Laughzilla the Third (2012)
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Twitter is continuing to ramp up its monetization efforts, after it confirmed that it’s introducing Promoted Accounts to search results.
Given that Promoted Tweets were already visible through search, this move isn’t all that surprising. And it’s one more way for Twitter to offer eyeballs to companies advertising against related search terms.
So now, not only will you see Promoted Accounts in your main timeline, you’ll see them in search results too.
➤ Introducing Promoted Accounts in search
Nearly two months ago, Alex Taub and Michael Schonfeld bid Dwolla farewell and set off to start their own company called Modern MAST. At the time, they said that the new venture would focus on developing products aimed at commerce, advertising tools, and APIs. Their first product is launching today and it’s called SocialRank, a tool to help brands better understand who their followers are on Twitter.
The idea behind SocialRank started long before Taub and Schonfeld joined Dwolla. Back then, they had developed a service called Most Valuable Follower (MVF) aimed at helping show which follower actually gives legitimate value to a brand’s social media presence, rather than simply propping up a broad follower-count. At least 50,000 people wound up using this tool before it was shelved in favor of their careers at Dwolla.
SocialRank is the evolution of MVF and is looking to help brands and influencers understand three key metrics: most valuable, most engaged, and their best follower. In order to determine someone’s MVF, the service looks at whether a follower is verified, their total follower count, their follower/following ratio, and determined value. In its previous form, MVF was a whole tool, but now it’s most like a data point.
The Most Engaged Follower is the person who interacts with you the most, based on retweets, mentions, favorites, and doesn’t matter how many followers that user has. Just following someone doesn’t make you engaged — the MEF looks at users who are “socializing” with the brand’s Twitter account.
Lastly, and perhaps the most significant metric that SocialRank analyzes, is the Best Follower statistic. This is a combination of MVF and MEF and will dictate who the best follower was in the past 30 days. This user is the one who “strikes a great balance of engaging with you and has the reach or importance to be a little dangerous.”
Sounds an awful lot like what one would get with Klout, huh? Well there are some differences — specifically that SocialRank doesn’t assign a score to a brand or their followers. It also only looks at data from Twitter, at least for now, but Taub says that Vine, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Facebook could easily be supported. On the other hand, Klout has evolved to focus less on a “score” and instead be a content creation and promotion service.
The company is also focusing on building out features to allow brands to “reward” their most valuable, engaged, and best followers as a sign of appreciation. This is slightly contradictory to Klout’s Perk system since it focuses on topics an individual is influential in.
SocialRank is free for nonprofits to use, but costs $25 per month or $250 annually to be able to export daily and weekly reports. With the paid option, brands can breakdown their followers by demographic, geographic, and all the social media accounts that are attached to the individual. However, Modern MAST cautions that since it’s in the early stages of testing, the accuracy may not be on par — it’s inferring a lot through technology, but its algorithm will improve over time.
In addition, SocialRank enables you to filter between individuals and brands within each section (MVF, MEF, and best follower). This permits you to see your top 10 brands and top 10 individuals in each category. In the future, deeper filtering will be added.
The company tells us that many brands are using its service, including GoPro, Plated, Cory Vines, and others.
Photo credit: YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images
Yesterday, we brought you news from the Russian handset maker Yota Devices about its newest e-ink display-equipped YotaPhone, which marks a significant upgrade from the original that went on sale in December.
It’s still very early days for the new generation device – it’s not expected to go on sale until towards the end of 2014 – but we spent a bit of time with the company at MWC 2014 to get a feel for what we might be able to expect when it does eventually arrive.
The most notable upgrade is the switch from using a 4.3-inch EPD (Electronic Paper Display) with a capacitive touch strip for controlling it to using a full touchscreen 4.7-inch version instead.
In practice, this make the phone a lot more useful. While the ability to access data, updates and all kinds of other information on the orignal device is a boon, it was a passive experience – you’d see a notification and then have to turn the phone over to respond. Now, you can respond directly from the back display in just one touch, should you so wish.
On the front of the phone, you’ll find a 5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) HD OLED 442 PPI display which is bright and crisp, as you’d expect at that resolution.
Both the front and the back screens are noticeably more responsive than the first version too, particularly the back. That’s not to say it’s perfect, there’s still a slight delay in navigating through a list of tweets, for example, but it’s quicker than the original and, as with the first, we’d expect some refinements to optimize the software before it makes it to market.
As with the first version, you’ll need to route your apps through Yota Devices’ InternetHub app to get social and RSS updates on the rear display.
It’s a similar story for pretty much any app that you want to interact with on the EPD display – you’ll need to use the custom app – like getting sports updates, for example.
Nonetheless, you can still send other information to the back screen as a still image – and just like the original, you can set a default rear screen in case the battery dies. This can be pretty useful, like saving a portion of a map to the rear screen for use when the phone is dead and you’re not sure where you’re headed.
We can expect to see more custom-made apps for this rear screen too – Yota Devices will be holding a developer conference in March to spur devs to create more apps for the platform.
New for the next generation is a power saving mode that lets you use the EPD as the primary display for everything, thereby potentially providing you with far more running power than using the main screen. With only three devices in existence right now and only a few minutes to play around, we didn’t get a chance to test out the longevity.
The first time I met with YotaPhone, I was intrigued by the device but it ultimately felt like a concept gently being developed in order to find the best route to market and the best features for the intended audience. And it was, the company is open about that.
This time around, the phone looks and feels more like a device you’d expect to see sitting on store shelves, and ultimately more capable. That’s not to say that the hardware is completely finalized for the YotaPhone, there could be some small tweaks here and there, but it’ll mostly arrive as you see it here. And that’s a good thing.
Visit our MWC 2014 page for more coverage of the show
The Walt Disney Studios today launched Disney Movies Anywhere, its cloud-based digital movie service that enables consumers to stream any Disney, Pixar, and Marvel movie across any device. It is powered by iTunes so people can use their account to download any one of Disney’s library of over 400 active digital titles, including its most recent box office hit ‘Frozen’.
As a added bonus, the company says that if you connect your iTunes account with Disney Movies Anywhere, for a limited time, you’ll receive a free digital copy of the Disney•Pixar’s “The Incredibles.”
Disney Movies Anywhere will work on your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Apple TV. It can also be accessed through the Web browser on a Mac or PC. No word yet on whether an Android or Windows Phone version will be available.
The company says that with the user-friendly interface, viewers can easily discover and watch live-action and animated films from across Disney’s portfolio, including Pixar and Marvel. Disney Movies Anywhere offers exclusive content, bonus features, previews of upcoming offerings, and more.
Setting up an account in the Disney Movies Anywhere app is free. The only time when you’ll have to pay is when you find a movie that you like, or you can watch a preview of the film for free. However, if you’re watching any of the exclusive content, then those will be free.
Once in the app, users can look at featured movies recommended by Disney, or sort through the 400 movies by genre, including Classics, Song & Dance, Disney Princesses, sports, Muppets-focused, those in Marvel’s cinematic universe, Pixar pictures, and many others.
Jamie Voris, the Walt Disney Studios’ chief technology officer, said in a statement:
Disney Movies Anywhere is an adaptable digital ecosystem designed to help consumers consolidate their Disney movie collections and enjoy them for years to come. The beauty of this technology is that it enables us to work with iTunes and future provider partners to ensure movie lovers have streamlined access to all of their favorite Disney titles no matter which device the are on.
➤ Disney Movies Anywhere for iOS
Photo credit: YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty Images
Any.do entered the smart calendar market last July, as it launched its impressive Cal app out of beta.
While it was initially an iOS-only affair, this was remedied in December when it arrived for Android too. And today, the startup is rolling out a brand new feature for Cal, as it looks to focus on improving productivity around meetings.
The new feature is rolling out for Android first, but will be arriving “soon” for iOS users too – though no timescale has been given for this.
Under ‘Settings’, you’ll now see an additional feature called ‘HeadsUp’ which Any.do is hoping will pull the various strands of a meeting together – this includes before it starts, while it’s in progress, and what happens once the meeting has ended.
A little tab pops up on your device screen as a meeting approaches – when you tap this, it surfaces the range of so-called ‘smart’ actions.
In terms of how it can help before a meeting has kicked off, well, it can let you navigate your way to the venue via Google Maps, as well as informing other participants if you’re running late. Additionally, it lets you beckon a taxi to get you to the destination on time, or simply view the other invitees.
It’s worth noting here that these tabs are merely shortcuts to other actions – none of this is automated by Cal. ‘I’m Late’, for example, gives you the option to type out an email or make a Skype call. ‘Get Taxi’, on the other hand, lets you beckon a car via the Uber app.
During a meeting, on the other hand, Cal will also make it easier to mute your phone, add tasks that emerge as a result of the discussions (they can be added to the Any.do app), snap photos (e.g. of a flip-chart or PowerPoint presentation), and even record video/audio. Finally, you can also elect to send a summary email to the group.
Once a meeting has concluded, Cal also lets you add or send action items to other attendees, schedule follow-up meetings and send a summary email if you didn’t do so during the event.
Ultimately, the new HeadsUp feature is all about bringing the existing features of your phone – and the Any.do/Cal apps – to the forefront. It’s designed to stop you having to open and close various applications.
It would be nice to see a little more automation on this front though. For example, the ‘I’m Late’ feature could use GPS to determine your current location and establish that you’re running late for a meeting. While you may not want it to send a message without your go-ahead, it could still ask you and then send a pre-written message automatically.
Similarly, having only a single option for ‘Get Taxi’ feels a little sparse. Given that all it’s really doing is opening up a list of apps on your device, it could also give you the choice of ‘Hailo’, ‘Kabbee’ or whatever other service is used in your locale.
You can grab the updated Cal app from Google Play now.
