Facebook IPO

In recent news, FB has set its IPO price at $28-$35 per share which puts the valuation of  the company at $96 billion, which means Mark Zuckerberg just might become richer than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. It has been a long time since I wrote a  post about Facebook-the grand daddy of social networks. And as the IPO show hits the road, I thought this will be a good time to review Facebook.

The story so far

Last I checked, Facebook had 800 million active users. Pictures of our vacations, our friends and our food-in short much of our life ultimately ends up on Facebook to be shared with our friends.It has redefined a lot of words for us such as-Like, Friend-which now has turned into a verb, Wall, Feed, Status. In a world without Facebook, what would have happened to the other itty-bitty startups who are now leveraging FB’s user base for their own application? We can all simply login into these variety of sites using FB as a login. We are so accustomed to this platform that inspite of the nervousness around its privacy policies, users still log in to FB every morning to see what happened in their world. But it still surprises me how much FB users actually share a common mistrust of this social platform. Take for example the recent announcement by Mark Zuckerberg urging FB users to display their organ donor status on their Facebook timeline. He received accolades from all corners for taking up this issue and some even predicted that his philanthropy might now follow the footsteps of Bill Gates.A very noble cause indeed-there are thousands of sick people waiting for years for a donor. There have been examples where such patients have found donors through social networking sites. But an announcement made in all good intention got a reception that ranged from cynical to plain creeped-out. The twitterverse even extrapolated scenarios where donors were suddenly disappearing -if you know what I mean!

Get to work on Privacy

In my opinion, in the coming years, Facebook should make it a priority to address this problem. Do users feel safe when they are on the network? Zuckerberg’s PR department has its work cut out for them-make privacy education on Facebook a cause. An empowered user will be an active user. A nervous user will eventually move away from the site especially when other social networking platforms like Pinterest, Baidu draw them in. If this feeling of nervousness continues to grow, in the long term, people may stop sharing on FB and the active user base may start dwindling.

And there is no better time to start on  cause than right now. With a historical IPO coming up and while Facebook takes on bigger challenges like making money on mobile, privacy issue is something that needs immediate attention. In tech world, rise and fall is so rapid, that the companies that we once thought absolutely invincible, bite the dust before our eyes. I am sure all the Zuckerberg’s kids in Palo Alto know this already, I just hope to see it translated into some good action items on privacy.

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What was the last time you showed off a cool app to your fellow Smartphone lovers? If it has been a while, then this fresh new list will give you some ideas. Between Apple, Android, Amazon and Windows, there might be thousands of apps users have access to. You will find lists of old and new, weird and cool apps all over the Internet. How to pick the coolest ones, is the question. So we created a list of the ones we think are the best. Here are my picks of apps that are cool, fun or plain useful.

Cinemagram

There is photo and there is video and in between, there is a cinemagraph. First time I saw a cinemagraph, I was reminded of a magical newspaper at Hogwarts-you know, the one with moving images?. Check out this link to see what a cinemagraph looks like. This is a cool way to spice up your next project, blog or presentation. The app is of course social and you can share your art with your friends.The app is only available on the iPhone but will soon be coming to Android.It was released as a free app only a couple months ago and already has a million downloads.It resembles an animated GIF to be honest but people have been quite creative with it.

Available on iPhone; coming soon to Android; free

Have2P Restroomlocator

The app market really cares about you. Right from satisfying the higher need for creative satisfaction right down to satisfying basic needs like , well, going to the bathroom. Especially useful when you travel, Have2P restroom locator app will help you find the nearest restroom. Realizing that ‘urgency’ might be the number one issue that users of this app will face, it is integrated with GPS to direct you to the nearest restroom. If urgency is not the issue but cleanliness is, then spend some time to check the ratings on which facilities are better.

Available on iPhone; free

Fat Booth

This app’s promise is tickling your funny bone. How would your skinny look if he or she gained a few pounds? This app will instantly generate an image that will show the subject after gaining a few pounds.I’d use this app to deter myself from eating that jelly donut I so feel like having!

Available on iPhone, Android; free

Comics

Who doesn’t love to read comics? we are grabbing e-books by the droves and comic books won’t be left far behind. I imagine reading them on iPad will be much better than reading them on your iPhone but it’ll be fun nevertheless. A large number of comics are free and when you are done reading those, there will be more available to be purchased. So get ready to meet your favorite superheroes, villains, goblins, zombies-all on your smart screen.

Available on iPhone, Android; free

Doink

Okay. This one is not on a smartphone yet. But we want to see it on one. It is available on your iPad though. If you are a creative stuck in a profession that doesn’t let you spend a lot of time on pictures and cartoon graphics, then Doink is for you. A simpler, friendlier version of Flash, Doink lets anyone create cartoon animations. The best part is the social component. It will let you share your art via other social media tools so you can use your creation offline. If you are serious about animation, then I definitely recommend learning Flash but if you just want to have fun with animation, get this app.

Available on : Coming soon to a smartphone?

Do you have your own list of cool apps? Share it with us in the comments section.

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Google does Cloud

Data storage in Cloud is a concept whose time has come. Why else, then, Google, which had shelved this concept earlier,  is now re-entering the fray? With Apple’s iCloud, Amazon’s own Cloud service, Dropbox and Box.com already competing in the personal storage space, Google is actually a late entrant. Rumor has it that Google is all set to launch Google Drive next week. If you’ve read this post about Dropbox, you know what Dropbox does and why it is popular. It is the compatibility across platforms; the sync capabilities across devices. Should Dropbox and others be sweating in their socks as Google does Cloud? What is different this time with Google?

Google Drive

For starters, Google is offering 5 GB of free storage as opposed to Dropbox which offers 2 GB. Apart from interchangeability and sync features, one thing Google will have going for it, is a user base that is already firmly onboard with plenty of assets like photos, documents, presentations already stored in Google’s services. Google’s biggest advantage will be economies of scale. And to truly make a dent in this market, here is what I’d like to see-Integration with my Gmail. How about keeping my inbox light and storing all the attachments in Google Drive? This will be great! I am not clear if pictures, documents etc. will count against the 5 GB storage quota. I am thinking it won’t. With Google Drive, we will only now be able to organize, update and sync all our data across our devices easily-at least that is the expectation. Some analysts have predicted that players like Dropbox will definitely have something to be afraid of with Google coming into the picture.

Privacy etc.

As the Google sprawl continues, I can’t help but point out that Microsoft has something called Skydrive-cloud storage for users which offers 5 GB of free storage for users. Following up on this post that I wrote about Microsoft, one can’t help but think how did MS manage to waste its immense influence over the world’s users of MS products by not doing things like Google does? Had MS followed through with concepts like Skydrive which it could easily have done, it would not be struggling and hanging by a single thread of Windows 8 right now.
But I digress. I am looking forward to Google Drive. And oh, if you are worried about privacy issues like-”Is Google going to analyze my data in Google Drive to feed me personalized ads?” Be rest assured that it will. How else, would they afford to offer you all of their “free” services? We are living in a world where we are giving a little bit of ourselves for convenience and free usage. And most of us, it seems, don’t mind it. If it’s free, YOU are the product. Make sure you make peace with this concept before you sign up and there will be one less conflict to deal with.
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The Facts

April 9, 2012. “Remember this day” wrote WSJ’s Dennis K Berman, “551 day old Instagram is worth $1 billion. 116 year old New York Times Co. is worth $967 million.” After this news, the Internet community has renewed the debate about being in a tech bubble. Without joining that debate, I will say this-Instagram’s 13 employees made some Instabucks-to the tune of  millions and all for a total two years of work. Here are 5 things you need to know about this story-

1. Instagram is a mobile app that lets you apply filters to your photos to make them look artistic. You can share these with your friends. At the time of sale, Instagram has a passionate user base of more than $30 million on Apple’s iOS alone. Million users who absolutely love this app. The only good thing absent, is revenue.

2. Just a few weeks ago, Instagram comes to Android phones and is downloaded a record  1 million times in a day. Apple fanboys are upset with this because they feel Instagram went from being a fine dining place to being a drive-thru.

3. Facebook-the big daddy of social networking has a crummy mobile app. It is still struggling to monetize itself especially with mobile. Facebook users ‘use ‘the platform.They don’t necessarily love it. Photo uploading on FB app is a pain.

4. Facebook decides to get itself a soul. It could also use a user base of millions that comes with buying a company like Instagram.

5. FB decides therefore, to buy Instagram for a billion dollars for the reasons mentioned above and for the simple reason that it can. What is cooler than earning a billion dollars? Spending a billion dollars!

So was Instagram worth a billion dollars?

So finally, was Instagram really worth $1 billion dollars? Yes. To Facebook, it was. For Instagram, it’d never have succeeded in making money off of its passionate yet free-loader user base. Founder and CEO Kevin Systrom must’ve realized this and so he decided to cash in, a wise move, I believe. I also think this was a wise move by Mr. Mark Zuckerberg. This deal will help in stabilizing Facebook in the mobile market. There will be many Instagram users who will grumble about Instagram first being on Android and now on Facebook. For them, this Venturebeat article might open some new alternatives.
The only thing retro about this story is the photo filter. The buyer, seller and the money; everything is befitting a new social age.

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While most people have heard about outsourcing, many people are unaware of its sub-category, known as crowdsourcing. It involves resolving a problem or managing a production process by outsourcing it to an undefined source of people. For example, if you are looking to name your website something unique and are unable to come up with a solution, you might outsource the task by posting it as a job on a freelancing website, to acquire new ideas from an undefined group of people, at a cost. Crowdsourcing might not be as widely recognized as it is used nowadays and can be extremely helpful in problem solving and outsourcing tasks at a relatively cheap price.

Amazon Mechanical Turk

Amazon Mechanical Turk is one of the most famous crowdsourcing market place that enables computer programmers (Requesters) to co-ordinate with human intelligence to perform tasks that a computer is not capable of performing. The task can include something as simple as identifying an artist from a CD. The service was started to identify duplicate in Amazon’s webpages, however, it soon grew into a robust crowd sourcing service.

PickyDomains

When it comes to novel ideas, PickyDomains takes the cake. This crowd sourcing service allows people to come together for finding interesting domain names and slogans. If you are looking to build a website and want a name as interesting as perhaps “Facebook” or YouTube”, then maybe it’s worth checking out PickyDomains.

Odesk

Odesk is another famous crowdsourcing service that allows people to outsource their work to freelancers from all over the world. For example, if you want someone to write a blog post for you regarding a specific topic, you can simply post a job and review applicants from around the globe. The job can be awarded to your preferred applicant at an agreed price.

Agent Anything

Agent Anything is considered as the “e-bay” of services. Using this service people can post tasks that they want done at a given cost and hire students to do them. The concept is much similar to Odesk, with the exception that only college students can perform tasks and need a verification before they can start applying for “Missions” (jobs). It’s an interesting concept as all hired individuals can also perform tasks that are not restricted by the internet. For example, the posted job can be something like “Buy me tickets for a concert at MSG”. Unfortunately, this service is only limited to New York and New Jersey for now.

CloudCrowd

Another crowdsourcing service that freelancers may find useful is CloudCrowd. When a company assigns CloudCrowd with a project, it is broken down into a smaller group of tasks, which is completed by people according to their preferred tasks. CloudCrowd has strict checks and balances and is a bit more complicated as compared to similar services.

Short Task

If your area of expertise includes content writing, data entry, research or graphic designing, then you can try Short Task. This service brings together employees and employers online for performing tasks related to the aforementioned categories. Short Task is useful for people willing to perform short tasks for a small amount of money.

My Gengo

While Google Translate is perhaps the best solution for translating text from various languages, it is not the most reliable tool for professional translations. If you want accurate translations while keeping the meaning of the content intact, then it might be worth checking out My Gengo. It is a crowdsourcing service that brings together translators and employers, to get professional translations done in required languages.

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As Android and Apple’s iOS continue to fight for total world domination in the Mobile OS space, one name almost always conspicuous by its absence, in my opinion, is Microsoft’s Windows8 . Windows 8 is Microsoft’s attempt to stay relevant in the future. The product received great reviews overall and Microsoft is using its money and power to create an ecosystem around this OS. But a recent report by a research firm called IDS has something that may worry Ballmer and Co. in Seattle.

Is Microsoft going to go the dinosaur way?

The report by this research firm says new smart-connected devices shipped out to consumers and businesses are expected to exceed 1.1 billion units in 2012 and will reach 1.84 billion units by 2016 which is twice the current ship rate of 2011.Establishing the well-known fact that in future, we will all be ‘smart’ users. Raising the question-is the PC going to become obsolete? The report further concludes that Windows on x86-compatible chips i.e. PCs will take a big hit between now and 2016, and Android OS will rise in power in the same time period. While the amount of Windows PC shipments will grow slightly between now and 2016, the PC’s share of all devices shipped will decrease by almost 11 percent.
Microsoft pretty much defined the IT age with Windows. The company is now a behemoth that still depends on the same product that took it to greatness. For a technology company, it has been surprisingly slow to innovate. Unlike its nimble neighbor Amazon, it hasn’t adapted itself quickly to the changing times. Windows 8 may have a lot things going for it but timing isn’t one of them. This OS hit the market when Android and Apple’s iOS have firmly entrenched themselves in the market. And it will be hard for Windows 8 to make up for the lost time.
But a silver lining to this situation, in my opinion, is that PCs aren’t going anywhere. Tablets and phones are devices for content consumption. We need desktops to perform complex tasks. The market for desktops will continue to shrink but honestly, I don’t think there is going to be a post-PC world. Hence, MS may not need to fear extinction but it should be concerned about being irrelevant.

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It has been a long time since I did a leadership post. With Apple’s Cook in the limelight with launch of the New iPad, Whitman’s renewed efforts at saving HP and Yahoo’s new CEO Scott Thompson now getting settled, I thought this was the right time to do a “CEO news” post.

Will Apple stay the same?

Tim Cook was handpicked by Steve Jobs and he stepped into Steve’s shoes as an Apple veteran who fully understood the DNA of this company. When Tim Cook took to stage last month to announce the New iPad, his presentation was as much awaited and analyzed as the new iPad. Some complained about a certain sloppiness that had crept into the product launch that Jobs,with his penchant for perfectionism, would never have tolerated. The New iPad has broken several records and is a bestseller already. However, Tim Cook’s “antennagate” moment is here because of the device’s overheating and data guzzling problems. More information on this here. It will be unfair to Tim Cook to expect him to be just like Steve Jobs but a fair expectation is that issues like battery life, heating should be addressed in the test stage before the launch. And I find it inexplicable as to how these issues weren’t caught before this device went on sale.The challenge, therefore, for Tim Cook is to stay the course on Apple’s innovative products and at the same time, handle being on the radar for every little hiccup. After all, we expect the best from Apple, don’t we?

HP continues to shed fat

If you read this post about HP’s Meg Whitman, you probably know the daunting task that lay ahead of her. Whitman hit the ground running and cut down HP to its bare minimum. She continues to make some significant decisions that will go a long way in determining the future of the company. Recent one being merging of the PC ad printer units. And second one being making the Web OS open source. Whitman did not come to the company ass a tech genius but more as a successful executive with intelligence and ambition. After reversing Leo Apotheker’s decision to spin off HP’s PC division, I knew Whitman is on the right track. It is only a matter of time to find out how this translates as good news for shareholders.

Yahoo’s Schizophrenia

For a long time now, Yahoo has been going through an identity crisis. Is it a technology company or a media company? In 2008, Microsoft bid $44 million for Yahoo and was snubbed. Cut to 2012, Yahoo is valued at almost half of what had been offered. So it better have something solid planned for its future.The company took one step towards the future by appointing ex-e-Bayer Scott Thompson. In January, after taking on the role of Yahoo’s CEO, Scott Thompson has maintained that Yahoo!is both-a technology and a media company. His priority should be to quickly identify revenue streams other than email. Believe it or not, a large number of users still use Yahoo! for email (I wonder though, who is still using Yahoo!?). With smartphones and tablets, email is native and there is little incentive to check Yahoo!. I have no idea how this company will turn itself around. And I do not envy Scott Thompson at this moment. He has a tough job ahead. If he succeeds, it will be a great business story for posterity.
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Pinterest and Fancy

Unless you have been living under a rock for past months, there is very little chance you haven’t heard of Pinterest. But you may or may not have heard of ‘Fancy’-a site that is modeled just like Pinterest only with a bit of difference between them. Fancy makes money and Pinterest may or may not in future make money.

Show me the money

I am an avid Pinterester and I have whiled away my time “researching” on Pinterest for past two months. I am so hooked on it that I may not visit Facebook but I make a visit to Pinterest daily. Recently, I came across Fancy and I checked it out primarily to see how it is different from Pinterest. The interface looked very similar-clean, chic and approachable. The first thing you notice is that Fancy has a thin spread of “stuff” as opposed to Pinterest. Instead of pinning, we fancy things. As one user summed it up aptly, “Pinterest is more “suburban mom” while Fancy is more “Conde’ Nast Traveler”. But where Pinterest is a great inspirational tool, Fancy is a digital catalog. I may spend time on Pinterest but I spend money on Fancy. If you were an investor, which one will you pick?

The promise of Fancy

With names like Jack Dorsey-founder of Twitter and Chris Hughes-co-founder of Facebook on its board, Fancy has a pretty good chance at gaining market traction. The reason I bring up Fancy is that monetizing social media is a topic that has taken up a lot Internet space, lockstep with the rise of social media. And every time a new social platform gains momentum, there is vigorous debate over its monetizing potential. Very few social media sites establish clear monetizing paths in their few first months. While big daddies of social like Facebook and Twitter still struggle to demonstrate clear revenue channels, Fancy is a social upstart that has made headway within its first few months. Even a careful online buyer like me ended up ordering 15 dollars worth of goodies from my first visit to Fancy and that is a great example of how social can be leveraged to facilitate buying. I am quite impressed with the site because this might be the future of e-commerce. As I see it, in future, we will buy things from retailers primarily based on “pins” and “fancies” that we have collected over time from our social portfolio. As most social bigwigs still wonder how to sustain growth and earnings, folks at Fancy can pat themselves on the back for being one step ahead of the rest of the pack.

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The case for the “phablet”

When Steve Jobs first decided to create the iPad, his brief to his team was “I want to make a tablet and it can’t have a keyboard or stylus”. The rest, as the world now knows, is tablet history. The hugely successful iPad proved that the multi-touch input capability was the future. Despite the success of his device, Jobs also later realized that the tablet was a device of “content consumption not content creation”. Sure it has the on-screen keyboard to type but it is just sufficient to write your emails. Maybe that is the reason why tablet manufacturers like Samsung have not yet given up on the idea of stylus. There is also the matter of finding that golden middle as far as the screen size is concerned. You’d like your phone to be a little bigger so you can read on it and you’d like your tablet to be a bit smaller so you can carry it. Cut to 2012, Samsung introduces the Samsung Galaxy Note with a screen size of 5.3 inches and a stylus that lets you sketch and take notes. As of March 1, 2012 Samsung claims it has sold over 2 million devices. I bet this success is due to the fact that there is a segment of device enthusiasts who are missing something in their tablet and their phone. And that is why we need a “phablet”. Read more on the phablet’s specs here.

Samsung and the Note

Samsung’s Hankil Yoon recently acknowledged that Samsung has not been doing great in the tablet market. It faces tough competition from the iPad and the Kindle Fire. After several redundant versions of its Samsung Galaxy, the company has met with some success with the Note. I believe the hope for continued expansion of phablet market is in the premise that people don’t know what they need but they know they need it after they start using it. The Note enables content creation albeit in a limited manner. More than half of the digital world still prefers the pen and paper method of note taking to any other and Samsung is trying to emulate that on the phablet.

I like the Note jut because it is the best available tablet methods to write something. I have wished a lot many times that my laptop was smaller, lighter and my phone bigger. I have not bought a tablet because it only lets me read things not create things. A Samsung Galaxy Note might bring me closer to a solution. There remains the question of the stylus-that might need some practice. But I am happy that the phablet signals a start for creation on the tablet vs consumption.
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Update: Check out our galaxy note repair page for information on Nationwide service of this amazing device.

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New iPad

First, the name

I wonder why for all the creative thinking that goes inside Apple products, they fell short on a creative new name for the “New iPad”?  Maybe they are convinced that the upgraded device is not that great and this product does not deserve a new naming effort. I was surprised at how quickly Apple unveiled the “New iPad”. After all, the longer the rumor mill cycle, greater the hype! But here it is-the “New iPad”. So Apple fanboys, rejoice and please unite to rename this “New iPad” iPad3.

The launch and specs

The most striking feature is the retina display. The 9.7-inch screen plays host to 3.1 million pixels in a 2048 x 1536 arrangement — that’s 264ppi.  And this is what Tim Cook said about it in a style that was so characteristic of late Steve Jobs. “Until you see it you can’t understand how amazing it is”. The A5X processor and a quad-core graphics chip is another significant upgrade. This slate is priced at $499 for 16 GB and is available from March 16. As CEO Tim Cook announced this “New iPad”, he took jabs at Twitter and Yelp’s apps for the Samsung tablet saying they look like blown up Smartphone apps. Compare that to the display on this device which ships with iOS 5.1, the latest version of Apple’s software. A brand new feature is the isight camera in the front which will enable this device to record HD movies at 1080 P. This iPad is heavier and thicker than the iPad2 and is “world ready” with 3G hotspot. Siri-like feature now comes to New iPad. But it is not Siri exactly. It is a voice dictation feature that will transcribe your voice to text. Yawn. The battery is upgraded but still will last only for 10 hours-same as iPad2.

Verdict  and future

I have a feeling of deja-vu. It is the feeling I got after the launch of iPhone 4s. It is the feeling of being handed the same thing with some new features. But the feature I like most here is the 3G hotspot. Apple now brings the iPad 2 down to a price point of $399 in a move to combat the growing success of Kindle Fire. Question is will consumers bite? If I was in the market for a tablet, will I spend $200 more than the Kindle and just ge the iPad2-the best tablet around?  I doubt it. But it is a good start in an effort to start competing with the other tablets on price. Overall, if you already have an iPad2, keep it and know you are not missing much. If you don’t have a tablet and want one, go for the “New iPad” or the iPad3 as I would like it to be called. But please be sure you don’t drop your iPad and crack the glass – otherwise you will need our iPad repair (or, dare we call it the iPad 3 repair) which is the most common tablet repair we do!

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