Ged Carroll

Month: February 2018

  • Twitter for Mac – some alternatives

    Twitter’s desktop client on the Mac has been pulled from the app store and won’t be supported any more. It is time to look for an alternative.  What you should choose depends on how you use Twitter, I’ve tried to outline what I consider are the best native Mac apps for Twitter.

    The alternative that I use is Night Owl (夜フクロウ or YoruFukurou)  which is a small lightweight client put together by a Japanese development team. I used it historically because it had a small footprint on my desktop which is handy when you a list running in the background. It allows you to use many of the same ‘short cut’ commands that used to be available when you could use Twitter via SMS – it helps in running a productive app now.  I have a breaking news list that I use, this is what it looks like.

    Night Owl

    You can download Night Owl from the Apple App Store or their website.

    Twitterific is probably the best maintained out of all the Twitter clients for the Mac, it looks similar to Night Owl and costs £7.99 on the app store.

    Echofon has a similar layout to Night Owl , but charges you £9.99 for the privilege. It has also hasn’t been updated as often as Night Owl.  Echofon comes in full price and light versions in the App store.

    If you are managing social media accounts then Tweetdeck is an obvious option. It’s multiple panels create a screen-wide dashboard so that you can handle mentions, direct messages and keep an eye on trending topics. It’s been last updated in 2015 and I’ve heard anecdotal evidence of it being buggy.

    An alternative to TweetDeck is Janetter Pro which provides a similar look and feel to TweetDeck but allows for further customisation including custom wallpapers (if you care about that kind of thing). It also supports multiple languages for the app interface including Japanese, Korean and simplified Chinese.  Janetter Pro was updated in May 2017, it costs £4.99, you can find out more on their website and in the app store. There is also a free version in the App Store. In my opinion Janetter Pro is an overlooked gem of a product if you want a comprehensive dashboard view. If I had to do Twitter community management, I’d invest in Janetter Pro.

    Tweetbot is the editors choice on the Apple App store and comes in at a premium price of £9.99, for this you get an interface that can flex between the Night Owl and Tweetdeck style interface design.

  • Authenticity is changing porn + more

    How social media and our obsession with authenticity is changing porn | Dazed – “Authenticity and amateur (fall) into traps about not acknowledging porn performance as craft, labour, and work”, Sullivan says, referencing a piece in the SF Weekly in 2014 by performer Siouxsie Q. In the article, the pornstar argues that, although authenticity is “one of feminist porn’s favourite words”, striving for an “authentic” sex scene undermines the labour that goes into creating a porn film. It erases the fact that performing is work, and not a hobby, which in turn justifies people watching free porn on the basis that it’s not worth paying for, says Sullivan. She thinks authenticity needs to be separated from the idea of actuality and redefined to mean the craft of the performance, in order to show people it is work and not fun and games. – Interesting the way it echoes wider media concerns from photographers, to journalists and influencers. The championing of authenticity in language is very now. It will we interesting to see how authenticity is changing porn continues.

    Apple’s iPhone X is the Instant Scapegoat for Samsung’s Failure to Win OLED Orders from Chinese Vendors – Patently Apple – “Other smartphone makers, who Samsung had hoped would incorporate OLED panels, have been slow to make the transition due to their expense and are sticking to liquid crystal displays.”

    I, Cringely Prediction #7 — 2018 will see the first Alexa virus – I, Cringely – There are presently more than 15,000 Alexa skills that have been officially approved by Amazon and are available for download. These skills do everything from launching programs to gathering data to setting reminders. Though relatively simple, each is still a cloud app that can connect tens of millions of Echo products to Amazon Web Services (AWS).

    Facebook plans to thwart election ad fraud with postcards | The Next Web – guessing that they haven’t heard of mail forwarding services? Also according the Mueller report Russia had operatives in-country

    News UK to advertisers: Run your Facebook ads on our sites | Digiday – and so the other shoe drops. The Murdoch family newspapers have led the way in mainstream media pointing out the flaws in Google and Facebook advertising in what looked to me like a sustained campaign. I am not saying that anything they’ve said is wrong, but now we get to see a ‘possible’ motivation

    EU-South Korean project to demonstrate 5G system at 2018 winter games | eeNews Europe – an overlooked part of the Winter Olympics. More Korea related content here.

  • The Four by Scott Galloway

    Author of The Four; Galloway is known as the founder of L2 and as a perceptive commentator on the digital economy (well as perceptive as anyone is with a bank of researchers behind them). He admits freely in his book that his fame was due to years of effort, advertising spend, researchers, script writers, video editors and studio time.

    The Four

    The Four is Scott Galloway channelling Malcolm Gladwell; explaining for the average man:

    • How Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple make their money?
    • How the digital economy is affecting the overall economy?
    • What are the negative aspects of their effect on the digital economy?

    Galloway does a really good job of surfing the media and policy wonk groundswell against Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. Despite all that Scott Galloway has been a long term shareholder in at least one of the four – Amazon. Ethics only has so much.

    As a digital marketer the book won’t tell you won’t know already know.  I found it a bit disappointing given the role that Galloway and L2 play in the industry.  Secondly, Galloway has already covered all the territory repeatedly in his media appearances and opinion editorials over the past year. He has left little unsaid that would be considered an exclusive for the book

    As a digital marketer, if you want your family and loved ones to understand what you do for the living and the major issues that are shaping your job Galloway’s book is a good option.

  • Ad spend and other news

    Ad spend

    Unilever threatens to pull ad spend from platforms that ‘breed division’  – “Consumers don’t care about third-party verification. They do care about fraudulent practice, fake news, and Russians influencing the US election. They don’t care about good value for advertisers. But they do care when they see their brands being placed next to ads funding terror, or exploiting children.”

    “They don’t care about sophisticated data usage or ad targeting via complex algorithms, but they do care about not seeing the same ad 100 times a day. They don’t care about ad fraud, but they do care about their data being misused and stolen.” – It is good that both Procter & Gamble and Unilever are independently taking much the same line with media companies and agencies through ad spend. The downside is that Unilever have partnered with IBM to build blockchain technology that will help verify their ad spend

    3D printing

    Porsche Is 3D Printing Hard-To-Find Parts For The 959 And Other Classics | Jalopnik – not exactly 3D printing but it is additive manufacturing

    Business

    Under Armour’s (UA) international business grew in 2017, especially in China — Quartz – it will depend on how Under Armour can leverage their NBA stars in China. They also need to get clear space in design between themselves and rivals

    European businesses expect UK soft Brexit, Survey suggests | FT  – 2,500 senior executives in the UK, France, Germany and Spain found that a majority of companies believe that Britain’s future relationship with the EU will maintain principles such as the free movement of people and oversight by the European Court of Justice. (paywall) – they should be more cautious

    Consumer behaviour

    Facebook Losing Friends to Snapchat in the U.K. – Bloomberg – it is worthwhile being skeptical until there is more details on the methodology but interesting nonetheless

    Design

    Many Siris · Bryan Irace – I think its a focus on context rather than fragmentation

    Algorithmic arrangements: an interview iwht Tom Quisel, former CTO fo OkCupid | Logic magazine  – as with many startups, using really advanced algorithms ends up being a second-order optimization. Often, the more effective thing is just to work on getting the user experience right. It’s much easier to do user experience improvements that make larger differences on the dynamics and the site

    How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare? – The Pensieve – a catalogue of service design mistakes that weren’t customer focused

    Luxury

    Saudi Cleric Says Women Should Not Be Forced to Wear Abaya Robes in Public | The Fashion Law – potentially huge for fashion retailers in Saudi and a possible sign of the state moving towards a greater degree of liberalism – in the loosest possible sense. Saudi needs that flexibility to move beyond oil and getting its young people into work

    Technology

    Foxconn unit to cut over 10,000 jobs as robotics take over- Nikkei Asian Review – up to 75% of production will be fully automated by the end of 2018. Most of Innolux’s factories are in Taiwan. Tuan’s pledge came a few days after Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou said the company would pour in some $342 million to overhaul its manufacturing process by using artificial intelligence. (paywall) – I am skeptical abut how far this push for robotics can go.

    It is worthwhile reading this thread by Steven Sinofsky all the way through

  • CNY 2018 ads that have made my day this week

    CNY 2018 – Chinese new year of the dog.

    CNY

    Whilst Christmas is the big ad time in the UK market and the Super Bowl dominates American advertising – the Sinosphere is dominated by lunar new year. You see Chinese new year adverts (in the Motherland obviously), Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. They are generally exceptionally sentimental and mawkish, but beautifully shot. It is a time for for family get togethers and when childhood memories are made. Things that symbolise Chinese new year include special food, getting given money in red envelopes and wearing new outfits for the first day of the new year.

    Here are some examples I have found of this years ads.

    KFC

    A film director goes back in time to see his younger self and tries to give him advice. I found this interesting given the Chinese government’s ban on time travel in dramas.

    Apple

    This was done for Apple China by Peter Chan and reposted on Apple Singapore’s social channels. They’ve done a really good job of capturing the gruelling journey home that many Chinese make every year.  Shenzhen’s main railway station is anarchy at this time of year.If this one doesn’t wring your tear ducts out you’re one heartless bastard.

    Digi Telecommunications

    A mobile carrier in Malaysia. the largest shareholder is Telenor. This one has a slight twist in the tail. I was expecting it to be a family matriarch – but it touches on wider connections and childhood memories. Education is much more highly prized in Chinese culture than British or Irish culture.

    Maybank – Malaysia’s largest bank

    Nothing quite like a bit of TVB style family melodrama to be squeezed into this four and a half minute film. A family in financial hardship gets pulled apart as the daughter grow up and ambition put a rift in the tight family unit.

    AirAsia

    My favourite one is this ad by AirAsia, who managed to weave in a deft bit of storytelling through the camera PoV and reference the symbolism of the Chinese horoscope for this year through the main character Ah Boy.

    More CNY related posts here.