Abrams Research Blog

For those whose friends are social networking content sharing fiends, the iPad app Flipboard offers a unique “social magazine” format for consuming friends’ digital content.

The first time I saw this application, I loved the concept, the interface, and the overall design. The idea of creating a real-time visually pleasing social networking aggregator is a fabulous idea. This is where internet trends are moving: reigning in our over-stimulated brains and taking all of the elements we love about social networking (sharing) and curating them in ways that diminish the overwhelming volume of content.

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If you’re a web developer by trade, you are probably well aware of the gamut of development tools out there for you to create an application for a mobile device.  Sure, there are all the different coding languages for software, but when it comes to mobile application development specifically, tech companies often create and host the development software themselves.  Take, for example, the development tools put out by Facebook or Apple for the iPhone.  This, of course, makes great sense.  If the company supplies the platform, the crowd supplies the products.  Everyone wins!

So it doesn’t come as a surprise that Google released a new app development tool for the Android last week.  This time, though, it’s different.  The App Inventor for Android, as it’s called, is actually designed for use by non-developers!  That’s right, Google wants everyone to become a developer.  From the Google Lab description:

To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app’s behavior.

However, this might sound like sacrilege to bona fide app developers, the people who actually understand the way binary code translates into functional software. In some sense, the new App Inventor is more technically advanced so that more people can ignore how it actually works. If more people are using a development tool, the tradeoff is a sophisticated understand of that tool.

That being said, the tool has potential to bring many new minds into the marketplace for Android apps. Those who might otherwise have steered clear of such a highly technical endeavor might now be able to offer insight, advice, and guidance that leads to a bigger and better product both for Google and its consumer base. And if everyone’s happy, who can complain, right?

But let’s not forget that the hacker and developer space has always been plagued with political and ideological battles. Some, like the free software crowd, value technical understanding via free (as in freedom, not free as in beer), while others, like the open source crowd, value mass involvement and metastasized branching of the movement. In a way, the new Google development tool takes the side of the open source crowd. Now the question is, will it irk those on the other side?

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What do one-third of Stanford iPhone users have in common? No, it’s not their type A personalities; they’ve all expressed fear of becoming addicted to their iPhones. Not such a surprise, considering the iPhone supplies access to the three things undergraduates need most: music, phone and CampusFood.com. So for those unlucky Stanfordians the following will be exciting and terrifying à la fois: Apple may decide to try its hand at location-based services. That’s right, as of last week, Apple is seeking a patent for a proprietary social mobile network tool, aptly (or unfortunately—how over the iMotif are you?) named, “iGroups”. read more »

Foursquare and Gowalla. One, a fantastic childhood game. The other, an offshoot of a popular smoothie brand? Nope! They’re both big names in the newest social networking trend—geolocation. The progression makes sense: profile viewing led to wall posts, which led to to status updates, eventually leading to status updates on your mobile device, which could only logically lead to where we find ourselves today—in love with physical location updates. And word on the street is that these location-based services, though still relatively under the mainstream radar, are here to stay. But nothing this interesting stays a secret for long, and starting this weekend we may see the beginning of the end: this year’s South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi), running March 12-16 in Austin, Texas, will be the “ strategic playing field” for the current geolocation forerunners.

So what’s the attraction?   read more »

Oh, Apple App Store. So beautiful, so hated by your peers. Who wouldn’t envy your seamless integration with multiple devices, inviting interface, and free applications? But it’s understandable—everyone loves to secretly (or not so secretly) hate the person at the top, especially if they actually deserve to be there.

Which is why it’s not surprising that the rest of the mobile applications world has schemed to cook up a new plan of attack. That’s right, 24 mobile giants will be teaming up to form the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC), an alliance to create a global marketplace for non-Apple users.

At this point, it’s possible that one half of your brain may be screaming “Too many cooks in the kitchen!” while the other stands frozen in terrified awe. Could U.S. carriers and device manufacturers such as Verizon, Sprint and AT&T and Samsung, as well as international partners like Orange, Vodafone and state-owned (I repeat, state-owned) China Mobile possibly agree on a single mobile applications platform? Not to mention, an applications marketplace where developers will have to adjust for countless devices, carriers and operating systems?  If possible, the collaboration could result in one of the most profitable undertakings ever.  But could a union whose members are intrinsically programmed to destroy one another truly last? Many think not. read more »

Location-based services.  Regardless of how tech-savvy you are or aren’t, it’s a smaller area of the larger Web 2.0 phenomenon that you won’t be able to avoid much longer. People nowadays are talking about Facebook this and Twitter that, but, before you know it, this might be the next technology to take off, elevating the social experience to new heights, and in the process, stirring its fair share of praise and criticism along the way.

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Imagine this: two girls age 10 and 12 became trapped in a storm drain in Australia, and used a cell phone to update their Facebook status and alert their friends and family to their predicament.

It should be noted that cell phones also have features for dialing the police.

Social networking is more popular than email, nowadays, and mobile devices have adapted to bring social media into the realm of instant contact. We rely on social networking and the age of the instant as our new modes of communication. It is not merely that social networking features exist in mobile devices, but people are using them more and more their default mode of communication (even in emergency situations!)

Mobile devices are adapting their technology to accommodate users’ need for social media connectivity. Mobile devices are modeling their social media integration after social media programs such as TweetDeck, and all of the new applications that are coming out for mobile devices further fuel the need for instant information. Starbucks has created an app that allows users to order their coffee from their mobile device, pay through the same device, and locate the nearest store to pick it up from. Users do not even have to wait in line anymore. Everything is about ease of use and instantaneous access.

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So much about fashion has historically been its exclusivity.  The pages of Vogue serve as a sort of fantasy, a way of escaping the reality of the pilled cashmere sweater you wore to work that day or the slightly stained white collared shirt you worse to your last date.  Most of the world, especially in today’s recession, is unable to afford what graces the pages of fashion magazines, and thus, the glossies provide people with an escape from their drab realities.

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Counterpoint:

Do you know what I love about the internet? It’s the entertainment and humor it provides for me and millions of other people. Internet memes are as popular as ever, Youtube never seems to stop having cute videos of cats, and there’s always an endless supply of Chuck Norris jokes that never get old. So when the iPhone app ‘AMP UP Before you score’ made its way onto my phone, do you know what I did? I laughed and then laughed some more after using it.

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Point:

While it is no where near as offensive as “Baby shaker” or “Booty call” (rejected by apple for their inappropriate content) Pepsi’s “AMP UP Before You Score” iPhone app is, from a female perspective, degrading. The idea that you could divide women into 24 distinct categories and provide information that will allow men to “score” with them after a 4-5 category “brief” on their interests/lingo/and behavior suggests that women fit into cookie-cutter models and can be easily broken down with the ability to throw out a couple buzzwords, take them to a vegetarian restaurant, or know where the nearest country club is. Not only is the division into categories offensive, but one of the categories is TWINS! The “Foreign Exchange Student” category even includes a link to information on citizenship to “help her stay in the US.” She might not even WANT to stay here, so you may end up insulting her even more than if she knew you were using this app to try to get into her pants. In addition, the app allows our up-standing gentlemen to press a tab labeled “brag” and add the categorized girl to his “Brag list,” with her name, date of hook-up, and comments about it. You can keep a tally of how many girls in each category you have hooked up with. This is your little black book not only mobile, but complicit. You can even send your “brag list” to your buddies via Facebook, Twitter, and Email. Locker room conversations eliminated completely.

So ladies, the next time you’re out on a Saturday night, and a guy tries to talk to you while looking at his iPhone, check to make sure he’s not using this app, because anyone who would USE this application is dumber than the application itself.

Gentlemen, let’s move on.

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