Social Networking for Your Neighborhood
Nextdoor describes itself to be a “private social network for your neighborhood” where members can discuss everything from recommending a good plumber to news about local neighborhood projects to neighborhood alerts. The premise is that it’s “the easiest way for you and your neighbors—and only you and your neighbors—to talk online and make all of your lives better in the real world.”
The intentions of the Nextdoor are good. I can definitely see useful information being shared among neighbors. How people actually behave in within their networks remain questionable. It could easily turn into a big bitching session about a neighbor’s unkempt lawn or, worse, bullying behavior.
Twitter Partners with TV
No one just watches television anymore. We’re watching, chatting, commenting, and tweeting. Just look at your Facebook feed during a football game. Or Twitter while American Idol is aired. TV producers are wising up to these real-time conversations and are leveraging them to change the outcomes of programming. Producers of the show “The X Factor” monitors tweets and makes changes to programming based on feedback, good and bad. And starting next week, the show is partnering with Twitter to allow users to vote via the social platform.
It seems like a natural and logical partnership. If more TV executives actually paid attention to the voice of the viewers, what would happen? It could go both ways, I suppose. We could either end up with more quality programming or more “Two and a Half Men.”
Social Media Advances as Restaurant Marketing Tool
A 2011 National Restaurant Association study confirms that consumers who use social media not only dine out more, but are more likely to become return customers. While social media use is currently sporadic in the restaurant industry, most agree that agree that social media marketing will become more important within their segment, with Facebook at the top of the list of tools.
Gone are the days of the nicely printed Zagat dining guides. Yelp, Urbanspoon, Facebook, and the like have become the new go-tos.
HipGeo Launches iPhone App
The app tracks your travels and puts together an animated diary of each day’s photos, comments and pinned locations. It’s definitely more interesting than just checking into a location and then taking pictures and posting them one by one to your networks. I love the organizational utility of this app.
Amazon.com announced today that Kindle and Kindle 3G with Special Offers customers will receive AmazonLocal offers on their screensavers when they are not reading.
When this feature was discussed initially, I was skeptical, wondering whether being served ads was worth the discounted Kindle price. But learning that these Groupon-like deals are being displayed only when the Kindle is idle seems pretty non-intrusive. Besides, this appears to be a good match for the discount-seeking target consumer.
Google+ API Made Available to Developers
On its new Google Plus Platform Blog today, the G+ team opened parts of the API to developers. “That’s just the beginning though — we want every one of you who builds applications to be able to include rich sharing, identity, and conversations in your app. Today, we’re taking the next step on that journey by launching the first of the Google+ APIs.”
Another reason why Google is awesome.
Facebook Rolls Out Subscribe Button
Among other things, Facebook’s Subscribe button allows you to select what type of updates you wish to see from your friends. Admit it, we all have those friends who are just a little too prolific for their own good. Do we really care what Bob just achieved on Farmville?
And with the proper privacy/opt-in features in place, this new feature is a LIKE.
Foursquare Announces New Check-In Feature - Events
Foursquare, the much-discussed location-based social network, announced today that it has gone beyond allowing users to check-in to places and now includes events as well. Hundreds of thousands of events being held in more than 50,000 places (many no doubt movie theaters) will become visible, in some cases hours before an event begins and in other cases summary information for things like sporting events will be delivered after an event concludes.
I still don’t fully understand the allure of checking in to places purely for the sake of letting your network know you’re there. Displaying summaries of events after the fact could be a good feature enhancement, but I would need some swaying.
Bing Launches “We’re In” App for Windows Phone
We’re In makes organizing get-togethers, carpooling and trying to find people in a crowd a breeze. Any time you want to see where your friends are—We’re In can help you. It’s simple, invite your friends, and when they join, they’ll see your location and you’ll see theirs. When the invite expires, so does the shared location – no complicated process to worry about.
This is like Beluga, but more grown up and sophisticated. And I really want to try it out.