Thoughts from a Bafta nominated Podcaster, Blogger, Writer and Commentator.
Batch might not be the best photo application for iOS out there, but now it’s been anointed by Michael Arrington it’s sure to gather a lot more downloads than last week, put it in the geekerati radar, and do rather better than it would have done. It appears Arrington can still call the winners.
AirBnB is a great idea, and for many people it works, but the issue for the company is that the core product – rooms – are not under their control. One bad experience because of a poor listing or miscommunication will sour the experience for one person and the rule of thumb of the ten people they tell. Given that it happened to one of my friends in Dusseldorf, being mis-sold a room and not having a "fall back" when visiting somewhere leaves AirBnB a touch vulnerable. It’s an interesting idea, and I do wish it the best of luck,
Glancee looks interesting ("a fun and safe way to interact with people near you, who share mutual friends, common affiliations, and similar interests"), although you need to be geographically close to people to discover them and any shared interests. Still, at events with big crowds of smartphone toting hipsters (cough, Austin in March), this could prove to be very useful.
It’s always a surprise when one thing is held up as a brand new innovation on the web, when a similar implementation is already public – but doesn’t have a nice piece of fruit to help it along. Microsoft have already surprised me with the Zune HD as a portable media player, and the integration with Zune.net continues that path. Rather than record the games you’ve been playing and achievements in Halo and other games (which is the basis of the X-Box Live login), your Zune.net profile looks at the music I’ve been listening to on both the Zune HD
One of the mails I got after announcing this year’s SXSWi Social Breakfast was from the owners of the Magnolia Cafe, asking how they could help make sure the SXSW folks would be able to meet each other during breakfast. After some lovely email discussion, the Interactive Social Breakfast will now be focussed in the Patio area of Magnolia’s which will be just for the meeting. Who says Web 2.0 doesn’t work? Signups, discussions, pictures, etc are all over on the Facebook Event page. I’ve also had a few people ask if there could be a similar event for SXSW
