Abrams Research Blog

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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If you’ve recently tried to update your Facebook settings, you might have noticed that once again, everything has changed. The layout is different, and the groups you spent so much time choosing?  Gone from your profile page. And that’s only the beginning of what has turned out to be quite a major overhaul.

More importantly, however, Facebook has started to like a lot more things. In fact, now Facebook likes almost everything.

As of last week, Facebook has begun to give websites the option to install “Like” buttons, from which the websites can drive traffic—every “Like” posts an update to that user’s page. What does this mean? Effectively, it means that Facebook may slowly be transforming the internet into an SEO-resistant open-graph. Google is, understandably, starting to worry. read more »

You’ve heard it before: “Too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth.” But for Wikipedia, too many cooks may not be such a bad thing. Common sense recognizes the collective wisdom of the group; the more who contribute, balance and check, the (hopefully) better the final outcome. Common sense also dictates that a website whose traffic dominates Yahoo, Google and MSN should be taken seriously.

To test the “Wikipedia Effect” (how public opinion forms a Wikipedia article and how Wikipedia affects search engine results), Marcia Watson DiStaso and Marcus Messener of The Institute for Public Relations analyzed the wiki’s influence on the social media platforms of 10 of the most visible U.S. companies.

What did they find? read more »

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 »

After the launch of Google Buzz and your personal information’s unexpected debut into high society, you may be tempted to conclude that February has not been the best of months for social media. But rest assured, Google is Google and with enough consumer ire the kinks will be worked out and your focus will eventually shift back to where it should be, on Google Logos.

In the meantime, there has been some good news for Twitter. The best being, of course, that the Dalai Lama now has a Twitter account. So with the Vatican, the Dalai Lama (and as of February 22, Lil’ Wayne) all official members, the implications of this exponential growth become clearer. According to the Neilson Company’s recent report, social media use has grown 82% in the last year alone. Twitter boasts 50 million messages a day, up from 5,000 in 2007. Someone is obviously paying attention. read more »

I love how consumers have so much power at the tip of their fingers now. They contribute reviews, discussion, multimedia and a plethora of other types of content daily. The way consumers are utilizing the technologies available to them is uniquely shaping the internet in numerous ways. Iranians using Twitter to protest their presidential election shows us how users can truly innovate technologies. This influence that users are having online is beginning to permeate to other dimensions of the net. In particularly, the field of online search is drastically, for better or worse, going to change as a result of how we behave.

read more »