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Archive for September, 2011



Aaron

09/23/2011

Tell Your Story with Storify
02:27 pm by Aaron

Today’s media culture demands real-time information. If we want instant news about an event, social networking is fast becoming the #1 option. Sure, the quality of sources (and grammar) can be inconsistent, but it is the best way to get fast information.

The main problem: It becomes tedious to sift through the thousands of tweets, Facebook posts and other social media updates that make up a breaking story. Even if you do, it’s hard to find an efficient way to aggregate that information. This is where Storify (no, not the music-service Spotify) comes in handy.

Storify allows you to create a collage of social media updates centered on a specific topic. Users can search various social networks based on search terms, and drag and drop updates into their timelines. These updates contain embedded media and links, including links to the profiles that posted the updates. Storify is a sort of a command center of real-time information relating to a particular event.

One of the more famous uses of Storify came during the tragic shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Andy Carvin, of NPR, used Storify to keep track of all the relevant social media updates pertaining to the shootings.  Reading through the timeline he created allows one to relive the events as they happened, with information coming from ordinary people.

How can you use this? Storify could offer a unique way to display the social media coverage of a specific event. Have a grand opening of a store? Is there a one-night-only show at your venue? Want to track response to a debate? Storify offers an easy way to track social media updates of a variety of events. It just might be worth your time.

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Aaron

09/07/2011

What is Geofencing?
01:54 pm by Aaron

Have you heard of geofencing? It is a relatively new social media service that is making waves. It isn’t mainstream yet, but it could be someday.

Geofencing is a theoretical concept; it involves a “virtual fence” that has real-world effects. Recently, Flickr incorporated geofencing into its services. When you take a picture with your mobile phone, your location is automatically recorded. With Flickr’s geofencing, a user can set that only various people in a specified area can (or can’t) see their picture. It is an increased level of privacy, based entirely on the location of the user. This “geofence” originates from a certain spot, interacting with the mobile phone of the user.

While Flickr looks to add a layer of privacy with their geofence, others are using it as a marketing tool that is raising privacy concerns. The other way geofencing works is that the “fence” can push information to various phones that are inside it. For example, a restaurant could have a geofence set up so that when a user with a phone enters a specified location, a deal or promotional message is pushed to their phone.

Geofencing offers a sort of nirvana when it comes to hyperlocal marketing. Pushing updates about deals to phones in a nearby area is almost a heightened level of word-of-mouth marketing. Although there are privacy concerns, its reasonable to think that most receiving these updates would have opted into the service anyway.

Do you have a specific local market you want reach? It might be time to look into geofencing.

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srubin

09/06/2011

So What Exactly Is Front End Development?
10:00 am by Steven Rubin

Not to age myself or pull a “back-in-the-day” on you but when I was in college there really was no internet (early 90’s). Sometime around 1996 something called CD-Roms started gaining some buzz when bands and artists started releasing “enhanced CD’s,” which not only contained new music but photos, videos, and even mini what-we-now-call web pages. Interaction between you and said CD was done on your desktop computer. Only a few short years later you were hard pressed to find anyone who wasn’t “online” in some way, shape, or form. CD-Roms became web sites and iTunes.

When I first started creating web sites the term for people who did this type of work were called “Webmasters.” I will say this: not many of us were masters at anything related to the web at that point. Remember, Alta Vista and Geocities were the big names back then and most people were using dial-up connections. After some time the term “Webmaster” lost its luster and we were deemed “Web Producers.” A much more fitting (and cool) name. No longer did we sound like we were cast-offs from Dungeon’s and Dragon’s, we were now “producers!” And wouldn’t you know it, some years later the name was changed yet again. Now we are Front End Developers.

In today’s tech world there are two types of developers: front end and back end. Do the two ever intertwine? Absolutely. Is it encouraged? Why not? The more you know the better your skills are. So what exactly is the difference between what a front end and back end developer might do? I am glad you asked. I won’t get too technical on you here, I try to explain things like this as if I were talking to my grandmother. How about a basic analogy:

A Front End Developer is the person in the auto shop that builds the chassis of your car. Everything you actually SEE with your eyes: the doors, the hood, the bumpers, the paint job, the wheels, etc. A Back End Developer is the mechanic that builds the engine that runs the car. In other words, the stuff you don’t usually see. When you visit a web page and see the pretty graphics on top, the navigation to the left, and the content in the middle, it is the front end developer that writes the code that presents that layout to you. If you do a search, submit an inquiry through a form, try to book a hotel room, or make an online payment, more than likely it was a back end developer that built the code that enables that to work.

As we move forward there seems to be a trend leading towards creating the all-in-one developer, a Jack-of-All-Trades: Someone who can design and build a web site while also being able to make all the fancy bells and whistles work. There are designers who now write basic CSS/HTML code, just as there are front end developers who are learning how to use jQuery and Javascript in new and fascinating ways. If there is one thing the wondering worldwide web has taught us it is that what is hot today might not be tomorrow. The internet goes through quicker fads than a teenager. If you don’t believe me then shoot me an email in about five years so we can discuss what ever happened to Facebook.

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