By having Google+ installed on my Android handset (HTC Desire) Im able to take a picture and have it magically appear on Photos in Google+ and just as importantly, Picasa. So if I want to share the picture on my wordpress blog, its really straight forward. Unfortunately video isnt handled quite as well because they are handled exactly the same way so they end up in Picasa rather than Youtube. Not great. There doesnt seem to be a striaght forward way of transfering or sharing them on Youtube without uploading them again. That seems pretty strange as the videos are on a Google server somewhere they just need to make them available in two places

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I was given an Amazon Kindle at the end of November and ever since have been a big and increasly growing, Kindle and Amazon fan. The device works. Its as simple as that. It doesnt pretend to be anything it isnt and does everything it needs to. The ebook purchasing process is slick and even software updates were handled as well as I’ve ever seen. Being an Android user I have felt the pain of going through poorly managed software updates and was extremely impressed by how Amazon handled their software update without a hitch.

To my surprise, my Kindle broke. I turn on the device and found that the screen was stuck showing a distorted screen saver. Seriously disappointed that my much beloved device was broken, I went on Amazon’s website to see what I could do to resolve the issue. As I expected there was lots of information that was easy to find and so I tried a few different things but none of them resolved the issue.

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Google+ is receving some very positive reports and user numbers are reportedly already well above 10m but I feel Google is missing a very obvious trick that would give it a significant differentiator.

I’ve been trailing RockMelt, a Chromium based browser that has Facebook integration. Its far from the finished article but is a big step forward in making the whole web social rather that users having to be on the facebook website in order to share and interact with friends.

Google could and should produce an extension for their Chrome browser that incorporates their sexy new black bar into the browser with a few extra Google+ functions. A share button that posts the site you are currently viewing without having to leave it. The ability to post to Stream, again without leaving the page you are currently on.

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If rumours are to be believed, Facebook will today launch a service that integrates a video chat function in an attempt to further itself from Google who took a big step towards facebook this month by launching Google+.

My initial thoughts:

Most people use facebook in 2 main ways. To stay in contact with your real friends & family and to stalk old friends they may have lost touch with e.g. people you used to go to school with. This will significantly limit the amount of users who want to video chat to each other as its only the former who are likely to use the service.

On the consumer / user side its difficult to see what revenue this could bring in other than a cut of any additional revenue Skype get from an increase in users or calls etc

The real benefit of this solution could be for companies that use Facebook to interact with their customers. This new functionality enables the customer to chat to customer care or sales teams without any significant investment in the company’s infrastructure. Video could be helpful for technical issues e.g. someone having issues with a mobile phone or tablet, they could show the customer care agent exactly whats on screen then allowing the agent to talk them through and demonstrate via video link, ways to resolve their issue. This could be a big money spinner for Facebook and encourage companies of all sizes to sign up to using Facebook as another way to engage with customers.

Down the line we could see:

• Facebook accounts coming with skype phone numbers
• The Facebook iPhone, Blackberry and Android apps all having VOIP and Video chat capabilies built in.
• It could lead the way to a future VOIP (Skype based) Facebook phone but that would be a long way off and less likely.

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I’ve dabbled with a few of the check-in and location apps;  Foursquare, Google places & Facebook and all require the user to manually check-in to a location, which in some cases like the Facebook app make sense where its all about letting people know your location when you want to tell them. However, apps like Foursquare however that require a manual check in to earn points or benefit from deals etc are falling way short of where they need to be.

I’d like to see two new pieces of functionality added to location / check in apps:

1. Notifications A built in notification capability that informs the user of offers, deals and bonus points for example available at or near their current location. This would drive up the number of check-ins and encourage users to visit places they may not naturally visit e.g. the cafe next door as it has an offer on for a free drink with any order.
2. Auto Check-ins  These apps should learn from the users history. If everytime I go down the highstreet I check in to Subway the app auto check me in if I go there, simple. Everyone benefits the user, the apps developers and the merchant.

The major downside of this are battery life and the constant buzz of the notifications informing you about deals that you arent interested in. There isnt much one could do about battery life but with a bit of history and social magic the apps could learn your friends likes and suggestions to aid the app in only notifying you of useful checkins.

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HTC this week have had a shocker. They had previously announced that the much loved but now a little dated HTC Desire would receive Gingerbread (Android 2.3). Spin forward to this week and the caused outrage on their facebook page when they informed their customers that there wasnt enough memory on the phone to support gingerbread. This update doesnt even bring that many major features and still customers were far from happy.

Luckily 24 hours later HTC changed their mind and said that they would role out the OS update, now possible by removing some of the bundled apps that are part of the HTC Sense offering.  So customers are happy but now concerned what applications they are going to loose.

Those like myself who already have 2.3.3 through a very well made custom Rom are a little confused why small development houses / collectives / teams can enable any app to be installed on SD card, provide the latest software far quicker than companies like HTC.

We have recently seen Apple release iMessage, an application built in no small part by a developer who had no connection with Apple who built a far superior app than Apples previous messaging app who later became an Apple employee.

Samsung have taken this a step further. Having had success with their Samsung Galaxy S, they noticed that cyanogen had managed to build their flavour of custom rom adding and in many cases improving the phone. On releasing the Samsung Galaxy S 2, the most powerful Android handset on the market to date, they embraced the developer community by sending the developers at Cyanogen free handsets to actively encourage them to root and customise their phone.

Large phone manufacturers could learn alot from what the developer community has managed to do. For along time now many people with older phones like the HTC Desire have struggled with the limited amount of space on the phone for applications which cant be moved to the SD card. The dev community came to the rescue and on some custom roms any application can be installed on SD freeing up huge amount of space on the handset.

Samsungs recognition of the dev community is a good start, I just hope that many follow suit.

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Over the last few years Google have been known as the innovative big hitter, frequently releasing new services at a rate alarming to its competitors. The statement below from Jeff Bezos, Amazons’ founder, shows it is now they who should have the mantle for the company releasing the most new services.

Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos said this in a release: In the last 90 days, we announced Kindle with Special Offers, Kindle Library Lending, Audible audiobooks on Kindle, Appstore for Android, Amazon for Windows Phone 7, Checkout by Amazon in both Germany and the U.K., a Kindle Store in Germany, Cloud Drive, Cloud Player, and Prime Instant Video – just to call out a few of the things we’ve been working on…We love inventing on behalf of customers and have never been more excited about the long-term opportunities.


It wasnt long ago that Amazon were just an online store, or should that be the online store. Effortlessly efficient would be two words that spring to mind when describing the approach the Seattle power house took in dominating online retail.

What amazes me is that the bulk of the services Amazon now offer are well thought out, substantial enough from day one to make an impact on their competitors and released without hype or fluff something that Google also do well.

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I used to love hearing that the next OS update was coming soon or that the SDK had been released by Google. Now I hate it.

Gingerbread was released at the back end of last year and has already been rolled out to Nexus devices and others. Those of us with older handsets i.e. not brand new, especially those with Manufacturer UI’s have to wait ages. HTC have unofficially confirmed my handset, the HTC Desire will not get the latest software until well after the summer.

Great, Im already seen Honeycomb plastered all over the place and Im not going to become a  little Gingerbread man for ages.

So, you can imagine my disgust when Amazon got in on the act by sending me an email yesterday at 06:57 saying that there will be a software update delivered over the next day or two for my beloved Amazon Kindle. Ok, well I actually like the fact that they, the company that provide the product contacted me direct to tell when whats coming and in some detail too.

There wasn’t anything major in the software update but still they listed what was to be included and gave links to more information for those who wanted it. Given my experiences with Android software updates, I tried to forget the mail.

That evening I turned on my Kindle and BHAM! There was the update, the Kindle did exactly what Amazon had explained and I received the software update and on the same day as I was officially informed about it. Impressive.

I should have known really. Amazon doesn’t try to do everything but what it does try and do, it does well much like the Kindle itself. Rarely have I been so impressed with a piece of technology. I thought it was a bit of a gimmicky gadget but no, it’s a sophisticated bit of kit that does what it says it does and does it well.

The minor Kindle software update is a long way from a major OS release for a mobile phone operating system but we’ve seen minor software fixes rolled out extremely badly by operators, manufacturers and OS developers so they really should look at how Amazon managed this very clean roll out.

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Imagine the scene, you’re sat at your desk and you get an email from a friend who’s a customer fo the company you work for. Its far from a simple question that you can answer off the top of your head or following a quick look at internal information sources. I found myself in this situation today and realised I didnt have a clue who to speak to in order to find an answer.

Rather than go round the houses exploiting my network of colleagues all over the company I decided I will do what customers do and I fired a tweet @ my companies account and funnily enough I got an answer that I knew was official enough to provide back to the customer.

This got me thinking. Are the lines for internal and external communications for large corporations being blurred?

If its quicker for an employee to ask the companies web relations team via Twitter in order to get an answer to a query then this has not only flagged a problem and highlighted a possible answer on how to fix the problem.

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