4 posts tagged “apple”
With all the Apple announcements this week coming from the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, there are bound to be a lot of expectations swirling around the new iPhone 3G S. The most anticipated feature of the new generation of the iPhone is the support of video sending options and the ability for developers to access the iPhone video capabilities for various applications.
One such application that is taking advantage of the added video support is TwitterFon, which will be integrating with the video-specific Twitter app TwitVid for enabling TwitterFon users to capture videos with their iPhones and subsequently post them via their Twitter stream [via Venturebeat].
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It's an important step for Twitter apps, as much of Twitter's activity is attributed to mobile users such as those that own iPhones. Having a more direct way to marry Twitter with iPhone videos means a slew of related applications are expected to arise in the coming year, as well as many iPhone-specific video update applications that operate outside of Twitter all together.
The iPhone device as well as its platform has long been setting standards for the mobile marketplace, spurring development across the board for different manufactures and mobile providers alike. But will the added support also spur Twitter itself to finally delve deeper into media sharing?
Granted, Twitter has done a pretty good job of sticking to its core competency, and that solely revolves around microblogging within the realm of easy mobile access and integration. But should Twitter go ahead and support various media formats, such as images and videos? Other microblogging platforms such as Pownce and Tumblr support all media formats, and the added support hasn't necessarily given these other services a leg up in the race for dominating the microblogging space. And Flickr stuck to its core competency of photo-sharing for years, only recently adding video support, and the upgrade hasn't made a huge dent in Flickr's overall service or standing as far as video-sharing goes.
For Twitter, however, adding more media support wouldn't hurt the web service, though Twitter may wait until more mobile support is available for incorporating multimedia support via its microblogging platform. In the meantime Twitter remains to rely on third party applications for added value in certain aspects of its microblogging potential.
Note: originally posted on MultisocialMedia.com
MyStrands is a social music discovery site that has been in the press quite a bit lately. Their most recent announcement was the launching of their Social Player yesterday, which makes their service available through their Symbian mobile platform. A good portion of their core functions found on their website have been optimized for their mobile website. They have included a powerful search function that still allows you to search for and discover music and friends, wherever you go. The mobile app is still fully integrated with the MyStrands API and truly brings social networking and entertainment to the cell phone. With the current trends, it's important to note the increasing capabilities of mobile devices as well as the web-based solutions that are being rather opportunistic when it comes to this expansion.
Gabriel Aldamiz-echevarria, VP of Communications for MyStrands, gives great insight to this expansion during our phone interview, shown below (see video here).
So tell me a bit about your recently released Social Player.
It's a music player for Symbian mobile devices. The Social player is a music discovery tool and has a strong community component. We can see the strong evolution in mobile industry. Right now we use the mobile phone to talk, and early adopters use mob phone to do work (send email on their Blackberries). Some years ago we used the PC to do office work and now we use the PC to do fun stuff. Soon the mob phone will help us stay connected but also be a gateway to entertainment. That's why we're buidling the MyStrands Social Player. It helps you discover music and stay connected with friends.
And how does the Social Player work?
Every time u listen to a song it gives you a recommendation of songs that are similar. Then you can get more info about the song and artist on our mobile website. We have over 6 million songs, and not just with the big recording labels but from independent artists too.
Then there's the community component. It helps you discover new people with similar music taste to yours, and tells you who else is listening to that song. You can see their profile and see what they're listening to as well.
And does this include what theyre listening to at the same time, or does it include their entire playlist?
It shows their entire playlist in real time. So it will show who listened to it when, whether they listened to it 2 hours ago or 2 days ago.
What challenges did you have in creating the Social Player across cell phone platforms?
It's very tough to deal w/them. You have a different handsets, and different technologies. Not all services work on all technologies. One of the things with the MyStrands social player is that you don't even need to be with an operator. You just need a cell phone with connection to Internet.
To be realistic, if you want your technology to reach millions of users, you need a partnership with an operator. Or u need a lot of marketing.
Do u have a partnership?
There's not much I can tell you but we're in talks with a lot of people.
And where do you see some of these mobile trends going?
This is just the beginning of the mobile revolution. We'll see more and more cool things you can do on the phone. for example with the iPhone, they'll sell who knows how many units, but it will open the eyes of the end user and let us know that the phone is capable of doing more cool things. Until the iPhone we didn't use the phone to do things like listen to music or see Google maps. But w/the marketing from Apple, it will be a behavior changer.
How are you planning on leveraging that?
At the end if you think about it, this is a product that we've announced and what we've seen is that people that have used it talk about it to other people. We've been getting a lot of feedback. What we're missing is time to put into effect all those ideas. We'll offer more and more solutions.
What 'm saying is that there are a lot of initiatives like the iPhone, and PartyStrands, and the MyStrands Social Player that are suggesting that the future is mobile. People are getting more familiar with the possibility of the phone.
...
Imagine you're going to school and you're on the bus, and you have 20 minutes to get to school. What do u do? Maybe talk to your friends. With MyStrands, you can listen to music and know what your friends are listening to at home or even at school.
We're approaching a wonderful age and music and mobile are made for each other.
Apple's permitting of Indie film "That" to be sold in iTunes is groundbreaking territory for the dominant retailer of digital mp3 player content. Many wonder if this means that Apple is willing to open their doors to allow the floods of the long tail to become accessible for the iPod directly from Apple's iTunes online store. Doubtful, considering the points so nicely drawn out by Steve O'Hear of ZDNet.
The deal seems to be an exception to the rule, and Apple has namely been striking alliances with major players in the media industry. This of course saves Apple the greif of dealing with copyright wars, and discourages the type of self-regulated market that would be needed to help control the Indie filmmaker sector. A good amount of resources would need to be put in place by Apple to harness Indie films and not user-generated content. But wouldn't that be a hoot? Selling clips made popular on YouTube in the iTunes store?
Nevertheless, you can still get some "community" content on your iPod.
- SpotDJ's new "wePod" feature updates your playlist with spots from their community every time you synch up. See original post here, and yesterday's press release here.
- Mogopop has an entire collection of content made for iPods, submitted by the community. Their service also includes an app for you to create content as well.
In the case of indie filmmakers wanting their material for sale through iTunes, it may seem like a longshot now, but I'm positive it will happen in the future. A broker will come to the forefront of indie film distribution, and this is the type of structure that a company like Apple will be more willing to work with.
Something like inDplay, which manages film and tv content distribution for the indie community, could become the broker to bridge the gap. See interview here.
Apple and Cisco have reached an agreement regarding the use of the term iPhone. While negotiations were escalated to an all-out court battle when Steve Jobs wouldn't back down and Cisco took Apple to court, the media continued its buzz about Apple's new phone which, according to Jobs, operates on a different network than Cisco's own iPhone, and would not interfere accordingly.
The deal between the two companies includes "wide-ranging "interoperability'' between the companies' products in the areas of security, consumer and business communications" according to a Wall Street Journal article today.
Now both parties can use the term, and the trademark. If that seems wierd to anyone, try and find how many people knew that Cisco's iPhone was already in "production."
But for Apple, it's all about brand recognition. They have the iPod and iTunes. Nearly all peripheral products made in compatibility with the iPod have used the inclusive "i"[Your Product Name Here]. And for Cisco? They saw an opportunity and ran with it. I'm not sure what else Steve Jobs expected when he decided to reveal the iPhone, regardless of any dispute over who actually owns the term "iPhone."
