Category: social-hardware

Back to instant messaging

instant messaging sites

I bet the figure above has changed in recent times, as everybody turned back to messaging it would seem. Maybe realising that using social networks as a way to do instant messages is a bad idea (not judging, as I have been lured into a one 2 one conversation quite a few times over twitter).

I use to be a jabber/xmpp fan and when GTalk adopted xmpp, I was pretty happy. However over time the xmpp standard was built upon and in the end removed. I was one of those people who ran a client (pidgin) which supported multiple im protocols.

I considered installing pidgin again but I thought I’d give the alternatives a try. However Josh tweeted something which I wanted to consider when choosing a client and protocol.

Looking at the list I decided to try Silent Text/Phone from Silent Circle and Telegram. Telegram has clients across operating systems and devices, while silent text/phone is mainly mobile. Telegram also has the option of working within Pidgin if I decide to switch back.

For me its not that I actively want to hide secret messages, I just want the option to flex my privacy. Instant messenger for me is more private than social broadcasting platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Do I trust facebook messenger? Do I heck! I actively don’t have it on my phone along with the Facebook app.

I know theres rumors twitter are due to spin out their direct messaging part but looking at the rest of the crowd, are we really expecting twitter to adopt a secure and private system? Their track record hasn’t be bad. Actually there are twitter direct messaging clients which is cool but how many times has twitter changed the rules of the system, how long till direct messages are treated differently?

Do you want to join Scoblebook?

Robert scoble at London's Geek DinnerIts worth watching or at least listening to this week in tech. Robert scoble tries to explain the twisted logic of the Facebook algorithm live. For 40+ mins!

Scoble says… “Facebook is running away with the game!”

Really? As Clayton Morris says, the amount of curation Robert needs to do is shocking… Out of the 1 billion people who use facebook, the percentage who use lists is so close to zero even Mark Zuckerberg admitted it was kind of broken (thanks Nicole).

Nice try Robert but I certainly won’t be following suit… I’m actually trying to get off it or at least using it as a dumping ground again.

Do you really think Facebook will be around in 15 years?

me on facebook

I still have this strange relationship with Facebook. I don’t really like it but I end up using it because lots of friends are on it and for them its a core part of the Internet (rightly or wrongly). My volleyball teams also use Facebook to book sessions (yes so popular is volleyball in Manchester) and I do get comments from many more friends when I post things into  Facebook.

In the past I used Facebook as massive dumping ground and didn’t really care to login. My view that Facebook is the modern equivalent of the walled gardens of AOL. Although I still stand by this, I have also noticed my usage increasing too.

So when I read the piece titled I Left Facebook, And You Can Too. I reflected on my own increase usage.

Imagine, for a moment, that you must quit using Facebook forever, starting right now. No more posting to Facebook or checking Facebook for the rest of your life. But don’t worry, you can still e-mail all those friends. Does that make you feel panicky? If you’re panicky, it’s a clue. Maybe you’ve been on Facebook for most of your life, so this kind-of-addicted feeling seems normal to you. It’s not normal. I was talking with a woman in her 50s this weekend, who said to me, “I wish I could quit Facebook but it’s so addictive: ‘Oh, this person said this, that person said that, and oh, this person is taking boating lessons, let’s look at all the pictures of the boat,’ and then before I know it two hours have passed and I don’t even KNOW the person taking boating lessons!” This is what it feels like when your connections with a platform are being strengthened, as opposed to the connections with the people you love: you can spend two hours on Facebook looking at the boating lessons of people you don’t even know. This is very convenient for Facebook.

I barely look at the timeline/newsfeed as I’m generally just looking at the notifications. I can feel the lure of the notifications in facebook, this is why I removed Facebook from my mobile phone and only had it on my tablet (plus it was a massive battery hog). Then very recently I removed Facebook messenger from my phone too.

One of the things I have been thinking about recently is, Facebook as a dating site? The evidence is lots of people meet through facebook and lets be honest, its not any worst than the dating sites? The same sites which say they don’t really know what they are doing…

Anyway the question I pose, is if Facebook will be around in 15years? Their move to split up the mobile app is frustrating but I can imagine a Facebook dating app in the next few years. Along with their photos app (I said it first!).
The next 15 years, I expect it will still be around but I’m expecting the innovators dilemma to come into effect at some point. And even splitting up the experiences into more niches won’t save them.

Uber drives its way on the UK scene

2014-01-26 | 23-52-16

Uber has soft launched (I guess, is the best term for it) in Manchester and the impact is interesting to watch. Uber is basically a ride sharing network (legally I don’t believe they can call it a taxi service Thanks Chris for pointing out UberX is a legal and licensed Taxi service).

Its quite simple, you sign up and install the app and you can see all the uber rides around you. To order one, you simply request that one pick you up from your exact location. Then say where you want to go. That simple. Unlike most taxis, you can see exactly when and when your ride is coming and heck you can even start walking somewhere and the driver will see your exact location change (great for when trying to get out of the rain for example). No phoning an operator, trying to get through and trying to explain where you are.

There have been apps for taxis but most of them suck and although Uber isn’t perfect, its better than 99% of whats out there.

The fact your payment is done through a connected credit card rather than cash or even debit card is a massive advantage. Frankly these guys have something which is pretty useful. I can’t tell you the amount of times, I have had the taxi driver pull over at a cash machine because I don’t have the cash or they don’t cards. Heck once I stopped at my destination and then had to get back on the road to find a cash machine because their card machine wasn’t working! (seriously!)

But its not all good news, I’ve been tracking Uber’s problems in America and theres even recent problems in Europe.

However, Uber is the perfect example of how the internet when embraced is disrupting traditional business forever…

From the Cluetrain manfesto… rule #89

We have real power and we know it. If you don’t quite see the light, some other outfit will come along that’s more attentive, more interesting, more fun to play with.

I do feel for the taxis company’s but they had their chances and may have blown it? Just like the music business and many others, they really need to up their game or feel the heat from Uber, as their drivers leave for the Uber deal…

People’s enthusiasm for federated decentralised $WHATEVER

Adewale shooting me

Love following Ade and hearing some of the things he comes out with…

People’s enthusiasm for federated decentralised $WHATEVER seems inversely proportional to the practicality of their plan for achieving it

And tell the truth he’s right… but one day someone will crack it and find a new business model which makes it all worth it.

On a related noted, suddenly everyones thinking about federated decentralised services with the discovery of what WebRTC is capable of doing.

One such use is decentralised chat rooms, which for some reason hit some of the smaller press.

The ICT division of NTT Group announced a free trial of the app, WebRTC Chat on Skyway, on Monday. WebRTC, or real-time communications, is a free, open-source project that turns supported web browsers into telephony engines so that devices can connect via IM, video, or voice chat.

Being open source, hopefully some of the enthusiasm will rub off on smart developers, and we’ll finally see non-vapourware?

Things which google have done which bug me in the last year

how google perpetuates itself

Most people would say I’m a fan of google services but I just find them the best of a bunch. Don’t necessary buy their old do no evil stance but they do a good job on most things. One of my favourates is of course Google Now. However there some thing which have bugged me over the last year, heres my list…

  • Offline maps
    I don’t quite understand why they got rid of offline maps but its frustrating, as it use to save me tons of money in roaming charges. If I go on holiday somewhere, I could make a offline version of that city and happily know I have most places to hand. The best thing is it still worked with GPS, so I could be in a taxi or on a bus and track where I was going to the exact moment. Now Google have removed the feature and I’m aware of the “OK Google” trick but its not the same.
  • Hangouts vs Gtalk vs Google Voice
    I know Google have changed Gtalk to fit into Hangouts. Great but whenever I say lets hangout, people assume you mean video and audio, which is a hangout on air? Where does Google Voice fit into this frame? I have no idea… Don’t get me wrong, I love hangouts but the application does kill batteries and I quite liked Gtalk, as I could use it with Pidgin.
  • Google Voice for the UK
    The one thing skype has over hangouts is the ability to call and text phones. Google Voice does this but its not come to the UK still, even after years. I also don’t understand why it works on my android tablet (I have £10 worth of credit) but it won’t work on my android phone?
  • The built in browser in Android
    On Android there is the built in browser but you can install multiple alternative browsers. So I have Browser, Chrome, Firefox and Opera on most of my android devices. You can make any of them the default but I don’t really understand why Chrome isn’t the default?
  • Circles vs Categories for contacts
    Google Plus has been on the market for some time now and I like the circles, but what I don’t get is the categories which run parallel to the circle methodology. Ideally would be able to convert your gmail contact categories into circles. But Google have done nothing. Worst still Circles acts like taxomomies rather then folksonomies meaning there a duplicate scheme to sort contacts. If one was tag/folksomy based then it would be understandable.
  • Google Task API
    I know there is a Task API but it seems so flaky or at least all the apps which connect to it like any.do
  • Inconsistency of staring something in Drive vs making it offline
    In the past, anything you stared in Drive/Doc would automatically be downloaded on Android devices. Some time recently that stopped being the case and you now have to manually select download on every device you want it on. This also can not be done remotely (from what I’ve seen). So I might have made it offline on my phone but not my tablet. The star system was better
  • Offline access generally
    Offline access generally isn’t ideal, its almost like someone at google hasn’t really experienced offline for long. Take for example Google Calendar. Offline mode, generally works without internet access, so you can go forward and backwards over a few months. But if you want to add or edit a something, forget it.
  • Google reader
    Of course no list about issues with Google wouldn’t be complete without a dig about Google Reader!

Goodbye MyOpenID?

OpenID Logo

I received this email recently…

I wanted to reach out personally to let you know that we have made the decision to end of life the myOpenID service. myOpenID will be turned off on February 1, 2014.

In 2006 Janrain created myOpenID to fulfill our vision to make registration and login easier on the web for people. Since that time, social networks and email providers such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn and Yahoo! have embraced open identity standards. And now, billions of people who have created accounts with these services can use their identities to easily register and login to sites across the web in the way myOpenID was intended.

By 2009 it had become obvious that the vast majority of consumers would prefer to utilize an existing identity from a recognized provider rather than create their own myOpenID account. As a result, our business focus changed to address this desire, and we introduced social login technology. While the technology is slightly different from where we were in 2006, I’m confident that we are still delivering on our initial promise – that people should take control of their online identity and are empowered to carry those identities with them as they navigate the web.

For those of you who still actively use myOpenID, I can understand your disappointment to hear this news and apologize if this causes you any inconvenience. To reduce this inconvenience, we are delaying the end of life of the service until February 1, 2014 to give you time to begin using other identities on those sites where you use myOpenID today.

Speaking on behalf of Janrain, I truly appreciate your past support of myOpenID.

Sincerely,
Larry

No more myOpenID, I guess it was on the cards and to be fair its surprising its stayed open this long? Shame openid has been pretty much co-opted by the massive internet corps. The same ones which seem to do little to protect our data.

BarCamp Blackpool

BarCamps have become somewhat of a rarity recently, not sure why? But I made it to the yearly BarCampBlackpool. BarCampBlackpool is a odd one. So you have your unconference but its about 3-4 rooms/tracks and instead of the overnight, the whole thing takes place in the Norbreck Castle Hotel  in Northern Blackpool. This means the overnight doesn’t happen unless you are staying over in the hotel but the bar it generally stays open till about 2am. Then if you got your fill of drinking you can chat/play on regardless till some time in the morning.

Usually I don’t stay over in Blackpool but this year I decided I had enough of zipping out to catch the last train to Manchester. Not in the hotel of the event however because the reviews were all shocking and it was twice the price of my hotel (Hesketh Hotel) just down the road.

Anyhow there were a few stand-out talks worthy of noting.

Freakyclown didn’t disappoint with his unique view on the darknet. Firstly he talked about how to get on to the darknet. using Tor, what kind of things you could buy, how and why wireless is seriously insecure. Lots of questions followed in another good session by the clown.

Jeremy totally surprised me in his talk about how we can be better by not thinking so negative. It reminded me of a number of posts I have written over time including. Richness of Life, Serendipity, Fear of rejection, Familiar strangers, etc. I thought it was great having a more life talk between the technical talks at the barcamp. Tim wrote a blog about Jeremy too.

There was a panel debate which I was a part of around the governments misguided plans to censor the internet or as they say, so they can protect the children. I was on the panel with Tim, Freakyclown and Ben. The idea of a p0rnwall is a joke but it was clear something needed to be done to help parents who did want to protect there children. This post from the Open Rights Group was shown.

Of course we had some excellent games of Werewolf till about 2am. Rather than massive circles, we opted for 2 smaller circles and a higher turn over of games. Heck I even survived quite a few of them and didn’t need to be the moderator all the time. The best moment, was Ben getting revenge on me and me using my snap judgement to kill off Martin in one single moment. Too hard to explain but it was great!

Another good BarCamp thanks to the guys who arrange it…

Offline support in most of Google Apps

offline google calendar

I just noticed Google Calendar added support for offline viewing and editing.

In the past I relied on Evolution’s iCal calendar support to save a copy of the webcal offline, so I could check my calendar when on a different network. Leaving Google Calendar open in Chrome would allow you to flick forward and backwards about 8 weeks, but you certainly couldn’t read the detail of an appointment or doing any editing. Now with offline support it seems to allow much more control. At some point I may not need Evolution at all!

Being so impressed with the offline support, I thought I’d check to see what other google apps support offline. I already knew about Gmail and to be honest I don’t need the rest so much.

Those bloody Facebook like scams

Virtual Bagel Facebook scam

Where ever there is people being social there’s room for social engineering? Welcome to the Facebook Like scams… A little old but still a pain!

As you may have noticed I’m not exactly a fan of facebook but seeing a few of those crappy “do this now” posts in my timeline irritates me even more. As you can imagine these are just social engineering scams. One of the most common is ‘Press Like if you hate cancer, ignore if you don’t’? but theres many more… Heck even the BBC did a scam to prove it can be done.

The ‘my sister Mallory’ scam
This post stated that someones ‘sister’ Mallory has down syndrome & doesn’t think she’s beautiful. It then asked for ‘likes’ it to show her she is. The REAL story about this little girl is something much different: Read about it here

As usual you can tell by the call to action and social pressure being layered.

So how does it work?

  1. A page is created.
  2. This page put out a constant stream of heart wrenching and/or mildly amusing images that are shared publicly with a call to action to click, share or comment.
  3. These posts are initially shared by a big group of people all in the same network who have all built up their edge rank over a period of time that then results in the posts eventually leaking into the newsfeeds of real-life accounts.
  4. These people share, like or comment which then spreads.
  5. Eventually a friend of yours hits that little thumbs up button
  6. It’s in your newsfeed.

And within 3 days a post like this one has 70,000 likes, and someone somewhere is about to make a nice little profit by selling the page to a business wanting some quick wins.

The buyer then changes some of the page details. BAM! Instant fanpage with a big following, lots of likes and an in depth edge rank, capable of pushing out content to a pre-built list of thousands of Facebook users. (edit: Page name cannot be altered after 200 likes, just details of the page).

And there you have it… Facebook scammed

Thanks to my friends who stupidly fell for the scams on multiple times. I’ll be sending them this blog post in future.

Archiving your social media

Found Recollect via Imran…

We archive everything you do online.

There are a lot of great places to share your life online; we know because we use and love most of them. But this means our digital lives are spread across many different services.

It’s easy to get lost trying to find old memories. That’s why we built Recollect, the best place to archive and explore your digital life.

From a Data portability point of view it looks pretty good but its quite limited right now as it only supports Flickr, 4 Square, Instagram and Twitter. 2 of which I don’t actually use and to be honest I don’t really need the Flickr one because I have everything backed up already and I pay another service to archive my tweets.

I am interested to find out what format it saves them all in (I know its Gzipped or Tar’d, but the base format) and also in Twitter’s case how far back the timeline goes back? Does it include Retweets, @replies, Favoruates and other things.

Guess theres only one way to find out…?

The end of open twitter?

IMG_2935

Its been a good load of years since I visited a promising startup in South Park, San Francisco called Twitter. Oh have they changed…

There has been a whole number of stories and posts about how Twitter is locking down the API calls and access to data. Not only that they are being very shirty with some of the clients and services around it.

Its ironic we use to praise Twitter for there business model formed around creating a ecosystem around its self by leveraging APIs. It was one of the web 2.0 darlings but something happened…

Twitter right from the start had people asking how were they going to make money to keep going?

Well what ever direction they decided to go in, its meant breaking what made it hugely popular.

The question is what will people move on to? Since Twitter for the longest time have sucked the air out of the microblogging ecosystem and seen off most of the alternatives including Plurk, Pownce, etc…

Jaiku Engine is a opensource project after Google bought it and open sourced it. However it lacks something which status.net and identi.ca had built in from day one. Federation… Jaiku engine has also gone quiet since Google plus launched too. I wonder, what if distributed social networking also come to the rescue and provide a nice mix of social networking like facebook/google+ and federated microblogging?

Twitter has done some great things but frankly the business model they have chosen is rubbing up against too many of my and other peoples freedom. I now wonder if I will ever be able to get a dump of all my tweets, dm’s and mentions? (Dataportability!) Google and Facebook have actually been quite good about this, Twitter much less so.

Preston Social: Online dating with Ian

This is Tuesday in my busy social week

PrestonSocial

Thanks to Josh I got asked to give a view of the online dating world at Preston Social.

I’ve not really spent much time in Preston before except at the Train station and during hack to the future. A little walk down the street and I was at the venue for the evening. Nice little bar which I assume during the weekend might be busy. That day due to the sunshine and heat, I did wonder what numbers we would get. Talking to the guys behind the whole Preston Social movement, I really got the feeling it was like the early days of the London Geekdinners. They had really good reasons for doing it and were slowly growing it.

We had a brief discussion and we got talking about the whole Dating thing. Seems there might have been some resistance to the whole topic, which seemed kind of funny to me because on the Thursday I was doing Geeky & Sexy which will be much more adult.

By the time I started, we had about 10-12 people which is fine and makes it much more intimate. The presentation below had parts of my presentation at SMC_MCR 2 weeks ago mixed in with my own recent thoughts.

Dating in the 21st century?
The event went well and we did get into a small question and answer thing for a while.
Over all my points were… how good is the maths behind the popular dating sites? Is the personal filtering and paradox of choice so good that people don’t actually want to commit to going out to meet each other? With Social dating now very much established, whats the difference between that and other social networking sites like Facebook? Will social networks just go the whole way? Finally, can proximity based dating be the future of dating?
I had a great time and there was plenty of really good questions by the people who attended. I certainly would have liked to have spent more time there but it wasn’t to be, specially with the week long of events.
Thanks to John Walker, Tom Stables and his lovely wife for making my talk in Preston a very nice one.