Networked Society 'On the Brink'

Just found this very interesting film about the topic we're discussing at the time:

Rumors about google music

Google Music is a cloud based service that allows users to store their own music on Google's servers (the cloud) and then listen to it from different devices (at the moment only available in the USA). It's not a huge surprise that Google thinks about adding an iTunes-like shop system to this service but as per this article Google also plans a social component for this service. It should be possible to borrow the music you bought to friends for a limited time via Google+.

Since the author doesn't name any sources for that rumor we can't really be sure whether there is anything true in it but I find the idea interesting, especially because I can imagine that the music labels might be inclined to accept that kind of free sharing as it can be compared to borrowing cds or cassettes to friends (as described in the article).

http://andgeeks.com/google-music/google-looking-to-take-the-lead-with-music-883382/

An intresting article on the future direction of facebook

In the Swedish newspapers "Svenska Dagbladet" it's an interesting article on the future direction of facebook. A Swedish author and debater Per Ström has published a piece were he compares facebook to a social constitution rather than a social network. Maybe this is a good platform to start a debate on? So for all the Swedish participants read the piece and share your opinion!

I'm personally of the view that I find it rather disturbing that all this information is out there already, before I knew the consequences of my actions.

The article can be found here:

SvD - Facebook ser dig

Blogs to keep our eyes on?

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Do note that there are two lists of social media-related blog to the right on the blog (scroll down). One list with English-language blogs and one with Swedish-language blog.

I guess I really should take away references to blogs that haven't been updated since last year. But are there any other blogs that should be on these lists?

Answer by commenting on this blog post!

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Social TV Trends

As I've been working the last year in the mobile department of a TV broadcaster in Germany one of my biggest fields of work was Social TV and how to engage the audience while watching TV. Here are some of the trends and applications out there in the field of Social TV I want to share with you guys.

One of the key players in the area of Social TV is Twitter. More and more TV shows integrate hashtags in the program or try to get into contact with the audience while watching the show. This video gives a really good of example of what I'm talking about:

In the area of Social TV more and more "social check-in" services appear giving users the possibility to check into different types of media, but especially TV shows and movies, like foursquare or Facebook Places allow you to check into locations. Sharing what you're watching and what you think about the show is becoming more important especially in the USA. The two big players in this area are GetGlue and Miso.

GetGlue is one of the biggest services with over one million users especially in the US and a broad field of cooperation with TV networks, movie studios and other content creators. The users are rewarded for checking in with stickers most of them provided through the several content providers.

Miso on the other hand focuses more on TV giving the possibility to check into individual episodes of TV shows or matches of your favorite soccer team. The start-up that is also funded by Google Ventures is trying to expand it's functionality through syncing with your set-top box:

Another kind of applications is represented through Shazam and IntoNow. The first one got famous through the possibility to tag music you discover and is also expanding this into the TV program. But more importantly Shazam is teaming up with more and more TV stations to create the ability to tag TV series and thereby unlock additional content of the TV show.

IntoNow is a very young start-up that despite this fact has been acquired by Yahoo after 12 weeks of existence in the spring of 2011. With the help of IntoNow's Soundprint technology built into their application the user can check into nearly every program avaible even live programs like sports events. The app listens for some seconds to the TV program and compares the recording through digital watermarks with the live recordings in their database to determine what the user is watching. IntoNow created a very nice use case with Pepsi to show the marketing possibilities and with the support of Yahoo released a new version of their app for iPad and Android devices just yesterday.

Here is another very good video on the future of Social TV:

GOAB. A TV Experience Concept from SYZYGY on Vimeo.

And one of the best blogs on the topic is lostremote, for everyone who might be interested in more information and use cases.´

That's enough input for one, but what do you guys think? Is there a future for Social TV and how might this future look like?

Google+

This summer Google launched a social network to try to compete with facebook and its called Google+. You've probably all heard of it and by what i know it hasn't gone to well. I myself got it a couple of months ago but i almost never use it. I can't really say what the reason for my inactivity is tho but it just lacks content in my opinion. The thing for me with facebook that i enjoy most is probably the feed with stories and is the reason why i'm logged in more then just sporadicaly. Since very few of my friends uses Google+ in the same amount of time as facebook i don't get that content that gets me hooked.

Anyways, to the news i had, maybe some of you already seen it but Google have finally integrated YouTube into Google+ which of course is a plan to get the users to stay longer and share videos with other users. I think this function is great but it gonna take more measures to get me hooked.

Here are two blogposts that i found about the news: http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2011/11/03/youtube-google-engagement/

http://socialtimes.com/google-plus-adds-youtube_b83196?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+socialtimes+%28SocialTimes.com%29

I also found an article about why you should switch from facebook to google+ but i still aint convinced.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/234825/9_reasons_to_switch_from_facebook_to_google.html

Is there anyone who is hooked already on Google+ or what are your thoughts of it? Will it eventually replace facebook?

Making Twitter favorites useful

I used to have a hard time figuring out what to do with the favorites function on Twitter. I used to favorite posts to save them for checking out later but rarely actually did anything about them afterwards.

There's a new service (in beta, of course) called Stellar that tries to make the favorites useful. It aggregates your favorites from Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. You follow people to see what they find funny or interesting and if you happen to favorite their favorites they're gonna get updated as your favorites back to their originating services.

I've found it a pretty good way to find interesting things to read and watch for those rare moments you need to kill some time. It might be that I'm following the right people and not too many of them, who knows how useful you'll find it. If you wanna try it out I happen to have two invites. Just comment on this post with your email address and I'll send an invite your way.