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Dan R.D.

10/04/23 Back to the "SMS" Future - Twitter Buys A Text Messaging Company - 0 views

  • Twitter was born as a text messaging service; tweets are 140 characters because that is the length of a text message, minus a few characters for the author’s name.Today, though, most people in the United States think about Twitter as a Web tool, and they use it either online or via smartphone apps.But Twitter has not forgotten about all the people in the world who do not have fancy phones. On Friday, the company announced that it had acquired Cloudhopper, a Seattle text-messaging start-up.There is “untapped potential” with Twitter text-message use “Mobile is clearly where the majority of usage will happen,” Evan Williams, Cloudhopper has already been working with Twitter to connect its service directly with mobile carriers around the world, in part so that users do not have to pay extra to send or receive text message tweets. Twitter has long had problems with this, and in the past has had to disable text messaging in certain countries because of high fees.Read more at bits.blogs.nytimes.com
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    Twitter seeks to rebuild it's original text messaging wing with the help of "Cloudhopper" - read on. . .
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

The Future Of Mobile Payments: Text A Word And Pay For Something - 0 views

  • Imagine a world where by simply texting a word, like "Sandwich" will result in a quick and seamless transaction so you could  go about your day.  Think about how much easier our lives would be if we didn't have to wait in line, handle cash or be turned away from food or beverage if we don't have our wallets in hand
  • What if texting wasn't just meant for communication, but also designed for transaction?
  • Today, most people take more precautions about carrying their mobile devices than carrying their wallets or purses.
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  • The new question is: if your house is on fire what do you grab, your wallet or your phone?
  • I bet the answer is an overwhelming "phone", since we do almost everything with our mobile devices and very soon we won't be needing a wallet.
  • Our vision at Seconds is to make it easier for merchants and customers to interact and transact.  This is no more apparent than when looking at our latest innovations on the mobile payment front: Pay by Text.
  • Okay, here's a great one.... how about anything to do with hospitality?  Already, when you check in to a hotel they ask for your contact information, namely a cell phone number.  By running on the Seconds platform the can now open a quick and easy channel for you to text and pay for room service, any and all products... not to mention your room.  Or what about on a Vegas Casino floor....
  • Here's how it works: Once a mobile user sets up a Seconds account and attaches a payment card, they now can simply pay for the desired product with a one word text to the merchant's Seconds number, in this case it would be the word "Sandwich".  The resulting text a few seconds later will inform the user they indeed have been successfully charged X amount.  Done.
  • We are currently one month into a pilot program with a customer testing the functionality and perfecting the process.   Each week we are seeing more and more mobile transactions through Pay by Text, and if things keep going the way they are now this could become the default payment method outside simple food offerings.
  • Roll with me for a moment.  Imagine going to a movie and rather than waiting in line for the teller to give you a ticket you just simply text "Mission Impossible 4" to the box office and the next thing you know you have paid for the movie and are sent the secret code to enter via text.
  • Or how about the next time to your favorite band is in town.... do we really have to deal with the whole Ticketmaster ordeal?  Why can't I send a text to the concert organizer with a simple "Said Band Name" and pay for the price of admission.
  • Important Note: This is not carrier billing, where you place the transaction onto your cell phone bill.  Seconds is completely separate from the carrier and a stand alone mobile payment system.
  • So, what about NFC? The problem with NFC technology is you actually have to be in physical proximity for the transaction to work.  The whole point of "Near Field Communication" is touching or swiping your device on a reader which will result in a transaction.  But what happens if I want to pay for something when I am not actually at the specific location or can't get within a few inches of the reader?  What if it's ecommerce, which will become more prevalent as time goes on?  Although it might have its place, it looks as if NFC  underwhelms and under-delivers.
  • That is why we are very excited about our Pay by Text technology, we see a whole new world of payments when you disassociate proximity with transaction.  It's going well right now and the future is looking very bright for Seconds.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Visual Information Retrieval: the Next challenge in Information Management - ERM Expert... - 0 views

  • In the past 20 years, a lot of research has been done towards visual information retrieval on pictures and video files. Not all of it has been successful. But on the last years, the quality of these visual search engines has reached levels that are beginning to be acceptable for eDiscovery, compliance, law enforcement and intelligence applications.
  • More and more electronically stored information (ESI) is non-text based or does not contain any searchable text components: sound recordings, video and pictures are growing exponentially in size and more and more collaborative and social network applications support (only) these information formats.
  • In addition, a whole generation is growing up that no longer uses written communication forms such as letters or emails: they only use social networks and other new media forms for communication and collaboration.
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  • Electronic files containing one of more text components or embedded objects with text components can be searched by using text-based queries.
  • Document scans (images) and even pictures can be enriched with the text of the original document or even with recognizable logo’s in the pictures. The same technology can also be applied to video shots.
  • Audio and the audio component of a video file can be processed by a phonetic search engine and users can search the content by looking for specific words or phoneme sequences.
  • In addition, audio-, pictures- and video files can be searched on contextual information such as the file name, added meta-information or text that surrounds the picture or the video on a web page.
  • Web search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo use primarily contextual text information from pictures and video’s to search on these object. This text can be tagged by users or can be found in the file name, file location, surrounding text on the webpage, etc. In some cases, words that are recognized in the images and videos with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology is used, or nudity is recognized and filtered, but that is about it. There is not or limited influence from pure visual information retrieval technology such as: give me all outdoor pictures or all images with a helicopter in it.
  • State-of-the-art visual search technology should address all of these aspects and support both text-based as image or video example based querying, result navigation and viewing.
  • Ranking images is based on complex statistics and other mathematical properties that are not always intuitive to humans.  Users need a much more exploratory and visual result list that uses all available dimensions when searching images and videos.
  • There are many use cases in the field of visual information retrieval varying from searching pictures on the internet to recognizing faces of hooligans at the entrance of a high risk football match, monitoring airports with surveillance cameras and investigating child abuse.
  • Many of these applications are highly specialized applications requiring a lot of specialized knowledge and experience to work effectively.
  • However, I expect that in the next year or five, real visual information retrieval will become a core component of in-house Enterprise Information Management systems as more and more information consists of pictures and videos that are not annotated and therefore hard to find.
Dan R.D.

Facebook Updates Open Graph, Lets You Share EVERYTHING You Do [22Sep11] - 0 views

  • Facebook Updates Open Graph, Lets You Share EVERYTHING You Do Steve Kovach | Sep. 22, 2011, 1:53 PM | 3,626 | 3 A A A   x Email Article From To Email Sent! You have successfully emailed the post. inShare30 See Also: Eight Fascinating People You'll See At IGNITION THE MICROSOFT INVESTOR: Microsoft Could Play Kingmaker In Potential Yahoo Sale Facebook Users Are About To Riot Over Massive
  • Facebook announced the latest addition to the social graph. Instead of "liking" objects, you can participate in events. That means watching movies, going on trips, reading a book, whatever
  • Everything shows up in the new ticker, the real-time update list in the upper right corner. Zuck says this will make it possible for people to develop social apps based on the acitivities people do. Starting with media: movies, music, news, books, etc.
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  • Frictionless experiences: You never get a prompt asking if you want to share on Facebook. Instead, everything you do in an app gets added to your timeline.
  • Real Time Serendipity: If you see a friend playing a song, you can click it and Spotify will start playing that song on your computer. That activity shows up in your ticker too, which means your friends can see that you're sharing music
  • See what your friends are playing, monitor their activity.
  • Lifestyle Apps: Example, Nike Plus, which tracks your running activity, will automatically post to Facebook. Also works with Foodspotting to share the stuff you're eating.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

An Infusion of Money for Soundtracking, a Social Music App - NYTimes.com [08Nov11] - 0 views

  • SoundTracking, a social mobile application that allows people to create “musical postcards” that can then be shared with friends on social sites,  announced Tuesday that it had received $4.75 million in financing.
  • To use SoundTracking, people take pictures, log their locations and attach the songs they are listening to at that moment.
  • “We are making sharing the core experience and discovery is a bi-product.”
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  • SoundTracking is currently the most shared music service on Twitter
  • The financing is being led by Accel Partners, a venture firm that also invested in the popular music service Spotify. True Ventures and SoftBank Capital also contributed money.
  • Sameer Gandhi, with Accel Partners, said in an e-mail that he had chosen to invest in SoundTracking because it offered a “rich, emotional experience on mobile devices.” Mr. Gandhi said he viewed the combining of geolocation technology and music as a next step in what he called a ”capture and share culture.”
  • SoundTracking was developed by Schematic labs, a mobile app incubator in San Francisco, which focuses on social and entertainment applications. SoundTracking is the first app released by the company. SoundTracking previously received $1.1 million in seed financing from True Ventures, Google Ventures and AOL Ventures.
Dan R.D.

How Long Before NFC-Based Mobile Payments are a Widespread Reality? [28Jun11] - 0 views

  • A 2009 analysis from Juniper Research (News –Alert) of the $110bn NFC opportunity forecasted that one in every six mobile subscribers (about 17 percent) globally will have an NFC enabled device by 2014. Adoption was expected to be highest in the Far East,with use very limited outside of that region.
  • By 2014,Juniper now predicts that North America will account for just under half of NFC smartphones,followed by Western Europe.
  • The latest forecast from Juniper Research suggests that at least 20 percent of smartphones will support NFC by 2014,about 300 million phones.
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  • IHS (News –Alert) iSuppli,for its part,now predicts 93.2 million NFC-equipped cellphones will ship worldwide in 2011,up from its December 2010 forecast of 79.8 million. In 2014,411.8 million NFC cell phones are forecast to ship,compared to 220.1 million in the previous prediction.Shipments then will rise to 544.7 million in 2015,says iSuppli,so that 30.5 percent of all cell phones shipped that year would come with NFC capabilities.
  • Eric Schmidt (News –Alert),Google’s executive chairman,believes that a third of point of sale terminals in retail stores and restaurants will be upgraded to allow NFC payments within the next year,the Financial Times reported.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

The Paypers. Insights in payments. [24Oct11] - 0 views

  • Mobile payment start-up Square, is set to deploy its credit card readers for smartphones in Wall-Mart Stores at locations in the US, according to reports.
  • According to online media outlet businessweek.com, before being made available in Wall-Mart stores, Square’s device has been sold via about 200 Apple stores, as well as via Target, RadioShack and Best Buy outlets.
  • The technology employed by Square for this device works on Apple’s iPhone and iPad as well as Google Android. The card reader is plugged into the headphone jack of the mobile device which allows merchants to swipe customers’ credit or debit cards.
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  • According to the same media outlet, Square is working with PayPal and providers of near field communication (NFC) for this mobile service.
  • For each transaction performed by this device, Square receives from merchants 2.75 percent of the amount paid.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

NFC will be incorporated into one in five smartphones by 2014 - IT News from V3.co.uk [... - 0 views

  • Near-field communications (NFC) technology will be built into one in five smartphones by 2014 as mobile payment and interactive promotions take off, according to a report from Juniper Research.
  • Over 23 million NFC-capable smartphones are expected to be in circulation by the end of 2011, said the NFC Retail Marketing & Mobile Payments report.
  • This willl rise to around 300 million by 2014, and half of these devices are expected to be active in the US.
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  • The technology is predicted to generate high revenues, explained Howard Wilcox​, senior analyst at Juniper Research.
  • "NFC-based services in North America will account for nearly $47bn, or 41 per cent of the total, by 2016. The Far East and China ($31bn or 27 per cent) and Western Europe ($23bn or 20 per cent) will follow," he said.
  • However, Wilcox warned that there are still significant infrastructure challenges, and institutions including banks and merchants will need to have sufficient point-of-sale readers installed.
  • The Google Nexus S was the first smartphone to ship with NFC technology, but the hardware has seen limited use in the UK so far.
  • Google is to start trialling NFC services in US this summer, and O2 is expected to roll out a mobile wallet application in the UK this year.
  • RIM has also backed the technology, and its forthcoming high-end devices, including the BlackBerry Bold Touch, are expected to ship with NFC.
  • HTC, meanwhile, has taken a more cautious approach, stating that it will incorporate the technology once there is established demand.
  • The iPhone 5 was tipped to feature contactless payment, but the latest reports suggest that Apple will omit NFC from its fifth-generation iPhone.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

How Natural Language Processing Helps Uncover Social Media Sentiment [08Nov11] - 0 views

  • NLP goes by many names — text analytics, data mining, computational linguistics — but the basic principle remains the same. NLP refers to computer systems that process human language in terms of its meaning.
  • Apart from common word processor operations that treat text like a mere sequence of symbols, NLP considers the hierarchical structure of language: several words make a phrase, several phrases make a sentence and, ultimately, sentences convey ideas. By analyzing language for its meaning, NLP systems have long filled useful roles, such as correcting grammar, converting speech to text and automatically translating between languages.
  • NLP can analyze language patterns to understand text. One of the most compelling ways NLP offers valuable intelligence is by tracking sentiment — the tone of a written message (tweet, Facebook update, etc.) — and tag that text as positive, negative or neutral.
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  • Much can be gleaned from sentiment analysis. Companies can target unhappy customers or, more importantly, find their competitors’ unhappy customers, and generate leads. I like to call these discoveries “actionable insights” — findings that can be directly implemented into PR, marketing, adverting and sales efforts.
  • As with most computer systems, NLP technology lacks human-level intelligence, at least for the foreseeable future. On a text-by-text basis, the system’s conclusions may be wrong — sometimes very wrong.
  • Finally, much of social media interaction is personal, expressed between two people or among a group. Much of the language reads in first or second person (“I,” “you” or “we”). This type of communication directly contrasts with news or brand posts, which are likely written with a more detached, omniscient tone.
  • NLP is a tool that can help move your business forward by providing insight into the minds of your target audience members. However, it is not meant to replace human intuition. In social media environments, NLP helps cut through noise and vast amounts of data to help brands understand audience perception, and therefore, to determine the most strategic response.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Adding Gamification to Your Community | Social Media Today [25Oct11] - 0 views

  • It is interesting to see gamification now being applied in a marketing/website/community context, because many marketers and community managers have already been using these techniques to build engagement for several years.
  • there are many ways to incorporate game mechanics into a community and which ones are appropriate depend a lot on the make-up of your community audience and what the ultimate goals for the community are.
  • my belief is that you need to gradually introduce new elements into a community and make sure that any new features are fully explained and documented.
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  • According to a definition in the Gamification Wiki,"Game Mechanics are constructs of rules and feedback loops intended to produce enjoyable gameplay."
  • Before you can add gamification to your community, you need to really understand your community.
  • Recency -- when was the last visit? Frequency -- how often does the member visit? Duration -- how long do members stay on the sight when they visit? Virality -- how often do members share content on the site?  and how much is their sharing amplified through their network? Ratings -- how often do members rate content on the site?
  • Community Goals
  • What goals are you trying to accomplish with the community?  Can you measure them?  Do you have any elements of gamification incorporated into your community today? Does your community platform support gamification elements?  Can you track your measures in your community system?
  • Measures of Engagement for a Community
  • Do you have an open or closed community?  Is your community a professional, social, support, informational, hybrid or something else community?  How do you want members to use the community?  How many members do you have and how many do you add in a typical week or month?  What is the typical member profile?  How engaged are your community members?  How do you measure engagement?  What motivates your members to join, participate and stay engaged in the community?  Do you have robust member profiles?  Are member profiles searchable?  Can members 'friend' or message other members?  Do you have a way for members to add their Twitter or Facebook accounts to their profiles?  How  easy is it for members to share content on other sites?
  • Suggestions for Community Gamification
  • Robust profile system [self-expression, status, achievement]-
  • I also want members to receive recognition for their achievements by earning badges that can be displayed on their profiles and announced via their social networks.  As a community manager, I want to be able to create different types of badges including limited edition or special occasion badges.
  • Point system [competition, achievement, reward, status] -
  • I definitely want to keep track of points, but I want to be able to customize the calculation of the points.  I don't know what the ideal point values would be, but I know that I would want to experiment with rewarding members for recent visits, the frequency and duration of their visits, their sharing of content on the site or in their social networks, creating content, participating in discussions or rating content.
  • Leaderboards [reward, status, achievement, recognition, competition] -
  • Customization is also important in the leaderboards.  I want to have multiple leaderboard; for example, I may want a weekly, monthly and all-time versions of the leaderboard that I will post in different parts of the community site to recognize leaders who are currently contributing the most to the community experience and to others who have been long time contributors.
  • Badges [status, achievement, reward, recognition, competition, self-expression]
  • First of all, the member profile system needs to be robust with the option to upload a picture and have free form bio descriptive fields.  Most importantly, I should be able to link my profile to my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles and possibly use single-sign-on use those services.  The profiles should also keep a history of a user's activity, badges and points.  Another requirement for the profile system is that members should be able to create virtual friendships or groups within the community site.
  • Content ratings have been around for awhile, and they are an important part of increasing engagement.  I would push the envelop further by making it easier for users to share their content ratings and to search for content based on the rating.
  • Content rating [altruism, self-expression] -
  • Content sharing [altruism, self-expression] -
  • Members must be able to easily share content they like within their social networks, via bookmarking sites and by email.
  • Challenges [competition, reward, achievement]
  • As a phase 2 implementation, I would also want to add some custom challenges to my community to drive additional engagement.  I am not sure what form these would take, but I would start thinking about how to incorporate challenges while implementing the other elements noted above.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Richard Branson invests in Square mobile payments [08Nov11] - 0 views

  • Sir Richard Branson4 clicks has personally invested an undisclosed amount in SF mobile payment start-up Square. This investment comes shortly after a $100 million round of investments, and before Square tries to launch globally.
  • When asked about the investment Branson said, “I’m very passionate about helping people start and grow successful businesses, and Square is an incredible technology that inspires and empowers everyone to be an entrepreneur.”
  • Branson loves the fact that anyone can go to Square’s website and get a free credit card reader to plug into their phone or tablet and start processing payments. It is also hard to ignore the massive growth of the company. In only a year Square has shipped out 800,000 card readers, and just recently passed processing $10 million dollars a day in payments. They are currently processing $2 billion in transactions annually.
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  • Branson joins a long list of investors in the company which recently closed a $100 million round of Series-C financing. It should also be noted that credit card company VISA is also an investor in the mobile credit card processing company.
  • Even with a diverse group of investors the start-up still has an uphill battle ahead of itself, seeing as Google is also trying to enter the mobile payment segment. Even though Square’s services do not completely overlap with Google’s Wallet service, they are pretty similar. Square has an early head start seeing as Google Wallet is still in the testing phase.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Tiny Rihanna Sings in Nivea Augmented Reality App [VIDEO] [01Nov11] - 0 views

  • Thanks to augmented reality technology, a tiny version of Rihanna actually seems to emerge from the cap of a jar of Nivea Creme to sing her song “California King Bed.”
  • The app, which went live this week, is an attempt to “create engaging digital advertising experiences,” says a statement from the company. Nivea tried to create such as experience this summer with a “Co-Star with Rihanna” Facebook campaign that let users star in a short, alternative version of the music video for the song by editing themselves into the action.
  • For the AR component, all you have to do is buy a tin of Nivea Creme or print one out from Nivea’s website and hold either up to your computer’s webcam. Then, voila, Rihanna appears.
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  • Nivea, however, isn’t the first to use AR to simulate the experience of being in the room with a beautiful woman. In January, Esquire magazine launched a similar app in Barnes & Noble stores that let shoppers take a picture next to an AR-conjured Brooklyn Decker.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Shazam, Delivery Agent Partner To Let You Buy Your Favorite TV Characters' Stuff | Tech... - 0 views

  • Shazam, potentially one of the most magical apps ever, has partnered with Delivery Agent to let you discover consumer products in TV shows and ultimately purchase them.
  • First to jump on board with the service is NBCUniversal, more specifically the program Covert Affairs, with other programming to follow. Just like you Shazam music you love, the service will let you tag Covert Affairs episodes, which will then serve up different products that are relevant.
  • So let’s say that Covert Affairs main character Annie is getting dressed on the show, and you notice that her outfit is exactly what you’ve been looking for. Simply tag the episode and voila! Delivery Agent pulls any items available for purchase right into the Shazam app.
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  • Along with apparel and accessories within the programming, this new service will also let users buy program-branded goodies, like a Covert Affairs mug or t-shirt. In all honesty, the shopping selection probably won’t be that great at first, and obviously not everyone is a Covert Affairs die-hard. But if this thing blows up the same way Shazam did, you’ll want to be able to tell your friends you were doing it before it was cool.
Dan R.D.

Video-Sharing iPhone App Limits Users to 1-Minute Clips [22Sep11] - 0 views

  • If mobile video sharing is to follow in the footsteps of its more desirable mobile photo-sharing cousin, which application will users want to use to shoot, share and discover video clips? It’s too soon to tell, but startup Klip joins the fray and is now vying for your video attention. The startup released its application for iPhone on Monday with a focus on letting users share super-short 1-minute video clips — on Klip or with Facebook, Twitter and Youtube — and helping users discover clips from friends or other users based on topics of interests. “Klip re-invents the way consumers experience the world by organizing mobile videos in real time and by connecting consumers with the people and the topics that interest them,” the company says.