So Pinterest came first. Pinspire followed next, albeit rather quickly. Pinterest needs no introduction. But if it did, I’d say: If Path is the hot new social network of 2012, Pinterest is “new Tumblr of 2012.” Developed by the Samwer Brothers of Rocket Internet, Pinsire is a fascinating copy of the former.
So what gives? Rocket Internet’s strategy is to take concepts on beta and replicate them into their huge global network. The end result is well, something close to the original but scaled for regions that it otherwise would not be able to reach. End of the day, we can go on and on about copying a site and its features (in this case, copying most of it) but you will notice that the communities are both very different.
In any case, no harm in trying out both. We have a small offer for you though — and it’s for Pinspire, because they wanted some ad space on this little blog. If you want to win some great Apple products, courtesy of these guys, just follow these steps:
STEP 2
Put the pin link in the comments section. Like this: http://www.pinspire.com/board/show/267972 < -- That's my underwater album.
STEP 3
Promote it like crazy!
The most popular board wins an 8GB iPod Touch.
The top succeeding 10 boards win a 2GB iPod Shuffle each.
The popularity will be aggregately determined by the number of board followers, likes and comments. The winners will be announced on February 29, 2012. Deadline of entries is on midnight of February 25, 2012
N.B. Pinspire is an advertiser on this blog.
EDIT: I was listening to an episode of TWiT three days ago and the end result of the controversy is exactly what I outline in the latter part of this post.
As of last week, most of your SEO tactics are rendered obsolescent. Somewhat.
Last year, Google’s top level mandate was “to go social.” And that reflected havily on Google employees with regards to performance so much so that company bonuses were to be directly associated with how Google performed in “social.” So last week, in the week of CES 2012, Google unveiled (secretly) its full blown foray into the new search algorithm making use of your social profile, starting with Google+. Google+ isn’t just a social network then. It does so much more:
– it helps Google see whether the content you post is actually yours and not scraped from somewhere else. How does it know which sites are yours? Well, your G+ profile under “About Me.” See the image on top? It says I contribute to A Bugged Life, NUDI (our SCUBA site), and Geekout (I write there once in a while). I’m not sure if this can be gamed — like I can ask 100 friends to say that they write on my blog to increase SERP, but then again this new tailored search feature will show different results depending on the account you hold. In other words, if you ask an SEO guy to work on your site and he gives you a screenshot of your blog on the first page of Google, that may be true for his or her account, but you may see something completely different. That’s how powerful the implications are for this new method. So be aware.
– it looks at other popular social sites (in this case Twitter and Flickr) and sees whether you own accounts currently signed in to. It links several popular social networks to G+ including Flickr, Twitter, Quora, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo!, and more. I hope it starts linking Tumblr and Pinterest soon. This makes me wonder whether sites like Path and Instagram should have official web versions for showing content (apart from Followgram) so they can get linked and indexed.
– Your “SEO” is only as good as how engaging you are with your content. There you have it — that is still the core ideal of “relevant content” but this time tied to your friends and what they share as well. If you +1 something, it means that you’re going to want more of that in your search results. In the same way, if you spam a friend, he or she can easily un-friend you and that’s it — bye bye social graph. Talk about tailored search.
– This new algorithm allows you to flourish in your preferred social space (as long as you have a Google+ profile HAHA!) whether it be a blog, Twitter, Quora, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. In other words, “blogging” is not the foundation of Web 2.0 (or whatever it’s called nowadays).
In short, for those of you saying that Google+ is useless and boring compared to Facebook, think again. Your site’s SEO will be determined by how much time you’ve invested in G+, the type of friends that you have, and what they share. Welcome to the new search. Now stop selling links.
Imagine that, to complete your Bachelor’s degree you design a 3D version of one of the best board games ever made: Arkham Horror.
I’ve been so wanting to get into it, but the sheer number of expansions, time to invest coupled with finding people to actually play with hinders me from this awesome experience. If you ever drop by Hobbes & Landes or Neutral Grounds, you’ll see rows and rows of Arkham Horror core sets and expansions. I really did want it but chickened out for reasons mentioned above and instead got Betrayal at House on a Hill which doesn’t live up to par, but at least doesn’t have a steep learning curve.
Well, anyway.
I emailed this amazing lady (her name is Andi) to ask if I can participate as a beta test and she sent me the game! in exchange for feedback. The game is about 80% polished (as the YouTube vid states) and I’m just so amazed at what she was able to do.
For those asking, this isn’t an official port of the game by Fantasy Flight Games (FFG). It’s by a student. She plans to present this project to them and get an official endorsement. If you’re wondering whether this holds as copyright infringement, well .. it doesn’t. Because this is a school project, it falls under Fair Use Policy in Europe. Wow. Just wow.
If you love Arkham Horror but hate the setup process, I suggest you send her an email. She’s accepting beta testers till the 5th of February 2012.
‘Archetype’ is a labor of love directed by Aaron Sim. It was created with a budget of USD >
‘Archetype’ is a labor of love directed by Aaron Sim. It was created with a budget of USD $0.00. Maybe he’s exaggerating, but what this technology revolution did for social media, it’s doing its magic to the film industry.
<.00. Maybe he's exaggerating, but what this technology revolution did for social media, it's doing its magic to the film industry.
No wonder there is a lot of worry in Hollywood. And I’m not referring to the actual cost to produce things nowadays. It’s merely the fact that Hollywood — and other big businesses have been built under a pretense of an enduring industrial age.
They never saw this revolution coming. And it’s the same reason why we should demand more from Hollywood. Because they need to change too.
Ed’s Note: Want to see the Samsung Galaxy Note underwater? Check it out!
As a guys who likes to take photos underwater, I tend to keep my choice of camera brands within the confines of the “1-Way Test” … which simply begs the question “Can I take it underwater?” So I’m more inclined to invest in photography equipment which you can wet. The geeky appeal of it all is trying to figure out how to keep electronics from staying dry at 100 ft below the surface and the concept is challenging. Well, we did it for an iPod, so what’s stopping us from taking the iPhone down?!
But the question is, can you take the iPhone 4s down to recreational SCUBA depths of 60-120ft? Well, Patima’s new casing exclusively for the iPhone 4s allows you to do so. Not just into recreational depths … but up to 300 meters folks.
Exclusive for camera or video functions of the iPhone 4S
– Rated to 300meters, anti-moisture and anti-dust purposes
– Simple operation with 4 buttons
– Compact Size and light weight
– Material – CNC milled Aluminium Acetal, Stainless Steel
– Finishing – Anodized after Barrel, Sanding and coating
– Color – Silver
– Size: 185 x 70 x 40mm
– Weight – 400g on land
– Available controls: Rec Button, STOP button, Program Confirm Button, Camera/Camcorder mode Button and Power Button
OK looking at the shots, I’m really wondering how exactly will you unlock the iPhone with the three buttons? The three buttons + home is obviously used for the camera, gallery and photo / video switch (again not sure how you’re going to switch). I’ll probably get an explanation how it works and hopefully a run-through. I don’t see any slots for strobes or video lights so you pretty much have to do a DIY config to get this thing working 100%. Nonetheless, I don’t think Patima designed this to be your primary underwater camera, but still. It delivers.
This Patima case doesn’t seem to be compatible with other iPhone models.
