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Facebook now lets you select a custom gender on your profile

Feb13
by on February 13, 2014 at 6:14 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Social Media

Facebook today announced it has added the ability to select a custom gender on your profile, a change it has made after working closely with LGBT activist groups. The feature will only be available to people in the US for now, but Facebook plans to expand availability “in the future.”

facebook custom gender Facebook now lets you select a custom gender on your profile

A custom gender on your Timeline means that aside from male and female, you can choose a third category: “other.” This will open up a menu where you can select up to 10 gender definitions, including “cisgender,” “transgender,” “intersex,” as well as many other options the company says refers to as “nuanced.” The feature also lets users define which pronoun they’d like to be referred to as on the site: male (he/his), female (she/her) or neutral (they/their).

Image Credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/GettyImages

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Frontback for iOS gets improved notifications, a self-timer tool, 24/7 content moderation, and more

Feb13
by on February 13, 2014 at 6:00 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, checkthis frontback, frontback, frontback content moderation, frontback notifications, frontback self-timer tool, frontback stats, frontback stats version 1.7, Insider

450610667 520x245 Frontback for iOS gets improved notifications, a self timer tool, 24/7 content moderation, and more

Frontback has released new statistics about its app’s performance to date. Among its many revelations, the app is now seeing a 33 percent week-over-week growth rate globally, with three times the number of new users from outside the US versus inside. Interestingly, its three biggest international markets happen to be Japan, Brazil, and China — three countries that are in the top 10 of mobile usage in the world.

In addition, a new version of Frontback is now available in the App store offering several updates, including a new notification feature, a self-timer tool, global feed, 24/7 content moderation, and more.

Building a dedicated community

When it comes to activity within Frontback, it’s apparent that the service has some highly engaged individuals. The company says that in the last month alone, there were more than 5 million views generated. The popularity of the platform is so high that it has attracted the attention of noted personalities such as Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, celebrities Snoop Dogg, Ashton Kutcher, and MC Hammer, along with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and YouTube sensation iJustine.

Screen Shot 2014 02 13 at 1.30.17 AM Frontback for iOS gets improved notifications, a self timer tool, 24/7 content moderation, and more

Frontback started in July 2013 as an offshoot service following the failure of Checkthis. Some may have considered it to be a “selfie” app, but the company refutes the claims, instead suggesting that it’s a storytelling social network. In its current state, Frontback has created an amazing camera app, but now with its dedicated and passionate community, it needs to evolve to help users do more than just snap photos of themselves and what they’re seeing.

Amid the crowded marketplace of photo-related apps like Instagram, Hipstamatic/Oggl, Vine, Camera+, and others, Frontback says that it remains committed to its initial vision: to allow users to tell their story through the use of imagery. When asked what prevents market leaders from directly competing against Frontback, the company replied that it’s their community. Unfortunately its technology is indefensible, so it is relying on its user base culture to help ward off any encroachment.

Frontback says that it’s seeing the engagement rate increase three-fold since it launched in July with the average user liking 20 posts per week. And while these may look like impressive numbers, lets not forget that the raw figures have not been provided to us, so take these statistics with a grain of salt.

Just how will Frontback make money? It’s not worrying about that right now. The company tells us that it’s working to get critical mass with its community.

Introducing Frontback version 1.7

With the release of version 1.7, users will receive many important features in order to keep them safe and have a better browsing experience. Included in the update is an enhanced notification view. In previous versions, you only received a ping when you had a new follower. Now, the feature has been enhanced so that you’ll find out when someone likes your photo, friends you, posts a response, and more — Frontback affectionately dubs this #StalkerMode.

Frontback General 730x644 Frontback for iOS gets improved notifications, a self timer tool, 24/7 content moderation, and more

Additionally, a new mode has been added that will help users snap photos using the front-facing camera on the iOS device. Users can activate the self-timer feature that will automatically capture a photo within five seconds of pressing the shutter button. If you want to take two photos using the front-facing camera, you can enable the timer for both shots. Frontback says this has been the most requested feature — as it turns out, some users were having difficulties trying to capture selfie-type photos when there were multiple individuals in the picture.

In keeping with its vision of being a storyteller, the latest version also has a discover tab to help users find new captures from anyone around the world.

One of the last major features to be added in is the 24/7 content moderation feature. In an attempt to ensure that the community is safe and secure, Frontback has spent “a lot of money” to make sure that there’s someone reviewing all of the content going into the service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All moderation capabilities are being done by at least a couple of human beings. The company tells us that 90 percent of all images in Frontback can be reviewed within 5 to 10 minutes.

Frontback will always err on the side of letting the community police itself. It has affixed a link in each post that will allow anyone to flag something for review due to its abusive nature. It’s important to note that all reviews will be based on the imagery, not the captions that accompany it.

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention that there are some minor updates also being made to Frontback, including:

  • The ability to change your username and update your profile photo.
  • Simple-to-use privacy options.
  • A new iOS 7 redesign to help you navigate through feeds quickly.
  • Deeper Facebook integration to help you discover friends using Frontback.

All of the above updates are for the iOS app. An Android version has yet to be announced.

➤ Frontback for iOS

Photo credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images

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Twitter’s latest profile redesign highlights its struggle to balance accessibility with simplicity

Feb13
by on February 13, 2014 at 5:55 pm
Posted In: Analysis and Opinion, Around the Web, evergreen

187222006 520x245 Twitters latest profile redesign highlights its struggle to balance accessibility with simplicity

Twitter is walking a tightrope. The fast-paced social network stood at 241 million monthly active users earlier this month and while that figure is up from 232 million the previous quarter, it’s evident that Twitter’s upward trajectory is beginning to slow down.

The concern is that in its present state, the service is too confusing or time-consuming for newcomers to get to grips with.

To get the complete Twitter experience, users need to figure out which accounts they should be following and understand the difference between hash-tags, mentions and retweets. Dick Costolo, the chief executive of Twitter, has admitted that the platform’s “scaffolding” and language needs to be addressed.

No doubt, Twitter is hoping to build a user base that can rival Facebook. As Mashable reports, to this end the company is testing a profile redesign that shares more than a passing resemblance to Facebook and Google+.

TwitterLayout1 730x754 Twitters latest profile redesign highlights its struggle to balance accessibility with simplicity

Image Credit: Mashable

The profile picture and corresponding bio is now shown more prominently in the top left-hand corner, while the cover photo spans the width of the page. The size and arrangement of tweets is of greater importance, however. They’re larger than before, with a two-column layout that offers more space for media.

As with most major redesigns, the screenshots received an icy reception. While users are always cautious about changes to a service they know and love, this one spiked an unusually large and vocal response.

Twitter is experimenting with its core DNA and not surprisingly, some people are worried. As the saying goes: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

To be simple, isn’t quite so simple

The simplicity of Twitter is an integral part of its success. Early adopters loved the short-form messages because they were concise and easy to consume. Reviewing a feed was effortless because, unlike Facebook, everyone was forced to write pithy  tweets with little room for misinterpretation.

The jargon crept in as users discovered how they could perform advanced actions, such as republishing or quoting another person’s tweet while sticking to the site’s 140-character limit. Ironically, it was the simplicity of Twitter – reactive, real-time text messages that anyone could read – that has created this perceived barrier for newcomers.

Twitter has tweaked its service to better integrate some of these actions. Retweets, for instance, can now be triggered with a single click or tap and no longer require typing the word “RT”, unless you want to preface it with some of your own thoughts.

Costolo wants to do more though. When he commented on the “scaffolding” that’s supposedly slowing Twitter’s  growth, he also suggested that multimedia content, such as photos and videos, needed to be brought to the fore. That thinking will have no doubt been the driving force behind the latest profile redesign experiment. Twitter wants to appeal to a broader group of users, which means adopting a more visual design similar to Facebook or Google+.

To improve the ‘onboarding’ experience though, Twitter risks upsetting its older users. By placing further emphasis on photos and videos, it’s detracting from the simplicity that makes Twitter so special.

The approach isn’t a new one, however. Users are already seeing and using Twitter Cards, which expand links, photos and other media within their stream. The transition has been a slow one, but it’s not particularly difficult to see the direction that Twitter is headed in.

Walking the tightrope

Twitter is trying to strike a difficult balance. It wants to accelerate the number of people who are signing up and using its service each month. To do that though, the company believes it needs to tweak how tweets and media is displayed. While that may appeal to some people who may have avoided the service until now, Twitter risks alienating some of its most vocal and passionate fans.

Mashable says Twitter is still making tweaks to its profile redesign experiment. It’s also worth emphasizing that at this point, there is no guarantee that it will be rolled-out all of its users. That’s the purpose of testing after all; to see what works and make changes if it doesn’t. Nevertheless, this latest test is a strong indicator for the direction Twitter is headed in. Supporters of the service might bristle at the changes, but they’re likely here to stay.

Top Image Credit: DAMIEN MEYER/AFP/Getty Images

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StreamNation now wants to unify all your digital photo and video repositories

Feb13
by on February 13, 2014 at 5:49 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

sa1 StreamNation now wants to unify all your digital photo and video repositoriesThe handiwork of Deezer co-founder Jonathan Benassaya, StreamNation launched to the world in July last year, serving as a platform for users to stream and share videos and photos directly from the cloud. Then back in November, the company rolled out an interesting new feature that lets you lend movies and TV shows to friends – from the cloud too.

Now the company has unveiled the next stage in its plans, which is to unify all your photos and videos from everywhere – this covers Instagram, Facebook, iPhoto, Google Drive, Google+, Flickr, Lightroom, Aperture, Picasa, Dropbox and OneDrive.

StreamNation is essentially trying to become the ultimate cloud-based media hub, covering storage, streaming and displaying. Indeed, with the latest update, the platform now also displays photos and videos on a timeline, irrespective of what account or device it was garnered from.

Users get up to 20GB of storage for free, with premium plans kicking in at $4 a month for 100GB, $9 a month for 500GB and $19 a month for unlimited.

➤ Streamnation

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Google speeds up Chrome by compiling JavaScript in the background

Feb13
by on February 13, 2014 at 5:44 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Google, Insider

147380203 520x245 Google speeds up Chrome by compiling JavaScript in the background

Google today revealed a tweak it has made in the latest Chrome beta to further boost performance: concurrent compilation, which offloads a large part of the optimizing compilation phase to a background thread. Previously, Chrome compiled JavaScript on the main thread, where it could interfere with the performance of the JavaScript application.

As a result, Google says JavaScript applications remain responsive and performance gets a boost. This is all handled by V8, Chrome’s JavaScript engine.

Here’s how it works. First, V8 defers compilation of JavaScript functions until immediately before they are executed the first time (to reduce the overall time spent compiling). Next, pieces of code that are executed very often are compiled a second time by a specialized optimizing compiler. This second pass makes takes more time, but thanks to many advanced optimization techniques, it delivers much faster code.

Here is Chrome without concurrent compilation (V8 is fully occupied optimizing a large piece of code, causing an execution pause):

mandreel sync Google speeds up Chrome by compiling JavaScript in the background

Here is Chrome with concurrent compilation (V8 still optimizes the large piece of code, but does so in a background thread):

mandreel async Google speeds up Chrome by compiling JavaScript in the background

The graphs above show excerpts of V8′s vital signs when running Mandreel, part of Google’s Octane benchmark suite, on a Nexus 5. The black bar represents JavaScript execution, so the goal is to get it as close to solid as possible.

Instead of taking turns compiling optimized Javascript code and executing it, V8 now uses concurrent compilation for large pieces of code to avoid stuttering and dropped frames in complex applications like games. We can expect these improvements to arrive in the stable version of Chrome in the next few months.

Top Image Credit: Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images

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