoPub to create a large-scale, rich and well-targeted advertising platform — one that provides high ROI for marketers, and a great experience for users.”

Expect Twitter to announce plenty more different ad types. A recent report indicated that they had fifteen lined up.

Data fro Resolution Media found that Twitter’s ads consistently drive higher click-through rates than Facebook’s.

Yahoo Wants To Become The Default Search Engine On iOS

By Trevor Mogg at Digital Trends:  


Marissa Mayer has been working diligently to revive the fortunes of Web firm Yahoo since taking the reins back in July 2012, though the enormity of the task means the challenge is far from over.

Decisions have included hiring hundreds of engineers to help bolster Yahoo’s gargantuan site and its slew of services; making a ton of acquisitions, such as Tumblr, which has given Yahoo access to a younger generation of users; and making a commitment to mobile, a growing sector of the market where it needs to establish itself in order to take on the likes of Google and Facebook, who currently dominate when it comes to revenue from mobile ads.

According to a Re/code report Wednesday, part of Mayer’s plan to make the company’s presence felt in the mobile space involves trying to convince Apple to replace Google with Yahoo as the default search engine on all of those iDevices out there.

Speaking to unnamed insiders at Yahoo, the report says Mayer has prepped a detailed pitch that she hopes will be enough to persuade Apple executives to take a serious look at her proposition and ultimately make Yahoo the default search service on the Cupertino company’s mobile phones and tablets.

No official meeting has yet taken place between the two companies, though Mayer has reportedly talked with some Apple executives about the idea, including long-time friend Jony Ive.


Trying to ‘grab the pole position in iOS search’

“This is the aim of the whole effort here, to grab the pole position in iOS search,” an unnamed source told Re/code, adding that it’s currently one of Mayer’s main goals.

That the Yahoo boss might get her way is not impossible. After all, Yahoo already provides the data for the weather and finance apps on iOS devices. In addition, Apple had few qualms about getting rid of Google Maps as its default mapping app, though admittedly the company replaced that one with its own equivalent app (sort of).

However, when it comes to search, Google remains the go-to service for Web users across most platforms, so Apple would be understandably wary about suddenly switching to Yahoo. Service quality would be a concern, too, with one of Re/code’s sources questioning whether Yahoo has adequate technology yet to power an effective and efficient mobile search product.

Oh, and there’s also the small matter of the annual $1 billion payment that the Mountain View company currently hands over to Apple for keeping its search engine as the default option on iOS devices.

Of course, iOS users can switch search engines by going into settings, but considering many just go with the default service, Yahoo’s apparent plan to get its offering front and center on millions of Apple devices is perfectly understandable. Whether it can achieve this is another matter entirely.

New Facebook Feature Shows Your Friends When You’re Nearby

By Chris Crum at WebProNews:


Facebook is rolling out a new feature for its Android and iOS apps called Nearby Friends. It shows you when your Facebook friends are close to your location (and vice versa), so you can meet up with them if you want.

“If you turn on Nearby Friends, you’ll occasionally be notified when friends are nearby, so you can get in touch with them and meet up,” says product manager Andrea Vaccari. “For example, when you’re headed to the movies, Nearby Friends will let you know if friends are nearby so you can see the movie together or meet up afterward.”

Before you start freaking out, note that this is an opt-in feature. Everyone has to turn it on. If you want to use it, and be discoverable with the feature, you need to turn it on, and so do your friends. You actually choose who can see when you’re nearby. You can set it to friends, close friends, or a specific friends list. You can always turn it back off if you want.

A Facebook spokesperson tells us, “A friend qualifies as ‘nearby’ when she is within approximately 1/2 mile from you in any direction.”

You can also set a precise location to share with specific friends for a set period of time, so you can determine where to meet up. It shows your friends exactly where you are on a map.

“When Nearby Friends is on, you can see when your friends are traveling if they’re also using this feature and sharing with you,” says Vaccari. “You’ll be able to see the city or neighborhood they are in, including on their profile. When you see a friend visiting a place you’ve been, it’s the perfect opportunity to send a recommendation for a great restaurant. You can also make last-minute plans to meet up with a friend who happens to be in the same place you’re headed to.”

To use the feature, you’ll tap More, then Nearby Friends, then choose who to share your location with. To share a precise location, you’ll tap the arow to the right of the friend’s name, then select how long you’d like to share the location, and include a note.

You can turn push notifications on and off. More in this FAQ.

The feature is rolling out to U.S. users over the coming weeks.

Facebook already has a Nearby Place feature, which can serve as a location recommendation tool.

A couple years ago, they tested a feature that showed you nearby Facebook users who weren’t your friends as a way to “make new friends,” but quickly pulled it.

Google Launches Chrome Remote Desktop App for Android

By Emil Protalinski at The Next Web: 


Google today launched a Chrome Remote Desktop app for Android, which lets you remotely control your computer using your smartphone or tablet. You can download the new app now directly from Google Play.

The app’s description says you can “securely access your computers from your Android device” but doesn’t elaborate on the security features. Instructions are fairly straightforward though:

- On each of your Windows or Mac computers, set up remote access using the Chrome Remote Desktop app from the Chrome Web Store.

- On your Android device, open the app and tap on any of your online computers to connect.

Chrome Remote Desktop first launched out of beta in October 2012, but it only let you remotely access your machine from another laptop or computer. There have been rumors of an iOS version coming as well, but Google didn’t reveal anything about such an app today.

Google Launches Standalone Camera App

By Chris Welch at The Verge:


Google has just launched its own Camera app in the Play Store. Simply called Google Camera, the app looks a bit different from the camera software currently shipping in Android 4.4 KitKat. Google has made a number of improvements and refinements here, introducing a much cleaner interface "that gets out of your way" with a prominent shutter button.  A brand new Lens Blur mode promises to achieve "SLR-like photos" offering a shallow depth of field.

"Lens Blur replaces the need for a large optical system with computer vision algorithms and optimization techniques that are run entirely on the mobile device, simulating a larger lens and aperture in order to creating a 3D model of the world," Google said. (The company has published a blog post offering more details on exactly how the Lens Blur effect was created.) Google Camera packs in signature Mountain View features like Photo Sphere, and also brings the viewfinder back to 100 percent, meaning what you see will always be what you get in your final shot.

Microsoft Reveals Siri-like Windows Phone Feature

By Anick Jesdanun at Yahoo Tech:

Microsoft unveiled a new virtual assistant for Windows Phone devices Wednesday as it seeks to gain traction in a highly competitive and lucrative market for smartphones.

The assistant, Cortana, is named after an artificial-intelligence character in the company's "Halo" video games. Cortana tries to be chatty like Apple's Siri, while anticipating information you might want, like Google Now.

Cortana is among the new features coming to a Windows Phone update called 8.1. The updated operating system will come with new phones in about a month, including three that Nokia announced Wednesday. It will also be available as a free download for existing phones a few months later.

Microsoft is also updating its Windows 8.1 system for tablets, laptops and desktops. Although Microsoft has been pushing touch-screen controls, the new update is designed to make it easier for those with traditional keyboard and mouse controls. The update, simply called Windows 8.1 Update, is available starting next Tuesday.



Read the full story >>

Instagram For Your Business: 20 Brilliant Ideas!

By Megan Corwin at Social Solutions Collective:


Instagram For Service Providers?

Have you fallen into the trap of thinking that, if you’re a service provider there’s little you can share on Instagram? After all, you don’t have any products to photograph. And don’t forget the perception that business is boring.

It’s time to quit with the excuses! With a bit of creativity, it is possible for service providers to find and create consistent visual content to share with their audience.

Here are twenty (20) Instagram image ideas for service providers.

Text Based

Use text with the ideas below to create graphics.

1- Quotes from industry related literature. Be sure to provide source info.
2- Blog posts titles, quotes or teaser text
3- Quick tips or tricks
4- Information about a new service package or offering
5- Questions – great for engagement and gathering info

There are plenty of options for creating beautiful text based images for Instagram. This list of free resources is a good place to start.


Industry Related

By posting industry related images, you can share your knowledge about your business and areas of expertise.

6- Educational events or trade shows you attend
7- Pictures of you with speakers or industry experts you meet during events
8- The cover of a suggested book about an industry topic
9- Apps, tools, or products that might benefit your audience


Your Company & Services

Sharing images of your company, and your employees providing your services can be a subtle way of demonstrating the value you provide without feeling like you are selling or overly promoting.

10- The setting for a new workshop you are teaching
11- Newly purchased equipment or tools that will improve your services
12- Happy customers
13- Before and after showing the benefits of your service
14- Articles about your business or your ad in a local publication
15- Awards ceremonies
16- Your workspace


Relationship Building … Just For Fun!

All business and no fun can create a dull Instagram feed. Occasionally mix in an image that allows your audience to get to know your personality.

17- The coffee shop where you do your writing
18- Local weather –especially anything out of the ordinary or beautiful
19- Your office mascot – your pet, plant, or coffee mug
20- YOU! When few and far between, selfies can be a great way to connect.

There you go! A quick list of twenty ways service providers can make an impact with Instagram.


Do you have any ideas to add to the list?




Via Social Solutions Collective.

Tips and Tools for Mastering Google Plus

By Steve Rayson at Social Media Today: 

As Google+ has over 300m active users (and growing), I am always keen to learn how I can use the platform more effectively. This week, I was very lucky to catch up with Google+ guru Martin Shervington in a Hangout before his talk at Social Media Marketing World. The downside of a Google Hangout was that I could see he was on the sunny West Coast of the US while I was sitting in the dark in London, but on the positive side I learned a huge amount about how to maximise my use of Google+. Martin also shared his advice for people new to the platform.


Getting to grips with Google+

martin shervingtonMartin first joined Google+ in 2011. I was pleased to learn that, like me, he didn’t immediately understand all the intricacies of the platform. However, unlike me, in 2012 Martin decided to spend a number of days learning about the platform and started writing copious notes, including the tools he used, the best extensions, and the best tips he picked up from others. Luckily for me and everyone else on Google+, Martin openly and actively shared all his knowledge. Martin’s Google+ videos have had over half a million views and over 300,000 people have circled Martin on Google+.

Martin says once he understood that Google+ was a social layer within a much bigger ecosystem, he was blown away by the possibilities. The fact that it combines Google, the world’s largest search engine, with YouTube, the second largest search engine, and also the full range of Google products and services, makes it much more than a social network.

I think Martin is one of the first people who fully grasped the power of Google+ as part of a much bigger ecosystem and the increasing importance of social signals in areas such as search, authorship and authority. You can read more on the search benefits of Google+ in my article on Ten ways Google+ will improve your SEO.


The power of Google+ circles

Martin uses circles in a sophisticated way for campaign building which highlights the potential for amplifying content on Google+. He believes strongly in seeding content with an opt in list of people in a circle. As an example he asked people to share what Chrome extensions they used to put together a helpful list for people. He built a circle of those that participated and then notified them when he published his post and shared it with them, which they then also shared and amplified.

Martin demonstrated the power of this approach with his #PlustheZuck experiment last month. He started again with an opt in list of 200 people which he put into a circle and then published a post asking them to circle Mark Zuckerberg. This post was shared by people in the circle, see the image from Google Ripples below.

Within an hour #PlustheZuck was trending at number one on Google+. This was followed by a further post that got 2,900 people involved, and 1,590 people took action increasing the number of Mark Zuckerberg’s followers. You can read more in Martin’s PlusTheZuck case study.

The #PlustheZuck campaign was tracked by one of Martin’s favorite tools Nod3x. NOD3x is a real-time social network analysis and data mining application that is free to the Google+ community. You can see the full details of how Nod3x tracked the campaign.



How Martin uses tools with Google+

I was really interested to learn more about how Martin manages the sheer range and volume of work he undertakes on Google+. These are the tools that Martin uses and how he uses them.


Buffer

Martin uses Buffer as the mechanism to create and distribute content to his Google+ pages. Buffer is a go-to tool for many to manage their social media activity both for ease of use and its detailed analytics. Just a note that you can’t distribute to a Google profile using Buffer or similar tools.

Friends+Me

friendsplusmeMartin then uses Friends+Me to distribute his his Google+ posts to LinkedIn and Facebook. Friends+Me allows you to share your Google+ posts to other social sites including Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Martin chooses to manually create his posts for Twitter rather than automate these via Google+ as they are crafted differently to his Google+ posts which are specifically designed for that platform.

CircleCount

circlecount Martin uses CircleCount to get a good understanding of who has shared him in circles, to get insights into communities and to get updates on what is happening more generally. You can read my previous review of CircleCount in the SMToolbox outlining its core features and how they can help you be more effective on Google+. http://socialmediatoday.com/SMToolbox/google-plus-circlecount-be-more-effective

Circloscope

circloscopeMartin uses Circloscope to review information and gain insights on people in his circles. Using Circloscope he can find and uncircle dormant accounts, and also to get data on who has been engaging with him. Circloscope is a powerful tool for analyzing your circles and filtering people. For example you can filter users in your circles who haven’t been active for a specified period of time, who don’t circle you back or who engage with you. You can filter down to locations such as cities. Circloscope then allows you to manage your circles by for example by automatically uncircling people who haven’t made a post for say the last two months.

Martin also makes extensive use of Google tools such as Ripples within Google+, which provides a great visual representation of how content is shared as we can see above in the #plusthezuck example. Ripples also allows you to test content that resonates with your network. Martin makes extensive use of Google Drive and Docs which has transformed collaborative working, this post was written on Google Docs. Martin also uses other extensions such as Checker Plus and Winestamp.



Martin’s Top Tips

Martin’s advice is that before you get started on Google+ you decide clearly what it is you want to do, for example:

- build your personal profile - build trust, reputation and authority

- develop and promote a brand page

Your objectives will determine the appropriate strategy to follow and the tools to use. Martin’s top tips for getting started on Google+ are as follows:

- Settle in for a month before you try to push your own content. Spend time looking around, engaging with people and building relationships. Set up and start to include people in your circles.

- Set up your profile with new pictures including a nice headshot image and tag it. Don’t create a Google+ page initially, start with your profile where you can post and share.

- In your profile update the sites linked to you such as your blog and claim your Google authorship by listing the sites you contribute to and including the rel author tag back on your own sites. See more on how to set up authorship https://plus.google.com/authorship

- Develop a list of influencers in your area. Plus one their content and more importantly reshare their content that is relevant to your audience. I like the way Martin described it as a shop, you don’t want to start by only stocking your own products, share content from a range of authoritative sources. Google+ is a great platform for content curation.

- The more you socially interact with people and the more you share, the more you will be respected. Develop your relationships and collaborate informally, be helpful and willing to share.

- Only after you have done the above should you post content that is relevant for your networks. Do make sure it is high quality and helpful content as no one wants to read lots of sales material.

- Use Google Hangouts. They are great for building relationships, also interview people via a Hangout as I did with Martin for this article. Martin gave me many examples of how you can use Google drive and docs together with Hangouts to create a powerful collaborative working environment.



I hope this artilce has inspired you to look again at Google+. If it has and you want to learn more your best starting point is Martin’s PlusYourBusiness Quick Starter kit. This kit has a mass of helpful videos and PDFs to improve your performance on Google+. You can also follow Martin Shervington on Google+.




Via