Tag: facebook

Whats in common with Tinder?

A while ago I wrote a piece for Single black male titled technology assisted dating.

A trip to the coffee shop or a bar is full of surprises. Who has not heard of the likes of Grindr? Grindr is/was extremely popular with the urban single gay males and it seems highly effective in meeting other people. You could see this as a digital wingman of sorts or a step on the way towards a technology assisted dating/hookup depending on what you’re actually after?

The likes of OKCupid and POF’s mobile apps use geolocation to find singles which match your profile. Grindr however seems to have that extra element of passive fun or hookup. So the question always has been? Wheres the hetrosexual version of Grindr? Those in the know, recommend Tinder. So I checked it out a while ago and recently gave it another try .

The thing about Tinder is its totally based on your Facebook profile. When I first saw this as a requirement, I read the privacy policy and though no thank you. But since I gave it a shot and found it weirdly interesting.

As said before the app requires (there is no other way to make it work) Facebook data. Once you hook it up every aspect of your Facebook data you get recommendations of people you may like. As I letter found out you can alter some of the settings in the app. Things like distance to search, sexuality and the age range.

The interface is a hot or not styled thing based on profile pictures from people around you. Its not exactly scientific in anyway.

However whats interesting is when Tinder finds something you like in common. This can be something you both liked or something you both have an interest in. It even points out any friends you both have in common. So instead of filling out loads of questions, its simply highlighting the commonality between you both.

Tinder app okcupids app

For example above, there are 3 common things me and Sally share. If I click the i, I can find out which things exactly. In this case Sally likes donnie darko, fight club, and the watchmen. If we had friends in common it would put a number in the other box too.

Once you’ve done all this, thats pretty much it. If the other person comes across your profile and also hearts you, then your both made aware of this connection.

Its simple but also quite effective, if your facebook profile is maintained and well used. The problem I have is I don’t really use Facebook and its apps much, so alot of it is more guess work than matching. Maybe I might consider updating and managing parts of my FB profile in future.

Using Facebook makes a ton of sense and I’ve always maintained that Facebook makes a great dating site.

So its pretty frictionless as a app and service. I have already seen people adding additional information like there twitter username and even email address to the one and only free text area. Which makes me wonder how there going to make any revenue from the app and us the users? Its also lot less realtime that Grindr, so I don’t expect to see people wondering around with the app open, so no real time adverts.

Is it all about the data and what they can sell on? Will there be a pro version on the cards? Will they start selling adverts? Or will they simply go for a walled garden type thing like most other dating sites? It would be good know before I can really recommend the service.

But as a whole, I’m quite liking Tinder and it will stay on my android devices for now. Its certainly not Grindr for us hetrosexuals but its something smarter and slightly clever.

Facebook try again

No Facebook Home for the Galaxy S IV

I un-installed Facebook home from my HTC One X recently, and it sounds like I’m not the only one.

The European launch of the “Facebook phone” has been delayed following disappointing US sales and negative feedback. The HTC handset runs Facebook’s enhanced Home software, designed to be more integrated into the smartphone than a normal app. UK mobile operator EE confirmed that “following customer feedback” the Europe launch had been stalled.

For me Facebook home was interesting but I really don’t use Facebook enough to really make use of it. Its also a bit of a hog when it comes to resources of the phone. Once again I’d like to upgrade to Android 4.2 for daydream or maybe try one of the other more interesting launchers.

Facebook home tried, tested and almost uninstalled

Facebook home launcher… What more do I need to say?

Facebook Home

I made the step of replacing Nemus launcher with Facebook home on my HTC One X just to see what its like first hand. And to be honest the reviews on the play store sum it up.. Currently with 2.2 out 5 stars the reviews are worst still.

Derrick Baird – April 14, 2013 – Samsung Galaxy S3 with version 1.0

A good start

I like it, takes some getting use to, but so far I have had no issues with it. I do miss widgets. And it needs some more customization. Its a good start, but has a long way to go to become a permanent UI replacement. Most of the 1 star reviews seem to be by people who dont know what this is or how to use it.]

Demir Bracic – April 16, 2013 – Version 1.0

Its a start but too limited

I think Facebook is on the right track but to me this would be better served as a live wallpaper. If I wanted a phone with no widgets and customization I would have bought an iPhone.

Nathan Watrous – April 14, 2013 – Version 1.0

Too Much…

I tried it ,and to be honest, it just was too much. I would like it better if it was just the lock screen, but it gets annoying. Plus, it hid most of my other apps (namely google ones lol).

Alex Blackie – April 14, 2013 – Version 1.0

Pretty slick

I was hesitant due to a lot of 1 star reviews but if you pay any attention to what you’re getting then it’s not an issue. Sure you can’t use widgets but I never do anyway and the people that complain about that probably rarely use em themselves, akin to dvd players in computers. If youre someone that appreciates minimalism then you’ll like how clean and intuitive this luncher is. You can still use your Phone as you always have, it’s just different.

Horriable Facebook App screen

So what do I think having played with it? Well I still have it on my phone for now but its going to get uninstalled any day now. I hate the window manager, its poor and crappy. On top of that it looks like something out of Android 1.6. Yes say hello to Eclair again, as that tragic shade of grey makes a re-entry on Android. The swipe positioning of your mini head is a little bizarre although to be fair I was introduced to them when I installed Facebook messenger. I also can’t understand why the launcher only shows a small subset of apps? Luckily there is a mode where you can see them all. As mentioned already theres no widgets just apps.

Facebook home daydream

The only part of Facebook Home I actually quite like is the screensaver/lock screen. When turning on the phone, your shown the latest pictures of what your friends have posted to the their timelines with what ever comment they left. Not only that you can actually like and comment back right there without unlocking the phone. Security wise I couldn’t get into the main Android or launch any apps without using my pass pattern, which is invoked when ever you get to deep (I couldn’t work out if this was because I got fed up of using Facebook’s UI and binded the home key back to Nemus launcher or not.

Replying to a friends status

Yes this does mean if you currently pick up my phone, you can write a stupid comment in reply to a random friends post or even like something which I wouldn’t normally like. This for me isn’t the end of the world but could cause some embarrassing circumstances once in a while.

Frankly this is the only part of Facebook home I quite like (although I also don’t like the battery usage) as a screensaver its quite neat and the ability to reply and like is very useful. I wonder why Twitter and more likely Google Plus haven’t done the same before?  Scratch the rest of Facebook Home, this is the bit which is cool.

Liking Chris's status

Interestingly when installing Jelly Bean (4.2 not 4.1)  on my tablet I found a new feature which I had heard about but had been pretty much ignored in the press. Daydream. Daydream can work like the parts of Facebook Home I like. In actual fact I already found a few nice extras I’m looking to give a shot soon. Maybe this a serious reason why I should root my HTC one x too?

Back to Facebook home… This comment sums up my thoughts too

Holden Kass – April 14, 2013 – HTC One X with version 1.0

Good lock screen

That’s all I use it for it runs great with adw launcher

Or for me it plays nicely with Nemus launcher, but its going to get removed once I find a decent Daydream app.

My Nemus Launcher setup

Facebook is being used for dating… full stop!

facebook_for_real

Saw “Facebook’s Graph Search Awkward For Dating” over the weekend in Online Dating Insider

Sam Yagan, CEO of both OkCupid & Match.com said, “I used graph search and it showed me people who meet my criteria but that didn’t mean I wanted to date those people. … I dont think Facebook itself wants to be in dating – because its risks alientating the majority of its users that don’t want Facebook to be a dating site.”

Aaron Schildkrout, CEO of HowAboutWe, said the problem is what to do after you’ve found someone you like, “pretend you search for your Bjork loving Cobble Hill 27 year old. You find your match. She looks cool. And then…what? You pay a dollar to message her on Facebook? You friend her out of the blue and wait? To me, these actions all feel just kind of… off. You have the clear sense that this is not quite what Facebook was built to do.”

Markus Frind, CEO of Plenty of Fish, agrees, “Facebook isn’t going to kill dating sites. Its all about intent. If you signup to Plenty of Fish there are millions of people who made the decision to signup because they want to be a in relationship.”

No matter what the online dating sites think or even say (and I’m surprised how short sighted OKcupid and PoF CEOs are on this). They should be worrying about facebook.

Facebook is being used by people for online dating. Simple!

I know a few people who have met up, dated and hooked up with friends of friends via facebook (geez look at that film/programme – Catfish). The friends of a friend (foaf) system is a new type filter which doesn’t exist on any dating sites I’ve seen before. Yes Badoo and Zook (all the other facebook dating apps) have tried to build on this filter but frankly done so so from what i gather? Heck they even have their own mobile platform now 😉

Like it or not Facebook currently rules the roost in connecting people and therefore will become a dominate force in online dating market without ever supporting online dating! And frankly some of the business models I’ve seen or guess others are using, they maybe deserve to?

Not that I’m saying its all tied up, there still major issues but Facebook doesn’t charge and verification of friends really helps

Replacing your home launcher

The news world is a buzz with Facebook’s Home (check out the background video).

When I first heard about Home, I thought wow thats really smart… Now with some more time, I’m actually impressed with Home. The guardian shares my thoughts…

…what did Zuckerberg say on Thursday? “We’re not building an operating system. We’re building something that’s a whole lot deeper.” That’s exactly congruent with what Dediu said. Quite possibly what the Facebookers were told matched what they were already thinking. Google’s Android has the advantage that because Google makes its source code available, it can be tweaked endlessly by hardware manufacturers (such as HTC) and software companies (like Facebook). And so, the Facebook phone.

Back to Zuckerberg again: “The home screen is the soul of your phone. It sets the tone. We feel it should be deeply personal.” And: “It’s putting people first in your phone.” Sure, but it also shows Facebook which people you do and don’t pay attention to, by whether you bat away messages from them (useful for its news feed). And it knows what you’re looking at.

And for some people, the idea of those two being so closely linked will be attractive. Don’t forget that as Sir Tim Berners-Lee remarked to John Naughton recently, “there are 200 million people in the world who think Facebook is the internet”. Some people really love using Facebook.

Facebook Home is a launcher and there is a number of them on Android. Most users stick with the stock launcher aka Samsung’s Touchwiz and HTC’s Sense, but they are easily installed without rooting. Now to be fair, in my experience HTC’s Sense was much more flexible about allowing another launcher. Samsung’s touchwiz still bleeds through when pressing certain buttons. End of the day launchers are a great feature of Android! Although its important to know and realise how much data flows through the launchers and what Facebook could learn about you. Of course HTC, Orange, Tmobile, Samsung, etc already benefit from this data already!

I personally use Nemus Launcher on my HTC one X and Samsung Tab 7+ and enjoy its speed, lightness and simple gui. If you want more complex launchers check out Regina 3D. Windows phone 7/8’s gui is copied in Launcher 7.

Facebook Timeline Is The Perfect Personal Ad

My Facebook timeline

I said this years ago here as lifestreaming dating…

Facebook’s Timeline and Graph Search is going to change the online dating industry, forever and for the better. People Media, Spark, Cupid PLC and all the other niche networks will popular for years to come, and Match certainly isn’t quaking in their boots.

And I’m not saying that Facebook is going to put the dating industry out of business. What I’m saying is that the layout of the new Timeline is what I’ve been begging the dating industry to do for at least five years and it’s a huge leap in the right direction towards more dynamic and comprehensive profiles. Pair that with Graph Search and Facebook (unintentionally?) becomes the largest dating site in the world, just like that.

I never really followed up on the lifestreaming dating but just watched how Facebook changed more towards social dating and added social graph features.

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.

Creating a site for a vivid lounge

New Vivid site

I had it with bloody Facebook… But what I can’t understand is why on earth some businesses rely on it for there business.

Vivid Lounge is one such business.

They do have the domain name vividloungeuk.com (thankfully) but as you can see nothing is there. They do on the other hand have a Facebook page with regular updates. Now I understand running a business is a lot of hard work this is why I decided to do something about it by offering them a website to replace the blank page.

I decided to use Squarespace originally because its pretty quick, solid, smart and I heard good things about it. Using pictures and content from the Facebook I was quickly able to create something useful. Unfortunately Squarespace doesn’t allow you share the site unless you pay the minimum fee. As usual my tweets are copied into facebook and Oli said something quite useful.

I debated doing this for places I likes that didn’t have functional websites. This is too true http://theoatmeal.com/comics/restaurant_website

Then a recent follow up he mentioned http://en.wordpress.com/restaurants/. WordPress for restaurants.

It looks ideal but maybe too complex for vivid lounge at this moment but could be useful for future plans

 

 

Relationship fuss

32/365 Status Update

People who have been in a relationship of what ever kind for more that 5 years are lucky. Yes they are matched with someone significant but they don’t have to go through the fuss or even hell of announcing it on fb.

Recent research suggests that the decisions people make about whether and how to represent their love lives on Facebook can often be quite telling. For example, my colleagues and I found that people who post a “Single” relationship status on Facebook have more sexual partners between relationships than those who opt out of posting “Single” on their profile. We also found that people who disclose that they are “In a Relationship” on Facebook also report being more committed to that relationship. Even among married people, we found that those whose primary Facebook photos include their spouses are less likely to split up 6 months later

With previous girlfriends, it was carefully chosen when to change fb statuses. I usually change mine to prove I was no longer dating.

The act of publicly publishing your status (even subconsciously) has a massive profound effect… going by this study a positive effect?

I believe this also applies to publishing things like your new years resolutions. Which I have done for years.

The romance contraceptive?

DSC_0576

Been reading up lots of stuff about dating and social media recently…

One of the most interesting ones has to be this entry from David Wygant a dating and relationship coach and writes for the New York Times.

Social media is what I’d call a romance contraceptive. It prevents romance from happening every single day.

Every day when I’m out and about, I’ll see people in elevators, I’ll see people in grocery stores, coffee shops, and at restaurants. And they’re all checking Facebook! Or they’re tweeting something to their 3.7 followers. We’ve become a society of people who are obsessed with what’s happening in the imaginary world.

Just the other day, I was in a supermarket in Los Angeles and I saw this guy checking out this girl. He was standing next to her in line at the juice bar. He kept looking at her, and she kept looking down … at the Facebook app on her iPhone.

Now, I know some of you right now are thinking, maybe she wasn’t interested. That wasn’t the issue. Because what I’m about to share with you is something most of you have probably done.

He gave up and disappeared. But I was crazy curious so I stood next to her in line and got real close and peeked at what she was typing into her phone.

Her status update: When am I going to meet a nice guy? It seems like all the good men are taken.

Think about what just happened.

She complained about not finding good men, but here was an interested man, standing next to her. Now, granted, nobody knows if the romance would have worked, but think about this: for every moment that you’re checking your Twitter feed, or your so-called friends’ updates on Facebook, you’re missing another opportunity to connect with somebody in real life … which could be another opportunity to fall in love.

I agree to a certain extend. I already gave a 5min presentation to #smc_mcr urging people to do more in real life. Don’t get me wrong, I also sometimes say “I got to tweet this…” but generally I’m not attached to my phone like some people I know.

We are in a world of flux right now, for some people mobile internet access is a good thing and for others its certainly not. Do you blame the technology or the person? I would say its the person.

The killer application for distributed social networking?

How do we make things move along quicker in the area of distributed/federated technology? Things are moving very slowly although it seems most of the components are in place.

When I wrote the blog about Rebel mouse, I found some interesting links to some distributed solutions which could see the end of the likes of twitter and facebook.

OStatus is an open standard for distributed status updates. The goal is to have a specification that allows different messaging hubs to route status updates between users in near-real-time. This spec took over from the OpenMicroBlogging spec of old.

I remember writing about wordpress’s distributed solution a while ago.

The weird thing is I logged into Diaspora again today and not only is it a ghost town (not like G+, but really like a ghost town) but it got me thinking whats different about Diaspora and G+? Now the hype died down, its time to see some very cool uses of Diaspora. What have they got to loose? Dare I say it, wheres the killer application? Wheres the thing which will make people sit up and take note once again? Heck whys no one doing cool stuff with the API?

So what is the killer application which will tip people over? I have some thoughts but what ever it is, please let it happen soon before we’re all forced to beg twitter, facebook, etc for our data back.

Next Manchester Werewolf Chapter – Wed 28th March

Were back for another Manchester Werewolf Chapter with the guys at Larkin About again.

On Wednesday March 28th, the Manchester Werewolf Chapter and Larkin’ About will be running another Werewolf game at Barcelona Bar in the Northern Quarter. For FREE!

Werewolf is a simple game of strategy and deception, played by a large group of people.
The game is all about making accusations, lying, bluffing, second-guessing, and social engineering.

All are welcome! We have a great location with a bar because we all know lying is very thirsty work. The event is suitable for all levels of experience from absolute newbie to Werewolf expert.

The Pancakes and Cocktails are worth it alone… And its happy hour right up till 9pm…

To register your interest, please visit our Facebook event page, or send us an email to larkin.about2009@gmail.com.

Google Schemer: Inspiration networking

Schemier

I like most things which are about inspiring you and people around you. I remember seeing Happiest at Thinking Digital and thinking now thats really interesting but I felt the way they were going about it was maybe not quite right. They seemed to be going the way of Facebook, which is fine if your planning to build a whole network like Path.

I am I do on the other hand is much more like twitter. Everything is public by default and it does one thing very well. What that thing is, no one can quite put there finger on as of yet (just like early twitter). I am I do has the potential to be the platform not the whole network.

Schemer is a interesting service which seems to plonk its self somewhere between Happiest and iamido.

Schemer lets you define goals and mark the things you’ve already accomplished. You can inspire other people, find people who have the same goals and join the conversation. To make it easier to find a scheme, you can add tags and locations.

Its a social goal management done really well. The by product being inspiring goals which get you thinking. And what really intrigues me is the notion that Schemer is actually a Google+ app.

Schemer is actually a Google+ app and it’s likely that you’ll be able to use it inside Google+ in the future.

Leveraging Google+ in the right way instead of the app sitting within Google+ like Facebook apps makes sense (although maybe facebook connect does this too?). Actually if I was Happiest I would suggest doing the exact same thing instead of building there own network. I am I do could do the same quite easily.

Google+ seems to have everything in place to be the pipes rather than the network, and I’m intrigued if mydreamscape could work in a similar vain?

Other peoples thoughts on the year of making love

Rome visit, June 2008 - 57

Now on my 4th blog entry for the year of making love… Its hard to see how it went from this to this…

Others have started blogging their thoughts. So I thought it would be worth sharing them, partly to show I’m not the only one and highlight other thoughts.

Whats love got to do with it…

I was number 2004, therefore expecting to be quite early on in the process, however the first few groups came and went and I was still left sat there in my seat.  This happened to Adam and one of the Richards as well.  When my number was skipped a second time, I began to wonder if Miss 1004 was even in the room.   Turns out she wasn’t, and I ended up being paired off with a different girl, who, though being nice enough, was not my type at all, and it was clearly obvious I wasn’t hers as well!  Martyn had a similar story with his match, no chemistry, and Adam decided he would rather not be matched with a random girl, not his perfect match, and dint stay to go up on the stage!

Making love on Camera

It started off fairly promising as some of the couples looked well suited, but as the process was drawn out a lot of the matches seemed completely bizarre pairings, and it didn’t take long before couples were showing obvious signs of disapproval on stage in front of the 1000 person crowd. In fact I half expected Jeremy Kyle to spring up at one point as a lad walked off about 5 paces in front of his ‘match’ to a chorus of boos.

I should point out that this went on for a good 4 hours due to the stop-start nature of calling up couples to the stage, and by this time many had lost interest. I felt faint and tired due to not eating or drinking, but just as my eyes were starting to close Adam tapped me and said ‘they’ve just called your number!’ I picked myself up and headed behind the screen to the side of the stage. Whilst the 5 of us lads waited like lambs to the slaughter, we exchanged a bit of last-minute banter, but this is where the nerves began to creep in.

Interesting to read what a gay guy also at the event thought of the whole thing

I entered this endeavour ready to tell horror stories of how we were herded like cattle (which we were), where no one got what they wanted (one guy left out of frustration of having to wait to be part of the 901st couple to be matched), and where the only people involved were just desperate to be on the telly (this happened a lot – me and the boy in question traded stories from the boys and girls sides respectively), but my personal experience was nothing like the sceptical versions we tell ourselves as an audience member: I found someone I genuinely liked, who seemed to like me back, and who I could actually see as a potential partner. Bollocks.

And now Channel4 are jumping in with there own Dating show… Geez, do I have to say anything more!?

Interestingly a breach of contract seems to be effective, so maybe I can remove the disclaimer? According to one person on FB

my sister is a lawyer and she said if i dont hear anything by the end of the week she will send a stern and threatening letter. they broke their contract by saying we will leave the venue by 6pm i left at 8:15. so i will defo get it back

And from the Facebook group Matthew Stokes said,

TV programes are made for the viewers, not for the people taking part. A few digrunteled people, however justified, are not going to be a big concern to the production company, their parent company, and certainly not to the BBC. Don’t kid yourselves. Sorry, but I wouldnt waste too much of your time ranting, complaining, and kicking up a fuss. You are best turning that into positive energy, meeting some cool and sexy people on here, making plans to meet up, and going to one of the events we have arranged ourselves. Its a great display of the human condition that in adversity, groups like this crop up and we are moving on to bigger better sexier things!

The producers clearly didnt set out to upset people, but their main aim is to make a good TV progamme, not to keep 1000 random people entertained. Yes, they will HAVE to arrange to film specific people, yes some of it will be a little contrived, and yes sadly some peoples time will have been wasted. Trust me, if Saturday could have gone any better/smoother/easier than it did, they would have been far happier too. I for-warned them of the issues they were going to face last Thursday on the phone, and I got the impression that they knew it was going to be a toughie. Sadly, it seems that some programme makers are not the best at people management, time management, or logistics! All of this being said, we were there FOR THE PROGRAM. No one paid anything to be there, no one had any guarantees, and we all knew what the concept of the show was. Anyone expecting a second event to meet matches, or payments, or compensation will be sadly disappointed. The apology that we have received is all that we will get, and I do feel bad for people that waited all day, had bad journeys getting home, and spent money to be there.

And this is where I get very twitchy and slightly on my high horse.

It is great positive things come out of adversity however I reject the fact TV programmes HAVE to be about exploitation of people. There is certainly a reason why I work for the BBC