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News, insight and tips from the social web.
The Hoop blog covers the evolving digital landscape, social media, mobile communications, content marketing and also includes 5 top finds and Fish on Friday. Feel free to make comments.
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Startups of the week #18.1 »
The Internet has given the music industry a hard time. However, BandCamp look set to revolutionise the old ways of major label domination by putting the power in the hands of the artists.
1. BandCamp
The internet has changed music. No longer are our spending habits dictated by grumpy music journalists and overbearing major labels. Services such as MySpace allows users to find and stream bands for free, discovering new music every day if they wished.
However, to purchase music and merchandise you still had to succumb to the powers that be. iTunes did disrupt the music industry by demanding a one-price-for-every-song system, but ultimately it just became another music industry elite. BandCamp represents a change to the rules, giving power to the artists, with the ultimate winner being the fans.
Co-founder of Oddpost, later becoming Yahoo! Mail, Ethan Diamond set up BandCamp back in 2008. Since then, the company has added Automatic (the company behind Wordpress) CEO Toni Schneider to the board.
On BandCamp, musicians and independent record labels are in control as they can chose how much to charge. Of course, BandCamp take a cut but it is quite fair. At first, BandCamp will take 15% but as soon as you make anything over $5,000, it drops to 10%. There is also an option to allow users to name their price, which could be zero.
BandCamp stood out from the crowd in 2010 when quirky musician Amanda Palmer made $15,000 in 3 minutes from BandCamp sales alone. Since then, usage has grown and the site reported $1million in sales for December 2011.
With MySpace having become almost unusable and Facebook relying on streaming platform Spotify, BandCamp is giving musicians and fans the chance to cut out the middle man and benefit each other.
Categories: Startups of the week
Tags: e-commerce, Music
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5 top finds #42 »
Hoop's Dr Jim O'Donnell at Ignite, a nifty Instragram camera, TED talk on viral videos, a 'heavy' stop motion music video and a spray to waterproof everything! It's the end of the week so that means one thing: our 5 top finds.
1. Hoopster at Ignite
Hoop's very own Dr Jim O'Donnell gave a presentation about the sun at this years Ignite, hosted at 93 Feet East. In only 5 minutes - an Ignite rule - Jim prominences his knowledge (see what we did there) about earth's closest star and it's Coronal Mass Ejections (which are seriously cool).
In typical Jim style, he doesn't just talk the talk, he puts it online as he then goes on to talk about Solar Stormwatch (Twitter), a website he worked on that crowd sources data about solar activity. Your participation could actually help warn astronauts of impending doom.
A genuine Doctor of Astronomy, Jim is also the author of the much read Eat Your Greens Blog and an organiser for the popular London Web Standards(Twitter) event. Find him on Twitter.
2. Concept Instagram camera
Facebook buying Intsagram for $1billion (we have a feeling the meeting went down like this) was front page news. However, little has happened since then. Instagram has continued as normal, as has Facebook. That hasn't stopped people imagining, though. Experienced graphic designer Antonio De Rosa has created a concept design for the first Instagram camera, packed with features.
[Image from ADR Studio]
- 16 GB mass storage
- Wifi and Bluetooth
- 4:3 touchscreen
- 2 main lenses: first for capture, second for 3D filters, webcam applications and QR Code capturing
- Optical zoom
- LED Flash
- Internal printer to make your Instagram photos real
- Paper cartridge with Instagram Paper Sheets
- Dedicated 4 colors ink tanks
- InstaOS 1.0, the operating system built by Facebook and InstagramWhile it is only a concept - unless Antonio can raise some money on his Indeigogo - it is still incredibly cool, truly merging vintage, digital and social media in the physical world.
3. Why videos go viral
Viral video marketing can blow up a brand like nothing else. YouTube has helped give huge exposure for Old Spice, Rick Astley and Taz Zonday (Chocolate Rain). But how does it happen? Youtube's trends manager (job of the century?) Kevin Allocca spoke to the TEDYouth crowd on the four reasons a video goes viral.
We won't give you all four reasons but the most noticeable mention was the influence of 'tastemakers'. With a simple Tweet, celebrities like Jimmy Kimmel can turn a semi-watched video about a double rainbow into the most must see piece of film on the planet. Even this infographic by Online Schools shows how Oprah helped boost Kony 2012 from thousands of views to 9 million... in a day!
4. This stop motion video is heavy
Speaking of viral, this awesome stop motion video by Ian Robertson for Delta Heavy's 'Get By' has racked up over 1million views in three days. What could be considered quite a dark video - especially for fans of such retro, pre-iPhone games - Robertson hacks away at Rubik's cubes, Hungry Hungry Hippos and the original Finger Flick Footballers to create a vinyl record.
Maybe it is a reference to how the modern age is killing all the old games we used to love, or maybe it was just a lot of fun. Whatever the concept behind it is, we can't help but enjoy it. Out of curiosity, we had a quick look to see what 'tastemakers' made this video viral, finding out WiredInsider gave it a helping tweet.
5. Waterproof your life... without a tacky rubber casing
Water damage has ended the life for countless pieces of technology and devistatingly it isn't covered by your warranty. This can be painful when you have no idea how your digital device got water damage in the first place.
The only real option available is wrapping your device in a waterproof case that can look like it's about to go diving with James Cameron.
However, that all looks set to change thanks to a magical new spray called NeverWet. The spray, which works using "hydrophobic" nanotechnology, can waterproof your phone without a cover at all. The applications go beyond digital as spraying anything, from walls to clothes to books, will be waterproofed. We can't wait.
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: 5 top finds, Ignite, Instagram, iPhone, Waterproof, YouTube
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Startups of the week #17.2 »
Opinions attract and divide. Discussing what we believe can turn strangers into life-long friends and vice versa. New social media platform Amen encourages users to put their opinions online.
1. Amen
Everyone has that friend that loves to make objective statements about subjective topics. "This app is the best time-waster ever", "the iPhone is the worst phone ever" and "The Hoop blog is the best blog ever." Of course, most of these statements are highly debatable (except for the Hoop one). It is this type of conversation that Amen want to encourage.
When on the app, you are faced with a stream of statements made by friends and other users about the best and worst of movies to music to reasons for lazy people to run (Zombies!). You can chose to agree with the statement with an "Amen" or you can disagree (Hell no!) and add a rebuttal. The statements are black and white but with enough users collaborating Amen is able to create a greater understanding of the grey area by aggregating opinions into lists.
"Amen is an app for creating and sharing opinions about the extraordinary things in life."
Having recently received $2.9million investment in Venture Rounding funding headed by Index Ventures - which includes one of Hollywood's most active investors, Ashton Kutcher - Amen asks users to post the best and worst of everything.
Amen is also packed with experience. CEO and co-founder Felix Petersen had previous success with his startup Plazes, which was sold to Nokia back in 2008. Joining him is Caitlin Winner (Plum, Nokia) and Florian Weber - a man sometimes referred to as Twitter's forgotten co-founder.
Officially, there is only an iPhone app [iOS] available for the network, but there is Amenoid, an unofficial Android client [Google Play]. Unfortunately, this has still not been enough encouragement for anyone other than app addicts to sign up. In fact, of the only two friends I found on Amen, one blogs for UBelly and the other Gizmondo.
Simply put: Amen is the best app with not enough people on it.
Categories: Startups of the week
Tags: conversations, Startup
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Startups of the week #17.1 »
Ironically, advances in digital technology have allowed people to make their photos look vintage using services such as Instagram. Now you can produce the same results for your videos with Viddy.
1. Viddy
After the Facebook buyout of Instagram for a cool $1billion, it has never been more popular to retro-fy your pictures. At the same time, the tech world are keeping their eyes glued on Zuckerberg's activity to spot another headline grabbing purchase - even though he said there wouldn't be one.
[Image from Forbes]
So when the Facebook CEO uploaded a video of his dog Beast on Viddy [iOS], the internet community became a lot more interested. However, Zuckerberg is not the first high profile name to be using the one-year-old video service with many celebrities having already signed up, including Snoop Dog, Bill Cosby and Linkin Park.
The company, started by JJ Aguhob and Brett O'Brian who worked together on XDrive and PluggedIn, has received $36million backing from investors, including GreyCroft Partners (Klout), Battery Ventures (Friendster, GroupOn) and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.
Viddy is gaining huge popularity, and quickly. The service recently accumulated 5.5 million users in only 11 days, and added Shakira, Jay-Z and Will Smith to the list of aforementioned investors.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Alan Patricof of GreyCroft Partners seemed shocked by the growth of the app, currently boasting 26million users.
(Viddy is) growing so fast, I have to keep refreshing to get myself up to date. I could swear I spoke at some place a few weeks ago, we were at 4 million.
Viddy is incredibly similar to Instagram in many ways - part of the appeal of the service is its simple usability and ability to create stunning short videos. Of course, there is also the added feature of social networking, with users able to follow each other, 'love' people's videos and comment.
In fact, Viddy is so similar to Instragram that we can't help but wonder where the boundaries lie with intellectual property, especially with the word "lawsuit" becoming a digital buzzword. However, at the moment, Zuck doesn't seem to mind.
Categories: Startups of the week
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5 top finds #41 »
Hyperrealistic drawings, sun assisted QR code, Android mirrors, fully automated student bedroom and a handmade suit for....a hand. It's a great end to the week with 5 top finds.
1. Photo realistic drawings
[image from The Sun]
Yes, this image is what the title says, a pencil drawing. These amazingly real pieces of art are by Paul Cadden, who recreats photographs using little more than a pencil.
The Scottish born 47-year-old's work is described as hyperrealism and has earned him a spot on the Artist of the Year 2011 shortlist for his drawing, 'Painted context.'
Currently, Cadden's work is on show at the Point One gallery - which focuses on hyperrealism - in Pimlico, London. For a full range of his work, visit his website here.
2. Sunny QR code
E-Mart, Korea's answer to Wal-Mart, found themselves struggling to sell during the lunch hour. Many of the shops were close to empty and their sales graphs looked like a shopping basket, dipping in the middle of the day.
However, rather than accepting the slump in sales and making cuts, E-Mart decided to embrace mobile by installing a 'shadow QR code' outside stores that is only scannable between 12 and 1PM.
The unique QR code works by using the shadows available when the sun is at a certain point in the sky. At mid-day, the shadows fall perfectly into place to complete the code, making it available to scan. The most amazing thing is that it worked, pushing lunch-time sales up by 25% and giving the company more media exposure. Then again, we aren't that shocked as we know mobile works.
3. Android rearview mirror
[Image from Tech Beats]
The car and the mobile have always had a close relationship, with mobile telephony in cars dating back to 1960. Even now, with the huge popularity of handheld devices, many people integrate the two by having the phone synced to their dashboard.
Of course, this wasn't going to end there and the next step has been made, in a rather James Bond gadgety way. At this year's CES, one company called Rydeen showcased their new rearview mirrors with a built in Android operated touchscreen. Currently, Rydeen state that it is a research tool but a production version could hit the shelves by 2013.
We are not entirely sure if having a touch screen built into your rearview mirror is the safest idea, with texting while driving being such a danger (this video was so close to making 5 top finds) but it is interesting nonetheless. With it, you can unlock the ability to check weather conditions, traffic reports and the Hoop blog without having to pull out your mobile phone.
4. Automated dorm-room with emergency party button
There probably isn't any demographic lazier than the male undergraduate student. Waking times usually vary between 12PM-3PM and making dinner means finding a pizza coupon. However, one student was particularly proactive about being inactive as he built, what he calls, B.R.A.D (Berkeley Ridiculously Automated Dorm).
Controlled by motion sensors, remote controls, iPhone, iPad and speech, the Berkeley student's room is set up so well that throwing a party is as simple as hitting an emergency red button. What must have taken a while to set up, the hours put in are saving precious time throughout the day.
5. A handmade suit
[Image from Wallpaper*]
UK based design, fashion and art magazine Wallpaper* recently commissioned Dutch artists Lernert & Sander - along with London based production company White Lodge - to make a short film showcasing the handmade quality of Brioni's bespoke tailoring.
The short film, which shows the making of a particularly tiny suit, was shown at Brioni HQ for Wallpaper*'s handmade exhibition, celebrating quality hand made products.
It is amazing to see how a bespoke suit is made, let alone a very small one designed for a hand, who models the suit with such grace you'd be forgiven to mistake it for a human model.
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: Android, Art, Hyperrealism, Mobile, Paul Cadden, QR code, Wallpaper
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Jakob Nielsen: 'mobile sites vs full sites' debate. The Hoop view. »
Jakob Nielsen's views on mobile sites have caused some controversy in the developer community. Hoop look into what he said and whether he has a point or is off the mark.
Recently, one of the world's leading web consultants Jakob Nielsen discussed his thoughts on the mobile sites vs full sites debate, based on his company's - Nielsen-Norman Group - research. The post has been a subject of controversy since, with many people blasting the developer for an outdated view on mobile browsing.
[Image from Use It]
Nielsen stressed that companies should have a mobile optimised site, highlighting why full sites do not work for users on mobile devices. The user experience conversation has been going on for a while and, as any company that is aware of the growing numbers of mobile users will know, having a site optimised for smaller screens can bring about a very decent ROI.
Nielsen said:
"Good mobile user experience requires a different design than what's needed to satisfy desktop users. Two designs, two sites, and cross-linking to make it all work."
Hoop's business developer Gabriela Lacaci gave her thoughts on mobile browsing.
"As a non-technical person, I believe we should have everything. That is, desktop website, mobile responsive design and apps. I find it time wasting to have to revisit the same sites through mobile browsers, when an app sits nicely on your screen. However, this can easily be worked around by making apps that solely redirect to a mobile optimised site. A mobile optimised site for mobile users visiting the main site is a definite for me. And yes, if necessary, have more than one if the main website is a mammoth for content and activity.
I say: if you have too much content, cut it, you are probably saying too much anyway. If it's complicated, simplify it. We want it to be easy and are likely to spend more the easier it is to get to the checkout page. Personal conclusions? Apps, even if just to link to, and tablet/mobile optimised for users of these. As for desktop, maintain older versions for now but don't invest in them, instead phase into responsive designs. And please remember, I am not a technical person.
As a non-technical person, Gabriela is a voice of the public, even though her digital savvy allows her to articulate it much better than most. She realises there is a noticeable difference in experience when browsing a site optimised for mobile. Gabriela also indicates her liking for apps, because of the convenience of hitting the site instantly, rather than dealing with loading time.
So yes, Nielsen was spot on in his assessment that there has to be a different design for mobile users, including cutting out unnecessary content and taking into consideration 'fat thumbs'. What the web design community isn't happy about however, is his inability to mention responsive web design, eliminating the need for two different sites.
As conversations continued online, web designer Josh Clark labelled Neilsen's advice on mobile as "just 180-degrees backwards." Clark continues to state that many people use mobiles as their only access to the Internet, stressing that users should not be patronised and offered a limited experience or forced to browse a full site on a tiny screen.
"When you see a 'full desktop site' link on your phone, you're looking at an admission of failure."
Clark argues that building separate sites for different platforms during an era when new devices - with differing resolutions, screen sizes and portability - hiting the market every week is poor strategy. There is also the issue with separating mobile and full site URLs. According to Clark,
"[Nielsen's] suggestion that there should be a distinction between desktop and mobile website URLs is damaging, too. Any piece of content should have one address on the web, not several. When I'm on a phone, that content should be formatted appropriately for the small screen, and when I'm on a tv-based browser, it should be formatted appropriate for the giant screen. But the URL – the 'uniform resource locator' – should be uniform across devices, one place to go no matter what I'm using to browse.
Nielsen was given the opportunity to respond to the large amount of criticism on the same site, in an interview with Tanya Combrinck. When he was questioned about his apparent neglect to mention RSW, Nielsen response was rather baffling.
"...I was writing about user experience, not implementation. As mentioned above, responsive design is one of the ways to achieve different user interfaces for different devices. It should be up to the engineers to determine the most efficient way of achieving the user experience goals. All we usability people should decide is how the site should work for users, not how this is implemented."
It seemed apparent that he was talking about implementation in his blog post, but now he is arguing that it was about user experience. Was he only talking about user experience? Does implementation not affect the user experience? Surely, if implementation became so hard to maintain because of several sites for different platforms, it would directly affect the user... and their experience!
When reading the interview, it feels as if Nielsen is backtracking. He even goes as far as to give negative comments on RSW design, ironically, because as Mat Marquis' Tweet points out, the very platform Nielsen used to ignore RSW was responsive!
Hoop's experience manager Nick Smith uses his expertise to articulate where we at Hoop felt Nielsen went wrong:
"I agree with him that a desktop site is often not suitable to mobile. However, I think his approach to always have mobile separate from desktop is flawed. My approach would be to start with desktop functionality and work out how (if) it translates to mobile.
This is a quite a complex conversation that he's boiled down to a binary decision. His approach doesn't work in the real world. This post seems solely about the user experience, but I think he's not researched well enough if he doesn't take new technology into account (he doesn't explore responsive techniques at all). A friend in UX recently told me he's not sure he can keep up with all of the new technologies in web design. He was staggered at the pace of change and the way it affects his work.
I think Jakob is suffering from this."
Categories: Insight
Tags: Design, Jakob Nielsen, Mobile, Responsive web design, User Experience
