It’s getting increasingly hard to tell where one Web application ends and another begins. Everywhere you turn these days some provider of a Web application is announcing another application programming interface (API).
The latest example is Producteev, which offers a task-management application as a service. As much as Producteev CEO Ilan Abehassera would like people to use his service online, he’s more interested in having other application providers embed Producteev inside their application services. After all, task management probably is better as a subset of another application rather than a stand-alone app.
As Web applications evolve, they are becoming as borderless as our Web sites. The average Web site today is a collection of modules delivering content from who knows where. The model is now being applied to Web applications that are taking advantage of custom and de facto industry standard APIs that essentially allow customers to customize and integrate these applications with just about any other Web application.
The rise of these new borderless Web applications will present some interesting security and data-management challenges. But what was once a relatively simple mashup concept involving the sharing of data between two applications rapidly is becoming a never-ending series of composite applications that are always connected.
From an end user perspective, this capability presents all kinds of possibilities for mass customization as part of the general trend toward the consumerization of IT. From an IT manager’s perspective, however, mass customization currently equals mass confusion.
There's no doubt we're seeing the rise of a new era of applications of the Web; then only real question at this point is how are we going to manage them?
If you’re a new startup or have a new product you want to launch at TechCrunch Disrupt, we encourage you to submit your company to compete in our the Startup Battlefield. Disrupt SF’s application process is being hosted courtesy of task-management startup, Producteev.
The Startup Battlefield is a tournament-style launch platform where startups demo their products and impress the audience and panel of experts over multiple rounds of competition. Experts will be brought in to mentor and judge startups on product, business models, team, design and usability and more. The final round will put startups in the hot seat where some of the most successful entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and business executives will grill them in front of the audience. Audience voting as well as expert feedback will factor into final competition scores.
One startup will emerge the overall winner and take home a $50,000 cash prize at the close of the conference, Wednesday afternoon.
Deadlines
Apply to compete in the Startup Battlefield.
Open applications will be accepted through midnight pst, Sunday, August 8.
Final decisions will be extended to applicants by Friday, September 3.Applications will be reviewed, companies will be interviewed and offers will be extended on a rolling basis, so it’s to your benefit to submit your application as soon as you are ready for consideration. Applications may be saved in draft mode, so please do not submit an application before you’re ready for full consideration. Powerpoint slides and videos are optional to submit, but due to heavy application volumes, we strongly encourage you to submit a few slides and a short video for the best chance of moving forward with an interview. Video quality is not important, but getting a quick overview of your product is very important to us.
We expect to extend 15-25 offers for companies to launch and compete in the Startup Battlefield. The final number will be based on the applicant pool.
Startup AlleyAny company less than two years old and less than $2 million in financing is welcome to participate in the Startup Alley demo area. The audience’s favorite Startup Alley company will secure a spot into into Round One of Startup Battlefield live at Disrupt.
Yes, lots of news these days...! And we particularly like this one.
You already know that you can attach files to your tasks as a note. Pretty popular feature, because it's an easy way to manage different versions of your files, related to your tasks. By the way, if you send an email to task@producteev.com with a file attached to it, it will be automatically posted as a first note...
Back to our announcement : What if you didn't have to download those files to view them?
It's now a reality, we've partnered with Scribd (the Youtube for documents), so your files will be displayed right below the note, viewable in one click. And that's a game changer to us, makes things much easier to work on Files and comment on files without going through the painful download process.
You still have the choice though : Download or Preview.
Here is the list supported by Scribd :
So, how do you like this one?
- Portable Document Format (.pdf)
- PostScript (.ps)
- Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx)
- Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pps, .pptx)
- Microsoft Excel (.xls, xlsx)
- OpenOffice Text Document (.odt, .sxw)
- OpenOffice Presentation Document (.odp, .sxi)
- OpenOffice Spreadsheet (.ods, .sxc)
- All OpenDocument formats
- Plain text (.txt)
- Rich Text Format (.rtf)
- And we added Pictures (.jpg, .png, .gif...)
SquarePik Adds Photos and Video to Foursquare
by rahsheenMarch 22, 2010Foursquare has gained a lot of popularity as one of the forerunners in the location-based application race, facing such competition as Gowalla and Yelp. All of these services are basically the same, but SquarePik adds another dimension of interaction that makes Foursquare just a little more interesting. SquarePik integrates with Foursquare to provide a method for attaching photos and videos to your checkins.
SquarePik is the brainchild of Pikchur Inc. (our coverage) and 39 Inc. It is currently only available as an iPhone application, which you can get from the App Store for $1.99. SquarePik works in three easy steps:
- Choose a venue from the list, or create one if it doesn’t exist
- Take a photo or record a video
- SquarePik automatically checks you in at that location
Not only will SquarePik give you the ability to add rich media to your Foursquare checkins, but it also lets you view any media that others have shared while checking in at that location. This opens up a few different and interesting possibilities. Foursquare has already created a game around their location checkins, but an individual visiting any venue could start their very own game or meme. Those visiting after the fact would see the photo/video and copy it. A real-estate agent could checkin at various properties that they manage and post media describing the details and “secrets” of that property. An artist could post media related to a live performance at a specific venue. People attending any event after that would be able to see, via SquarePik, exactly how that event went down and possibly gain the artist some new fans.
The possibilities here are very interesting and make me think of a Lokast-type system, with the ability to leave things behind for others to find. Also, combined with Zillow, this could be a powerful tool for Real Estate agents. A trusted source tells me that SquarePik may eventually grow into a “full-blown Foursquare client.” That should open up some interesting possibilities in it’s own right. The only thing I wish for is the ability to access SquarePik via the web. Pikchur and Foursquare both have web interfaces, so it’s not much of a stretch.
Category: Reviews | Tags: 39 inc., foursquare, location based services, pikchur
SquarePik Adds Photos and Video to Foursquare
by rahsheenMarch 22, 2010Foursquare has gained a lot of popularity as one of the forerunners in the location-based application race, facing such competition as Gowalla and Yelp. All of these services are basically the same, but SquarePik adds another dimension of interaction that makes Foursquare just a little more interesting. SquarePik integrates with Foursquare to provide a method for attaching photos and videos to your checkins.
SquarePik is the brainchild of Pikchur Inc. (our coverage) and 39 Inc. It is currently only available as an iPhone application, which you can get from the App Store for $1.99. SquarePik works in three easy steps:
- Choose a venue from the list, or create one if it doesn’t exist
- Take a photo or record a video
- SquarePik automatically checks you in at that location
Not only will SquarePik give you the ability to add rich media to your Foursquare checkins, but it also lets you view any media that others have shared while checking in at that location. This opens up a few different and interesting possibilities. Foursquare has already created a game around their location checkins, but an individual visiting any venue could start their very own game or meme. Those visiting after the fact would see the photo/video and copy it. A real-estate agent could checkin at various properties that they manage and post media describing the details and “secrets” of that property. An artist could post media related to a live performance at a specific venue. People attending any event after that would be able to see, via SquarePik, exactly how that event went down and possibly gain the artist some new fans.
The possibilities here are very interesting and make me think of a Lokast-type system, with the ability to leave things behind for others to find. Also, combined with Zillow, this could be a powerful tool for Real Estate agents. A trusted source tells me that SquarePik may eventually grow into a “full-blown Foursquare client.” That should open up some interesting possibilities in it’s own right. The only thing I wish for is the ability to access SquarePik via the web. Pikchur and Foursquare both have web interfaces, so it’s not much of a stretch.
Category: Reviews | Tags: 39 inc., foursquare, location based services, pikchur
Miami, Florida-based Labotec has landed a round of funding from Kima Ventures, a European early-stage investment fund founded by entrepreneurs and angel investors Jeremie Berrebi (Zlio, Net2One) and Square backer Xavier Niel (Free, Iliad).The VC firm thus joins Kipost and FS Ventures as investors of the crowd-sourced mobile app development venture. The size of the round remains undisclosed, but we hear the amount of financing totaled just south of a seven-figure sum, so we'll peg it at in between $800,000 and $999,999.Labotec offers a relatively unique way of mobile app publishing, based on crowd-sourcing ideas from third parties. Basically, people who have ideas for mobile applications on any of the major platforms but lack the time, development skills or resources to actually build them can submit their ideas through the Labotec website. The ideas are subsequently evaluated by Labotec, and if one gets thumbs up from a committee of unnamed field experts associated with the company, Labotec funds the entire development, distribution and marketing of the app. The IP is co-owned by whoever submitted the idea ¿ targeted are carriers and handset manufacturers ¿ and Labotec.The 'Inspirer' (the person or organization that brought forward the idea for the app) doesn't pay a cent, but if the app ends up generating revenue, the first $25,000 that it makes goes to Labotec ¿ no matter how long it took to get to that point. After that, the Inspirer gets 50% of any revenue that may follow. Labotec notes that they're still testing this model and that it is subject to change in the future.Labotec says that it has received hundreds of new project ideas from 27 countries since its inception in May 2009. A total of 3 applications out of those ideas have launched (iSOS for Android, iMove2Music and FakeSMS for iPhone) and 20 are slated for release by the end of this year ¿ which basically means a lot of the submitted ideas are junk. The company says it plans to use part of the just-raised capital to hire 10 more developers of mobile apps for platforms such as iPhone, Android, iPad and BlackBerry.CrunchBase InformationLabotecInformation provided by CrunchBase
Miami, Florida-based Labotec has landed a round of funding from Kima Ventures, a European early-stage investment fund founded by entrepreneurs and angel investors Jeremie Berrebi (Zlio, Net2One) and Square backer Xavier Niel (Free, Iliad).
The VC firm thus joins Kipost and FS Ventures as investors of the crowd-sourced mobile app development venture. The size of the round remains undisclosed, but we hear the amount of financing totaled just south of a seven-figure sum, so we’ll peg it at in between $800,000 and $999,999.
Labotec offers a relatively unique way of mobile app publishing, based on crowd-sourcing ideas from third parties. Basically, people who have ideas for mobile applications on any of the major platforms but lack the time, development skills or resources to actually build them can submit their ideas through the Labotec website.
The ideas are subsequently evaluated by Labotec, and if one gets thumbs up from a committee of unnamed field experts associated with the company, Labotec funds the entire development, distribution and marketing of the app. The IP is co-owned by whoever submitted the idea – targeted are carriers and handset manufacturers – and Labotec.
The ‘Inspirer’ (the person or organization that brought forward the idea for the app) doesn’t pay a cent, but if the app ends up generating revenue, the first $25,000 that it makes goes to Labotec – no matter how long it took to get to that point. After that, the Inspirer gets 50% of any revenue that may follow. Labotec notes that they’re still testing this model and that it is subject to change in the future.
Labotec says that it has received hundreds of new project ideas from 27 countries since its inception in May 2009. A total of 3 applications out of those ideas have launched (iSOS for Android, iMove2Music and FakeSMS for iPhone) and 20 are slated for release by the end of this year – which basically means a lot of the submitted ideas are junk.
The company says it plans to use part of the just-raised capital to hire 10 more developers of mobile apps for platforms such as iPhone, Android, iPad and BlackBerry.
Miami, FL (March 15, 2010) Labotec announced today that it has secured a round of funding from major strategic partner Kima Ventures, founded by Jeremie Berrebi (Zlio, Net2One) and Xavier Niel (Free,Iliad). Europe-based fund Kima Ventures joins Kipost and FS Ventures as an investor in Labotec. The company plans to use the funds to accelerate growth in all areas of its business and to support its plans for massive scale in 2010.
Labotec is pioneering a new form of mobile applications publishing based on crowd-sourced ideas. Since its recent inception, Labotec has received hundreds of new project ideas from 27 countries. 3 applications have already launched (iSOS for Android, iMove2Music for iPhone, FakeSMS for iPhone) and 20 are slated for release by the end of the year. Labotec engages with innovators that have always dreamed to see their ideas commercialized and be given the right tools to succeed in the marketplace.
“Mobile applications are becoming a must-have for subscribers and carriers, Labotec has the potential to turn an idea into a great business” said Jeremie Berrebi, partner in Kima Ventures.
“Our goal is to produce a user-oriented portfolio of applications on mobile devices such as iPhone/iPad/iPod, Android or BlackBerry” explains Florian Seroussi, Labotec co-founder.
“Kima Ventures and its founders bring another layer of opportunities we couldn’t approach until now” says Pierre-Olivier Carles, CEO of Kipost.
According to research analyst Research2guidance, the surge in applications will be driven by a fast-growing number of smartphone users, estimated to increase from about 100 million in 2009 to nearly 1 billion by 2013. Yearly application revenues will rise from US$1.94 billion (2009) to US$15.65 billion in only four years, according to most recent research findings.
About Labotec Inc
Labotec’s mission is to select great application ideas for iPhone, iPod, iPad, Android or Blackberry, finance them, and gather the required resources together to go to market with a finished application on any Application Store.
For that purpose, Labotec has established a selection and approval process that is both simple and swift. Labotec Inc HQ is based in Miami, Florida, with an office in Toulouse, France.About Kima Ventures
Kima Ventures fund launched in 2010 by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. Our goal is to support and finance innovative companies with seed capital all over the world and to promotes the growth of startups, supporting them in the fastest and most effective ways.
Kima Ventures partners with the best business angels and venture, funds, and invests primarily in projects that meet a simple need and have a simple business model.Labotec Inc
20900 NE 30th Ave Suite 603
Miami, Florida, USA
Twitter: @Labotec
info@labotec.comPR Contacts:
Europe
Stephane Menoret
stephane@labotec.com
+33 6 77 55 01 41US
Florian Seroussi
florian@labotec.com
+1 417 262 60060 Comments | Posted by admin March 16, 2010
This is a review of Producteev by Charles Lau.
In today’s Internet, we have blogs, social networks, social bookmarks, wikis, and all other sorts of webware that we can lay our hands on. The Internet is also finding ways to make you platform independent with all the software that you are using such as office productivity software (with Google Docs), email software (with Gmail) and image editing (with Picnik).
How about managing your projects and tasks with your job? You have been a really busy executives and managers, and you would really hope how you can make your work more efficient.
Well in fact, one of the most time-consuming tasks in your project(s) is the task of managing the priority of all the actual tasks. You would hope to know what you need to do today, and what your staff are doing in exactly the way you wanted. You don’t have to micro-manage them, in order to manage what they are doing today, tomorrow and the day after. All you need to do, is to manage the actual task overview of each employee.
Introduction to Producteev
Today, I am going to talk about Producteev. It is an intuitive and fully drag & drop-able solution to collaborate with your colleagues over shared projects and tasks.
How did I manage to find this site? I chance upon this site through Chris Brogan on twitter. And I thought this is quite a good addition to our world wide web!
Here’s a summary of what Producteev is:
- In a nutshell, you can create tasks for yourself or to assign to members of your team, and you can then leave comments on these tasks as your project evolves with time.
- You will be accessing to a lot of useful task-management features such as file management, reminders, a calendar and numerous third-party applications such as mobile apps, desktop and IM bots.
- You will also be able to manage both the tasks as well as to-do lists, and communicate efficiently with your team.
In fact, as you can see, it is still in beta version currently. Even though the software is already in place, they must be still trying their very best to test the software first before they make it official.
Overview of Producteev
You will see boxes of to-do tasks on your dashboard when you log into the system. And on every box, you will share your tasks with your colleagues, or to make it private. You are free to create a new box whenever necessary. (See below)
There is also a live feed section for you to find out what your colleagues have done in the tasks. This live feed also allows you to message your colleagues, upload a file to the message, and even to message privately. (See below)
You can also upload files onto the server. Your colleagues can also comment on it. (See below)
Any other features on top of that?
Simply said, this is what Producteev is all about. And they surround their features to be compatible with different mobile devices. On top of that, you can also sync Producteev with the various services such as twitter to update your tasks!
Interview with Producteev CEO
I have been able to interview the founder and CEO of Producteev. His name is Ilan Abehassera.
When I approach Producteev, I wonder if they are going to accept my interview questions with my current startup of this blog. Never did I knew that Ilan is a really approachable person who not only answered all my questions immediately, he even added me in his LinkedIn account. Wow! Thanks Ilan.
Here’re the questions I have interviewed on 2 April 2009:
1) When did you start to have this idea of starting this website?
Ans: I had the idea 2 years ago, and starting working on a prototype 1 year ago. I finally decided to start a company around it on July 8, 20082) How long have you been working on this site?
Ans: Since June 1st 2008, so 10 months3) What’s your vision of this site?
Ans: ”Producteev is building the first productivity platform developed on top of the tools we all rely on every day (email, IM, mobile, desktop, outlook, gmail, google docs,…)”Group Task Management is still a largely unsolved problem : emails or IM are used as our main tool to assign tasks to colleagues, but we can all agree those are not efficient to manage and track tasks and projects.
=> With Producteev.com, we help you centralize tasks, projects, internal communication and files by using whatever communication service you rely on.
4) What is the server technology behind? Why is the server able to support all of our information in terms of space and bandwidth?
Ans: We are based on the LAMP stack, with 2 servers (1 web server + 1 mysql server)5) How many of you are working on maintaining this website?
Ans: 3 full time6) Will there be any always-ongoing research to further improve the system?
Ans: Of course, we have a huge roadmap ahead of us, and just recruited a mathematician that will build a better algorithm to prioritize tasks (but sshhhh, this is a secret!)Conclusion
First of all, I would like to thank Ilan for the interview in this blog post. His other two colleagues include Aric Lasry (Co-Founder and Lead Developer) and Simon Dawlat (Director Product Marketing). They have a lot of experiences before they work on this project with Ilan. You may find out more about them in their “about us” page.
Looks like Producteev is progressing as I have just checked Ilan’s twitter that they are employing their first employee! Congratulations!
Producteev certainly has potential as this very simple task management can be quite complicated when it involves two or more people. I can tell you that because I have been working in an office and most of our time is to keep our tasks insync! We’ll see how this project is going to evolve into!
Fake SMS is out and available on the App Store
Fake SMS is one of the most succeeded app that gives you the opportunity to make some jokes to your friends. Simply create fake text conversations from fake contacts (eg : Barack Obama) or real friends.
You can create as many messages as you want for each conversation and choose the elapsed time between the reception of each one of them. You can also decide if the first message will be sent by you or the fake contact to initiate the conversation!
With this system, you can simulate a strongly credible conversation and trap your friends, family, colleagues … !
Fake SMS will allow you to avoid a party or a meeting by showing a fake text conversation with one of your parent, or let your friends think that you.Get it here: App Store iTunes Link
Posted by admin January 15, 2010
We here @ Pikchur have been working really hard on a few things lately. The first is our joint venture with 39llc to develop a Foursquare application that allows you to check-in with multimedia.
It’s called SquarePik.
The application allows people to check-in with a photo or video. In addition, the app will show users all photos and videos dropped at a particular venue. Along with some of the expected features such as, the ability to add locations, search for locations, and view your friend’s last checkins, we hope to provide a supplementary application to the already popular Foursquare iPhone app.
The app is built on top of our new “GeoSocial” API (more on that later) and is available in the iTunes store for just $1.99
Now, our new Geo-Social API is aimed at providing developers of geo social apps such as Foursquare the ability to quickly integrate the following features:
- Multimedia check-ins (Photos & Videos)
- Pull feed of Media Dropped @ a venue
- Pull feed of Thumbnails for a list of venues.
- Allow for multimedia tips (coming soon)
Documentation for our API can be found here : http://groups.google.com/group/pikchur-api/web/geosocial-api-documentation
We also added the following to Pikchur.com:
- Landing pages with Foursquare venue badges: http://pikchur.com/Muq
- Geo social venue specific timelines: http://pikchur.com/timeline/foursquare*368848
- Nifty venue RSS feeds: http://pikchur.com/rss/geosocial/foursquare/368848
Well that’s it for now, stay tuned as we improve SquarePik and our Geo social API.
As always, feel free to reach us with your comments, concerns and feed back @ info at pikchur dot com
Thanks,
The Pikchur Crew.
iSOS app can be activated in case of an emergency. Just by one click on the icon, iSOS will send emergency voice, texts messages, emails, FB and twitter updates to 5 of your chosen contacts. Plus, it automatically calls 911 (112 UE) and send your GPS-positioning so that people can find you and help you easily & efficiently.
Get isos on Market today
As Foursquare
continues to gain momentum (both in users and with mainstream deals), a number of services are popping up to augment it. The latest is Pikchur
, a service that already lets you share you pictures on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other services. And now they’ve added Foursquare to the mix, and built an entirely new iPhone app just for it.
SquarePik is an app that lets you check-in on Foursquare while at the same time dropping an image or video at a venue you check-in at. Because Foursquare doesn’t support media natively, SquarePik does by combining Foursquare’s check-in API with its own backend to store the pictures and record their location. Sadly, to see these pictures or videos you have to sign in to your Pikchur account (which you can do with your Foursquare credentials) on the web.
Still, it’s kind of cool that Pikchur was able to build an entirely new Foursquare iPhone app with added functionality. Some people may even prefer its look and feel as it features bigger icons and a large centrally-located check-in button. The downside is that the venue location information doesn’t seem to be as accurate as Foursquare’s actual iPhone app, and there are none of the other goodies such as seeing who else is at a venue. SquarePik also doesn’t break up check-ins by city, it just shows them all in a stream.
Pikchur is the latest service to add picture functionality on top of Foursquare. Last month, Photocheck.in started offering the same idea, but it’s slightly different in that you send a geotagged picture and it checks you in on Foursquare at the address. TweetPhoto quickly followed with an approach that is much more like Pikchur’s (but again, Pikchur’s is all about their native iPhone app).
Given Fousquare’s growth it should be no surprise that we’re seeing these new services that reside on top of it much like we did with Twitter. And while one might think Foursquare could eventually cripple these simply by adding a native photo element, that was also said about Twitter, but it never happened. That said, given that Foursquare is much more app-centric, I wouldn’t be shocked if we do see the ability to tag pictures to venues eventually.
Find SquarePik in the App Store for $1.99
.
You have extra days to vote and help us to be selected by VentureBeat to present at the MobileBeat 2010 conference in SF on July 12-13.
The nomination process has been extended until June 21 and the winner will be announced on June 28.
Vote for LABOTEC here
On July 12-13, 500 mobile industry leaders will join the third annual MobileBeat conference organised by VentureBeat.
Offering expanded content and networking, this conference will gather experts from the major U.S and international carriers, to the top device makers, developers, marketers, and investors.
Labotec has been nominated for this year MobileBeat startup competition. The goal is to showcase the top 20 companies with the coolest mobile ideas for the coming 4G world. The two winners – those with the most votes – will get to join the other 18 companies selected by VentureBeat to present at the MobileBeat 2010 conference in SF on July 12-13.
Vote for us before June 7th. The 2 winner names will be published on June 14th.
Meanwhile follow us @Labotec on twitter.
Google I/O starts tomorrow with 2 days of deep technical content featuring Android and other Google products.
More than 5,000 developers will participate including Labotec‘s development team.
To celebrate the event our way we will offer iSOS Emergency Application for FREE [regular price $2.49] for 48 hours.
iSOS is an emergency application that calls 911/112 and sends an alert to 5 of your contacts via voice messages, texts, emails, Twitter and Facebook. GPS coordinates are sent so you can be easily located.
iSOS was a finalist during Le Web conference in Paris and received the people’s vote during AppsFire Awards.
Download the application via QR Code to get your free copy. Offer ends on May 20th 8PM PT.
Follow @googleio for the latest updates on I/O. (official hashtag: #io2010) and @Labotec on Twitter.
We needed to refresh our year-old website. It’s done. Upgrade will continue as few more pages are to be added soon.
Huge thanks to the people of Koombea for their work.
Feel free to report bugs, typos, suggestions and more to info@labotec.com.
Are you a developer that knows the iPhone SDK and/or Android inside and out? Have you been spending too many Friday nights perfecting every line of code? Are you a graphic designers dream?We’re looking for a rock-star iPhone and/or Android Developer ready to immerse themselves in the start-up experience. Someone who is willing to prove they have what it takes to step into the ring, and follow through on what they say.
Our company is in stealth start-up mode with the ideas everyone wants, and we’re looking for the perfect match to help crunch some code.
Our team is a small group of driven, high-level professionals already working in the industry. We don’t mind burning through nights and weekends to build the products, and the company we’re passionate about. There’s no entitlement attitude in this bunch. Just a select few who know what it means to work hard, and dream outside the box.
The ideal candidate should have experience as a developer with extensive knowledge of Objective-C, and REST-ful web services. Additionally, they will have experience in coding iPhone Apps with successful submission to the App Store. The candidate must also be able to come up with and implement solutions on their own, and be able to effectively communicate with all other team-members and stakeholders on a daily basis.
Please email us jobs@labotec.com
We recently received a few request with people asking us how it is you go about editing your photos contrast, red eye, rotate or even crop on Pikchur.com
So we decided to write this short 3 step post on how to get started.
Step 1: Login, Go to your photo and click “Edit Photo”
Step 2: Go to the bottom and Click “Edit With Picnik”
Step 3 Begin to edit!
And thats it!
Hope that helps, as always thanks for choosing Pikchur :)
Sorry for the late post, we sent out word that we support the new echo Auth functionality twitter released but forgot to write a blog post about it.
For documentation on how to integrate the new support please review our API Docs @ : http://bit.ly/dbWGQe
Feel free to reach us any time @ API@Pikchur.com for support/feedback.
~The Pikchur Crew
Hey guys,
As you know Twitter for the iPhone is out, and allows for “custom” photo posting. To Add Pikchur support to your Account simple follow the steps below.
First Click More
Next Click Settings
Now Click Account & Settings
Select Services
Next Click Image Service
Then Select Custom
And Finally enter this URL
(Custom Photo URL http://api.pikchur.com/twitter)
And thats it, you now have the ability to post directly to Pikchur via Twitter for the iPhone.
As always feel free to reach us anytime, we love to hear from you.
~The Pikchur Crew
Hey, you can now post images & videos to Pikchur from Twitterrific, how sweet is that!? Here is how you do it:
1) Launch the application and tap on the Compose button in the upper-right corner of the screen.
2) In the window that appears, tap on the camera icon and select “Change Upload Service”.
3) At the bottom of the list that’s displayed, you’ll see “Other…”. Tap that and you see a text field where you can specify the “Media Service URL Endpoint”.
4) Enter “http://api.pikchur.com/twitterrific” and then tap outside the popover window to dismiss it. Done!
That’s it you’re set to use Pikchur in Twitterrific for photos & videos :)
What’s nice is that this media end point supports twitters new echo oAuth functionality so no need to update your settings with the Restful API is shut down.
Hope you guys like it :)
-Pikchur
Thanks to @Davidedichillo suggesting we add the end point, and helping us write the how to get Pikchur on the iPad instructions.
Great news, triggers now work within our API as well as our mms/email posting methods. Which means any application that supports Pikchur will now be able to have a basic trigger system which will override your posting settings on the go! We have plans to include some pretty slick custom triggers really soon, but for now refer to this list of service triggers.
To override any of the services you are posting to simply include the trigger in the subject of your post in the following format :
To turn posting OFF for a service: -triggername-
To turn posting ON for a service: +triggername+
Twitter( tw )
FourSquare( 4sq )
Flickr( fk )
Tumblr( tr )
Jaiku( jk )
Facebook( fb )
FriendFeed( ff )
Plurk( pl)
Identi.ca( id )
Koornk( ko )
Totspot( ts )
Brightkite( bk )
For example if your account settings are :
Lets say you want to not send to twitter but you do want to send to Plurk.
All you would have to do is in your subject/message is add the following triggers -tw- +pl+
When we recive your request we will override your account settings to match your trigger request and filter out the triggers from your message for that one upload.
We are working on some pretty neat things to be released really soon, so keep an eye out!
~The Pikchur Crew
Pikchur Teams up with @France2TV to launch a contest for a chance to win 2 tickets to the Coupe d’Europe de Rugby 2010.
Homepage: http://france2.pikchur.com/
Timeline: http://france2.pikchur.com/timeline
Media Landing Page: http://france2.pikchur.com/OsK
“Envoyez une photo typée Rugby à rugby@pocarles.com et vous la retrouverez ici http://bit.ly/9YAfuM Les 2 plus RT avant lundi gagnent ! :-)” - @France2TV
In order to win you must have the most Retweets, we look forward to seeing what Piks come in and good luck!
~The Pikchur Crew
We here @ Pikchur have been working really hard on a few things lately. The first is our joint venture with 39llc to develop a Foursquare application that allows you to check-in with multimedia.
It’s called SquarePik.
The application allows people to check-in with a photo or video. In addition, the app will show users all photos and videos dropped at a particular venue. Along with some of the expected features such as, the ability to add locations, search for locations, and view your friend’s last checkins, we hope to provide a supplementary application to the already popular Foursquare iPhone app.
The app is built on top of our new “GeoSocial” API (more on that later) and is available in the iTunes store for just $1.99
Now, our new Geo-Social API is aimed at providing developers of geo social apps such as Foursquare the ability to quickly integrate the following features:
- Multimedia check-ins (Photos & Videos)
- Pull feed of Media Dropped @ a venue
- Pull feed of Thumbnails for a list of venues.
- Allow for multimedia tips (coming soon)
Documentation for our API can be found here : http://groups.google.com/group/pikchur-api/web/geosocial-api-documentation
We also added the following to Pikchur.com:
- Landing pages with Foursquare venue badges: http://pikchur.com/Muq
- Geo social venue specific timelines: http://pikchur.com/timeline/foursquare*368848
- Nifty venue RSS feeds: http://pikchur.com/rss/geosocial/foursquare/368848
Well that’s it for now, stay tuned as we improve SquarePik and our Geo social API.
As always, feel free to reach us with your comments, concerns and feed back @ info at pikchur dot com
Thanks,
The Pikchur Crew.
Wether you guys have been naughty or nice this year, doesn’t really matter to us! As thanks for all the support you have given us, we decided to throw a short but sweet holiday contest.
Head over to the contest page, check out the prizes, and start sending in those holiday photos for your chance to win.
To enter this holiday cheer contest all you have to do is send in a photo or video that is holiday related to your Pikchur account with the hashtag #holidays09
We will select a winner based on a few attributes
1. Number of Re-tweets
2. Number of “UNIQUE” views (not view counter on landing page)
3. How creative the photo or video is.
4. Your entry must be dated after our contest has started (Don’t tag one of your popular photos or videos :-])
Happy holidays :-)
Pikchur
Sorry for the down time, will be right back!
~The Pikchur Team
Hey, you can now post images to Pikchur from Tweetie, how sweet is that!? Here is how you do it:
1. Open Tweetie and go to settings, should be under account.
2. Click on Image service and then go down and click on custom.
3. Enter http://api.pikchur.com/tweetie as the posting url.
That’s it you’re set to use Pikchur in Tweetie for photos :-) If they add a custom url for video posting then you will also be able to post videos to Pikchur via Tweetie.
Happy Friday
-Pikchur
Good evening ladies and gentelman, on this edition of what’s new on Pikchur, we bring you Picnik editing and Retweeting of photos and videos!
We don’t know about you but we have grown to love Picnik’s service, it really makes editing photos a snap. Well, we are proud to announce that we now support full photo editing via picnik. All you have to do is edit any of your images and a nice little “Edit With Picnik” section will appear on the bottom right of the page. Click on it, and edit away! Once you are done, our busy rendering bots will grab your edits and spit out your image to reflect the changes you’ve made.
While doing this update we also decided to jump on the tweetmeme bandwagon and add a Retweet button to all image and video landing pages (Just like the one on the top right of this post). So if you see a nifty image of a kick ass Leprechaun, or a crafty video of a nifty pigeon exercising, you can quickly and easily surface it to your Twitter stream.
Below is a short screen cast of the photo editing features in action. Enjoy
-Pikchur
Hey guys,
As you may or may not know, we moved our servers to a new home today! This means we are going to be a lot more responsive and overall better!
As for the more interesting stuff, we pushed a slew of sweet new updates for you guys. By far the biggest item on the list .. drumb roll… Motion Pikchures! You can now use your mobile device or our website to upload videos! Yeah, you heard us, we now support video in addition to photos! So give it a try, you don’t even to change anything, just send in videos as if you were sending in photos.
As for the complete change log, here it is:
-Video support
-Find friends on facebook and twitter that are also on pikchur
-Completely revamped profile pages.
Ex: http://pikchur.com/people/jewgonewild or http://pikchur.com/people/Orical
-API upgrades and fixes
-API modified to support videos
-API feed functions revamped
Happy Piking!
Hey again! Another day, another update..This time we are showing Nokia some love and welcoming them to our family of supported services. If you haven’t noticed Nokia Ovi Share is pretty nifty and has very cool media management, so we decided it would be a great addition.
If you don’t have an account you can sign up, it’s quick and easy, once you’re done, head over to Pikchur, log in and sync in your Ovi account!
Important: In order for us to post photos to your Ovi Share page you must add an album called “Pikchur” to your Ovi account. (Excuse my quick ‘photoshopping’)
These are just minor updates for now, but stay tuned, we have a big one coming out reallllly soon.
Hope you guys enjoy!
The Pikchur Crew
Hey guys, hope everyone’s having a good Tuesday. We pushed a small update and added Posterous as a posting service. Now you can add your primary Posterous blog to Pikchur, snap away and your shots will cross post to your Posterous blog!
I leave you with a video of bunliu for inspiration. Happy Piking!
Updated: We are back up and running with Twitter posting, any photos sent in via MMS,mobile,web and 3rd party apps should now be posting to Twitter, happy days ;-)
Hey guys,
We are aware that none of you can log in to Pikchur via twitter basic authentication or OAUTH (Please note that Twitter OAUTH is completly down). It seems that the basic Twitter API is up and running, however our servers seem to have been mistakenly blacklisted from using it.
This is most likely do to the Twitter DDOS attack that occured yesterday. They are probably blacklisting a lot of people in order to get the situation under control.We have contacted Twitter and are waiting for a response back. Hopefullywe can get back up and running ASAP.
These issues also effect posting your photos via the web, MMS, and certain Twitter clients that use our API. Please be patient as we are trying our best to get Twitter authorization and posting back to normal.
Thanks,
The Pikchur Crew.
Hey guys!
Hope everyone is doing great! We wanted to let you know that we just enabled a Content Distribution Network (CDN), which will make everything on the site load a little faster, well a lot faster ;-)
The CDN has various access points, so no matter where you load up Pikchur from you’ll notice an instant boost in speed, and overall responsiveness. The following edge locations are enabled:
United States
• Ashburn, VA
• Dallas/Fort Worth, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• Miami, FL
• Newark, NJ
• Palo Alto, CA
• Seattle, WA
• St. Louis, MO
Europe
• Amsterdam
• Dublin
• Frankfurt
• London
Asia
• Hong Kong
• Tokyo
This is one more step we are taking to ensure you enjoy your experience with us. Feel free to drop us a line with any questions/suggestions you have.
Happy Piking!
~The Pikchur Crew
As you may or may not have noticed, last night we pushed a new version of Pikchur with an enchanced UI and revamped homepage. Of course this is just some of what we’ve been working on so here is the full feature list for anyone who cares to read on ;-)
Design/UI
Homepage (http://pikchur.com)
This page has been completely re-designed to give us a more simplistic to the point look. Our previous page had to much going on and we didn’t want to overwhelm newcomers ;-)
All pages (e.g http://pikchur.com/timeline)
A side menu can be found on all pages, this improves overall site navigation.
Dashboard (http://pikchur.com/dashboard)
We scrapped the tab based navigation and moved to a side menu. It’s a lot nicer and also allows you to find stuff you need quicker. We also consolidated the
We also removed the constant upload section that appeared on top of the dashboard pages and moved it to it’s own page. This allows us to display a lot more content on the page and push everything up a bit so you guys gain a lot more real estate.
Pikchur landing Page (e.g http://pikchur.com/CYG)
This page also has a side navigation menu and streamline views for sharing,feeds,and trackbacks. You will also notice two additional menu items if you are a Pikchur pro member. Statistics, and Original Size. More on these two later in the post.
Header and Footer
These are pretty minor and probably not worth noting, but the header on all pages changed as well as the footer. The header is significantly smaller than what we had before, and again allows for more info to be displayed on the page.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Functionality
Pro Accounts
We added the ability to purchase a Pikchur pro account. A full list of features can be found here: http://pikchur.com/upgrade
Twitter Oauth and Facebook Connect
This update was really overdue, but basically it makes connecting your Twitter and facebook accounts a breeze. For Twitter it also means a more secure experience, you never have to share your password with us ever again ;-)
Backend Tweaks
This might be boring stuff to you, but it gets us really excited anytime we optimize our image propogation, mail, MMS and backend processes. We won’t go in to to much detail here but lets just say our services are purring like a fine fed kitteh cat!
We hope you enjoy the cha cha changes and as always your feedback is welcomed!
~The Pikchur Crew
Hey guys,
Sorry for the down time, but we assure you it’ll be worth it. We are very excited to anounce our next release of Pikchur.
You should notice alot of cool new features as well as a completely redesigned user experience.
It should only take a few minutes, so bare with us.
We’ll post a full list of features and updates later on, but we are pretty sure you’ll figure everything out.
For now, please take the time to view this “very” important public service anouncment from He-man & Shira.
Thanks and Happy Pikking!
The Pikchur Crew
So I bet you guys are wondering what we actually do here @ Pikchur besides drink beer and watch Diggnation? Well, we eat cake, oh and release features from time to time.
Some of these delightful treats include
….
Here is a more detailed look at some of the features from the list:
Friends / Followers / Activity Streams
You can now follow and have people follow you back on Pikchur.
Follow your friends Public Pikchur activity, Piks, comments, and new followings.
We also made our comments a lot smarter! Now when you leave a comment on a Pikchur, a link back is included as well as the option of embedded @’s to services that don’t support threaded conversations (or have limited support for them). This eliminates out of context status updates.
So for example , I send a pik, (@Orical) and you leave a comment of “Nice pik”, we will, if enabled add the @Orical Nice Pik to your outgoing comment. This pretty much eliminates all out of context conversations.
….
There are a bunch of more features we just added, so come join us!
~The Pikchur Crew
Peter & Emmanuel
Hey guys, we made this snazzy little vid on Seesmic. Come say hi! :)
Link to Seesmic landing page: http://seesmic.com/videos/H61MuQ12rx
~Peter & Emmanuel
Syncing your Producteev workspace is easy!
Go to the Calendar View of your workspace, in the web app footer and select Sync with Google Calendar. You will then be prompted to grant access.
Moments later that workspace will be available in your google calendar. It will appear as a new calendar and given the title of your workspace. To unsync, take two quick steps:
The third tab in calendar settings contains your mobile setup. Most carriers are supported. Enter your mobile number and the verification code you receive on your cell phone.
Lastly, be sure to set your gcal notifcations in Producteev to receive SMS notifications (under Communications Preferences).
Then, you're all set. We hope you enjoy syncing your workspace and receiving notifications via mobile phone!
TechStars, a seed capital and mentorship program for startups, now has its application process managed by Producteev.
So anytime someone has startup ideas they want to submit as an application to TechStars, from start to finish-- it will be overseen by the nifty "Producteev Applications" product.
"Producteev Applications" offers effortless collection, management and collaboration around your organization's applications (Universities, HR Departments, VC firms...). More information on this new product soon.
If you've got the next stellar submission, go for it at http://techstars.producteev.com!
A New York program is being launched from January 10 to April 8, 2011. The deadline is November 21st before the strike of midnight, so get a move on it!
Good luck!
PS: If you're an organization or institution interested in having your own "Producteev Applications," email contact at producteev.com today!
Michele K. is a suburban super mom. She and her husband Howard have three beautiful children: Alyssa, 11; Alex, 9; and Jared, 7.
Michele was delighted to have discovered Producteev through Android’s Astrid add-on. She finds much to love about Producteev and quickly became a hyper-user because it’s free and has an attractive, “simple” interface.
Q: How do you use Producteev?
Michele: I share a workspace called "Command Central" with my husband. I love that it helps my man and I are see the most up-to-date list at all times. Having a single repository is awesome. We’re able to see the same Google calendar, which makes the kids' chauffeuring needs crystal clear. Also, we’re both on the same page when it comes to household duties, and even simple little questions that we would forget to ask otherwise.
The convenience of our tasks showing up on the Gmail page, where we are already synced with a calendar for each person in the family, is great! We are looking at it all day, anyway. Google tasks is woefully and pitifully inadequate.
With all this info at our fingertips, we waste a lot less time and mental energy having purely logistical conversations about "remember to do this" or "where is the party" or "what is left on the yard work list" or "who do I give it to at school" and so on. Thankfully, we now have MORE time for the good stuff.
My husband is hooked and has started his own account now, with one tab for Command Central and another for work!
I have other workspaces just for myself. For example, I have a "Packing Workspace" with our packing list for family vacations. The labels represent the people in my family and the rooms in my home.
Q: Tell us about your experience with Producteev.
Michele: I especially love being able to assign tasks to each other. Leaving notes, questions, or web links for clarity is also pretty awesome. And the smart prioritizing of tasks, including being able to star each other's tasks to indicate our opinion of its priority. And the ability to give a task many different labels! I think the label icons could be more exciting. I love the colors. But it would be even more fun to add stars, hearts, pluses, and other basic shapes that could also be custom-colored. I would color-code every person in my house and maybe see things at a glance easier.
I like having Producteev available on my nice, big desktop for major editing. And if I am out of town on vacation or waiting for an appointment, it’s right there in my hand. Woo hoo!
I’m super excited to crank out the tasks in a technologically harmonious wonderland. Especially once we get recurring tasks going! I think we’re going to have a long and meaningful relationship!
Now, enjoy a custom look and feel with your workspace!
Click on Workspace settings in the footer, and under the first tab called "Workspace" change the logo and background colors!
Check it out, and enjoy a two-week free trial of custom workspaces today. If you love it, you can change from a free to a plus, premium, or platinum plan. Find out more on our pricing page.
How to Make the Most of a Small Workspace
Whether you're a college student or city dweller, most of us have workspaces and offices much smaller than we'd like. Here's how to get the most from your workspace, no matter how small it is.
Photo from the Compact Productivity: The Walk-In Closet Workspace.
Before we get started, we're going to throw our most helpful tip out there. If you can empty the space that is, or will be, your workspace before getting started, your job as office makeover engineer will be much, much, easier. It's less stressful to start with a blank slate and add items in than it is to try and work around the existing workspace. You'll be fine either way, but if you can, start from empty.
Note: As always, rules were made to be broken. The tips below aim to provide helpful guidelines, but at the end of the day, if something works, it works.
Be Bold
People are inclined to make timid design choices in a small space. The space is small so everything should be small, including decisions about color and design considerations, right? Wrong. Sure you can't put a massive and ornately carved desk in a 6'x4' study nook, but that doesn't mean you have to go with a timid and tiny white desk and no color. Small spaces require more focus and design energy than large spaces because every single inch counts when you're appointing a tiny space. Make bold design choices but keep them few and far in between. Painting one wall red is a bold design choice. Painting one wall red, the desk blue, and covering it with Japanese figurines is something well beyond bold and cruising towards eye-sore territory. Photo from Tiny Workspaces: The Black Hole Home Office.Don't be afraid of color. A small workspace doesn't have to look like a newsprint page. Paint the wall green, red, bright blue, whatever color strikes your fancy and works with the palette of your space. If you don't add in some visual energy to your small space, it can feel draining to sit there working. Can't paint the walls? Put up a colorful print or poster. Use LED up-lighting to cast a colorful glow on the wall. Do something to introduce variation.
Go easy on the prints. Try to stick to solid or very subtle prints. A tiny home office may not be the place for a chair with a dense and loud fabric pattern. You may also want to keep objects like furniture and office chairs on the darker side, since light objects appear larger to the eye. A huge white leather executive chair in a small office will look even larger than a traditional black one. You can ignore this rule if you have really dark walls, a lighter desk or chair will stand out more and provide contrast if you have slate gray walls.
Accentuate areas of interest in your workspace. Does your office have an interesting window? Architectural details like period molding, textured walls, or other eye catching details? Try to accentuate them. A bare brick wall behind your desk offers far more visual interest than you'd be afforded with a matte white wall. Don't ignore the innate details in your office when choosing where to place your desk, shelves, and other office necessities. Photo from An Industrial Vibe: Workspace in a Wool Mill.
Don't skimp on the lighting. The recently featured workspace of Lifehacker reader Ed Venture (above) really drives home the importance of good lighting. His home office is a multipurpose media room, office, guest room, and all-purpose room for his family. He set up multiple lighting schemes for everything from studying to computer work to watching movies to reading on the couch. While you might not opt to have as many lighting schemes and effects as Ed, don't neglect to factor in lighting. Changes in lighting can dramatically shift the appearance of a small space. Consider bright lighting for tasks that need it, subdued back-lighting on your monitors for reduced eye strain, and general lighting to brighten the place up. Lighting is particularly important if you're dealing with a space that has little or no natural light.
Purge, Purge, and Purge Some More
Clutter is the absolute death of a small office. If you're going to have a functional and effective small office, you have to continually purge. Regular offices get cluttered up quickly; your tiny home office with a small desk and limited storage can be lost to a few days worth of junk mail and unsorted work. Photo from The Organic-Shelf Office.Corral and purge office clutter. You can't stop the flow of things into your office, but you can contain them properly. Everything should go through your inbox. (In this context, consider your inbox any defined space on your desk for stuff that needs processed.) If something can't fit into your inbox, then it's large enough you really need to deal with it right then and figure out where it belongs. Empty your inbox daily. File or shred daily. You don't have a big enough workspace to get into the habit of pushing piles around and dealing with things later. When you have a small workspace, your entire desk is the "Deal with it now!" zone. Not sure your filing system is up for the challenge of daily use? Beat your filing cabinet into shape with a filing system workflow.
While you're at it, if the task of keeping clutter at bay seems impossible, re-evaluate your office gear to simplify and declutter, ditch forgotten items, consider starting over with a clean slate, or use the "this isn't my stuff" approach to decluttering.
Organization Is Key to Small Office Happiness
Once you've got a solid handle on purging—and purging again and again!—it's time to focus on organization. If your office isn't well organized, chances are everything will end up on your desk. That's where everything goes in a messy office—right to the desk. The purging you did above will cut down on the stuff you need or organize; an organization plan will keep things tidy. Photo from The Organized Corner Office.Organize based on frequency of use, not location of use. People tend to think in terms of "Where do I use this?" rather than "How often do I use this?" when it comes to organizing and storing their office supplies. Scanners are a perfect example of this. If you're a design professional and you use a scanner every single day, it should be on your desk. If you use a scanner three or four times a year to scan legal documents or invoices, it should be stowed neatly on the top shelf of a closet or out of sight inside a piece of office furniture. Use your staple puller every day? Keep it on the desk or in your top desk drawer. Otherwise put it in the office supply bin in the closet. Use a big microphone for daily pod casts? Keep it out. Use it for once a year dub-overs on family films? Put it in the closet.
It sounds elementary when it's laid out like that but most people work along the lines of "This is a USB device, USB devices must be plugged into computers!" If you don't use it frequently, it has no purpose sitting on your space-constrained desk.
Use vertical spaces. Let's say you are so limited on space for your workspace that you can't carve out more than the spot your desk sits on. You've still got around 20-30 square feet of wall space right behind your desk that could have shelving on it. Don't overlook your vertical spaces. We don't suggest covering all your wall space with storage or cabinets, but you're missing out on prime storage space in a small office if you limit yourself to the desk and other low-to-the-ground furniture. Photo from The Floating Shelves and Hidden Cables Workspace.
Conceal the clutter. Unless you've reduced your entire workspace to a single table with a single laptop on it, there is no way you can avoid having a little office clutter. Having lots of stuff on surfaces, whether your desktop or shelving, really shrinks the space and makes it feel like there just isn't enough room. Use baskets on shelves to hold small objects, drawers under the desk, and try to minimize what sits on the desk. Remember if it's not in daily use it really shouldn't be on the desk.
Wrangle your cables. If a tangle of cables looks unsightly in a big office, it looks like a spider's nest of doom in a small one. We've shared numerous solutions over the years for managing your cable clutter. Our top 10 ways to get cables under control and cable management tag page are great places to get started brainstorming ideas on everything from creating a cable-free workspace to managing cords on your mobile devices, including using rain gutters as cable managers (above). Photo by Seandavid010.
Steal Some Great Ideas
Before we leave the topic of workspace design we need to take a peek at where you can get good design ideas. The easiest way to get great ideas for your small office is to look at other small offices and workspaces. In the gallery below we've grabbed some workspaces from the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool and our Compact Workspace call for submissions—these are just a fraction of the thousands of photos in the pool and our featured workspaces series.
Always keep your eye out for something that would work in your office. Not every office in the workspace pool will be the size as yours, in a color palette you like, or in the same budget range as you're working with, but you'll always be able to find something new and interesting to incorporate into your office.
Every small space workspace and its occupant have different needs. Starting with a blank slate, however, and introducing elements of color, good lighting for work and play, and purging unnecessary clutter will go a long way towards creating an effective and enjoyable workspace. Have a tip or trick to share for maximizing a small space? let's hear about it in the comments.
By Jason Fitzpatrick
Pierre-Simon Ntiruhungwa is a business student at ESCP Europe, in Paris. Like most over-achieving college students, Pierre-Simon is both a juggler and a hustler. He uses Producteev to get a hold of his academic projects, student job, and internship.
Q: Tell us about your experience with Producteev.
Pierre-Simon: Producteev really helps me organize the enormous amount of work I commit to doing. One of my favorite features is [GCal sync] the possibility of setting deadlines to tasks and then seeing them in my google calendar.
This is really helpful because I have an overview of all the things I need to do and when I have to do them. Producteev helps me balance my workload everyday. Above all, it helps me actually remember to do things, thanks to the reminders I am able to set.
Also, I just discovered natural language processing (NLP) on Producteev to help me set deadlines more quickly, and this is great! In addition, I like responding to Producteev emails once tasks are created. This is also great! I haven’t tried the other NLP capabilities, but it’s already proven to be pretty awesome.
Q: How do you use Producteev?
Pierre-Simon: I'm currently at the end of my first year so I'm doing a three-month internship at an internet start up in Paris. At the same time I am working for a professional union called Junior Enterprise. I will resume school in a few days, and I look forward to using Producteev for my business school assignments!
Before I used to put assignments on paper without being able to keep track of their deadlines. I can’t imagine how any student, especially ones in universities as challenging and demanding as mine, can accomplish all of their assignments without a tool like Producteev.
Even at our age, it is good to practice organization and task management. Everyday, I have friends telling me how they forgot to do something. And the more I do group work, the more I will encourage my fellow students to use Producteev so that we can mutually benefit....
All this, is of course, aimed at one thing: getting things done as quickly and efficiently as possible in order to spend more time having fun. Because we're still young!
Thanks @psntir! If you’re looking for help with the parts of your life that you juggle, give Producteev task management that works the way you do, a try.
This is a follow up blog post, from our closer look series on the Getting Things Done (GTD) method. It borrows ideas from “Part II: Practicing Stress-Free Productivity” of David Allen’s three-part book.
It is important to exert an action-orientated approach while processing your tasks. In other words, GTD processing is most effective when it's more about the "done" part, and less about the "getting" part. So anytime you process, be thinking about end goals you'd like to achieve with your task list.
Prepare your workspace by addressing:
Once you have all that, you may begin your Calendar items, or tasks with deadlines.
They can be tackled by applying the following criteria.
Examples are given in the accompanying video.
In addition, you may find helpful to use labels as the names of projects. If so, you will think in terms of a label representing a multi-step task. In this case, your Producteev tasks are actually sub-tasks of a much bigger project.
Cool Tip:
We recommend having color coded labels in your workspace. For instance, labels that have to do with scheduling can be in green. Meanwhile, labels that refer to contexts can appear in red. Your projects can then be labeled by all other colors in between.
Finally, you'll be able to take the GTD basics you implemented on your Producteev task management application and process them using GTD decision-action criteria. Good luck!
Dave Chenell (center) and Eric Cleckner, recent Syracuse grads, use Producteev to power two startups.
The first is graFighters, where hand-drawn characters come to life in a virtual battlefield. The second is enormo.us, described by Dave as a “small, creative ad agency.”
Both ventures are funded by the university’s Student Sandbox incubator, which offers alum a shot at developing their tech ambitions.
With limited time and resources before take off, Dave and Eric needed a task tool that was sleek enough for rapid adoption and strong enough to house their imaginative concoctions.
Q: How did you choose Producteev?
Dave: We didn't want a cumbersome system that got in our way. Producteev is a simple and lightweight tool that works with you.
Q: How do you use Producteev?
Dave: We put all our tasks, milestones, and meetings on our Produceev hub. We have new projects coming in all the time so our favorite feature is sending tasks via email. In fact, that’s what got us sold on Producteev: email and social media integration.
Dave, smiling: Also being a gaming startup, we are a fan of the gaming elements…
This wraps up a second real-life example of a Producteev team. Take it from Dave, Producteev is a task app that’s easy to learn and easy to work with. Thanks, @dave_chenell, for sharing your experience with us, and best of luck with your team’s endeavors!
Not yet a member of the Producteev fanclub? Sign up, get productive, and have fun while you’re at it! Our Academy is handing out productivity badges today!
A Producteev workspace complies with Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology using the following label system, complimented with other Producteev features. This blog post borrows ideas from “Part I: The Art of Getting Things Done” of David Allen’s three-part book.
The benefit of organizing your to-do list on Producteev with GTD methodology is having to remember less so that you can do more.
You can get things done on Producteev in the following steps:
*Note: If completing a task will take a matter of minutes, and you have the time to do so on the spot, you should complete it right then rather than procrastinating by adding it to your to-do list ;)
Basic elements of a GTD workspace include the following labels:
· Waiting – for tasks that you are waiting on someone else to complete
· Next action – for tasks that do not have deadlines, but need to be completed as quickly as you are able
· Someday/maybe – for items that you are considering doing
· Reference – for holding onto and easily accessing important information
Calendar items, or tasks with deadlines, will be covered in greater detail next time. For now, calendar items do not need a label, but instead will be an integral part of your workspace.
Tricky Features
Once you have the above labels and calendar elements set in your workspace, you’ll be able to use Producteev features with them. Here is list of a GTD-compliant features.
Waiting Assign tasks.
Next action Prioritize tasks with our 1-5 starring system.
Someday/maybe Perform reviews with our weekly digests.
Reference Attach files. Retrieve items with our search function.
Calendar Filter tasks, ex: Hot! Sort by deadline. Select calendar view.
This scratches the surface of how to apply GTD concepts on Producteev. We’ll cover tasks with deadlines next. In the mean time, you can try the labeling system and see how it works for you.
Allen encourages practical review of methodology, and you can let go of practices that you do not find helpful with Getting Things Done. If you already apply GTD material to your workspaces, we’d love to hear more! Tell us how you have adopted the methodology and modified your workspace to be GTD-friendly.
You requested. We delivered. Enjoy these new features from the Producteev team!
All-Day Tasks Set a day-specific deadline without assigning the time.
Use NLP to set a day-specific deadline via web, e-mail and IM, and your task will fill the entire day. The SCHEDULE IT pop now offers blank fields for the time, unless otherwise specified. Default reminders have been removed as well, for your convenience.
Active Task Counter Easily see the number of active tasks for any field in the left sidebar (filters, labels, people...).
Refer to the right of the selected field. In this instance, there are 4 active tasks Due Today.
Keep letting us know how we can make Producteev work the way you do. Submit your ideas on UserVoice today!
Jessica and Calvin Gilbert are your typical city dwelling married couple that recently moved to the country and purchased a “fixer-upper”. Jessica is a recent graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a master’s degree in Education. Calvin is a graphic designer, web developer and social media strategist for a large non-profit organization.
They chose Producteev for simplicity and flexibility. They use it for just about everything, from getting household chores to web mastering DONE!
Q: Tell us about your experience with Producteev.
Calvin: I started using Producteev at my job to keep my day in order. Once we purchased our house, my traditional office job converted to a home office position.
I researched and tried many different task/project management tools and felt Producteev was the best match. What really sold me on Producteev, apart from the visually appealing interface, was the ability to control my tasks and projects via e-mail and instant messenger.This was HUGE! Before Producteev, I had to take my e-mail task and retype it into various online tools.
Q: How do you use Producteev?
Calvin: After using Producteev for two weeks I realized the site had way more potential than just keeping track of my work projects.
Jessica and Calvin: We created a shared workspace named “house”. In this workspace, we keep track of all the TO DO items we need to get done around the house. From painting the bathroom to dropping off donations at Goodwill, Producteev helps us get things done.
One of the best features of the to do list is that we can assign each other tasks and projects, and see them getting checked off and completed.
Tagging [labeling] projects and assigning them priority has helped simplify our lives. It is really nice to tag things we need to purchase “BUY” and things I need to do as “TO DO.” Being able to filter views by tags really helps us stay focused and complete items one by one.
Calvin jokingly: I also use Producteev to hunt zombies in the evening so….you’re welcome.
There you have it, another example of Producteev in the real world. Sign up today.
We hope you liked this first interview of a small team, in this case a married couple, in action! Thank you, Jessica & Calvin!
Congratulations to Alexandre Delivet (@adelivet) who named the Producteev beaver "Tasky" and won a recent Facebook fanpage contest.
If you missed out, no sweat! More fun activities and t-shirt giveaways coming soon!
Thank you to all our fans who participated.
Try Tasky, your virtual personal assistant that talks the way you do, today! Learn more about Natural Language Processing on Producteev.
Boost Your Brainstorming with the Six Thinking Hats Method
Six Thinking Hats is a thinking methodology based on the premise that the human brain thinks and processes information in six distinct ways: via questions, emotions, bad and good points judgment, creativity, and thinking (or more accurately, meta-thinking). Huh-wha?
Wikipedia describes the six metaphorical hats (and their corresponding colors) thusly:
- Questions (White) - considering purely what information is available, what are the facts?
- Emotions (Red) - instinctive gut reaction or statements of emotional feeling (but not any justification)
- Bad points judgment (Black) - logic applied to identifying flaws or barriers, seeking mismatch
- Good points judgment (Yellow) - logic applied to identifying benefits, seeking harmony
- Creativity (Green) - statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a thought goes
- Thinking (Blue) - thinking about thinking
In the grand scheme of Six Thinking Hats, the idea is that you'll use these six methods—or rather, put on these six different hats—to structure the way you're thinking about a problem or task.
Coloured hats are used as metaphors for each state. Switching to a state is symbolized by the act of putting on a coloured hat, either literally or metaphorically. These metaphors allow for more complete and elaborate segregation of the states than the preconceptions inherent in people's current language. All of these thinking hats help [achieve] deeper [thinking]. The six thinking hats indicate problems and solutions about an idea you might come up with.
At the end of the day, the six hats probably won't revolutionize the way you think and get things done. But like most tools of its kind, it does offer an interesting perspective for thinking about how we think, and how we tackle problems. You may not feel like restricting your thoughts specifically to any one hat under normal circumstances, but if you hit a roadblock in your thinking, considering the six hats seems like a useful exercise that could help dislodge your stuck brain.
Know more about Six Thinking Hats—or think it sounds like a bunch of Seven Habits malarkey? Tell us about it in the comments. Photos by St Boniface's Catholic College.
Six Thinking Hats [Wikipedia via Hacker News]
Thoughtful planning is essential to success. Plan smarter by exercising your brainstorming muscles.
Now that the Producteev beaver is practically human with Natural Language Processing, we thought it was appropriate to give the beaver a name!
But we need your input, so please take part in the Name the Beaver Contest on our Facebook fan page.
The winner will receive 2 Producteev I <3 NY tees. Click to view photo.
Anyone can submit a name, just comment on the Name the Beaver Contest in facebook with the name you suggest. The entry with the most “likes” at noon EST Monday, August 9th gets the tees. (You can share that you "like" a comment in facebook with the thumbs up icon.)
Invite your friends to "like" your name suggestion on the fan page as well! Thank you helping us find the perfect beaver name!
Producteev is your task & to-do app, sign up for a free account today!
An introductory interview of Robert (Bobby) Travis, aka Chilyn, was featured in a recent newsletter. Here is more on his real-life experience with Producteev, in his own words.
This is where the Producteev magic happens!
Our beaver dam is located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. Give us a holler if you'd like to drop by sometime!
It sounds paradoxical, doesn’t it: by taking a break, you can get more useful work done. But it really works.You can struggle along for days, weeks or even years, working hard but without really producing anything good. With so many interruptions and distractions (from meetings to phone calls to Twitter), it’s easy to come to the end of a week and question what you’ve really accomplished.
If you’ve ever worked on a big project, whether at work or in your personal life, you’ll know how easy it is to get bogged down in trivia – or to procrastinate. Rather than plowing on grimly, sometimes you just need to take a break. Here’s why.
You’re Not Very Productive When You’re a Quivering Wreck
I’m a freelancer, and I realized a while back (while trying to follow various time management tips) that one of the big areas where I “lost” time was when I kept pushing myself and pushing myself to work ... ending up burning out.If you work too long or too hard, you’re working yourself up to a crash. You’re not going to be at all productive if you’re lying in a ball on the floor, or if you’re lashing out at employees or relatives because you’re so stressed.
Looking Forward to a Break Helps You Stay Focused
Have you ever had a whole day to get something done – and ended up spending most of that time fiddling around with other tasks? I’m sure most college students are familiar with the essay-writing process, which involves a lot of cups of coffee, sharpening pencils, doodling, filing lecture notes – anything but actually getting on with the essay!When you give yourself all day to do something, chances are it’ll end up taking all day. When you give yourself two hours – with the promise of a proper break at the end of that time – it’s much easier to concentrate and stay on task.
Limited Time Makes You Stick to Important Tasks
Another problem with plowing on, and on, and on with work is that you’ll often end up doing unimportant tasks: the ones which let you look or feel busy (like repeatedly checking emails). When you know you have an end point for your work session, you’re forced to focus on the things you really need to get done.If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your to-do list, go through it and put the numbers 1, 2 and 3 against the three most important tasks – the things you really must get done. Then work through them in order, and don’t switch to anything new until you’ve completed them. This is a great way to race through work and to avoid darting between tasks without finishing anything.
Your Mind Keeps Working During a Break
Have you ever had a great idea when you were in the shower, or driving, or doing the dishes? Your unconscious mind doesn’t switch off when you’re having a break: on the contrary, a period of time when you’re not focusing on a particular task is just what your mind needs in order to come up with something amazing. What might you be missing out on because you’re not giving yourself that sort of thinking time?All it takes is one or two good ideas, well-executed, for you to live the life of greatness. Most of the influential creatives throughout history – including present ones – started with one really good idea. The rest of their life was spent either working on that idea or living off of the fruit of that idea. You may be incubating that great idea, or you may be one step away from it and I want you to get it out so we all can enjoy it.(Charlie Gilkey, Demystifying the Creative Process, Productive Flourishing)
Breaks come in different shapes and sizes. A five-minute break to gaze out of the window can calm you down and prevent you from trying to work in a frantic but unproductive way. A week’s vacation can give you a whole new perspective on your life.What sort of break can you take today, or this week?
Written on 7/29/2010 by Ali Hale. Ali writes a blog, Aliventures, about leading a productive and purposeful life (get the RSS feed here). As well as blogging, she writes fiction, and is studying for an MA in Creative Writing. Photo Credit: JOVIKA
Good news: taking a break makes you work BETTER. Please remember to take a break from work, folks! You'll thank us for reminding you on Monday!
Ever wish for your very own virtual personal assistant? Now you have one-- in the form of a beaver, trained to speak in natural human language and always on stand by to assist you with infinite task managing needs.
How is this possible, you might ask. Repetition. Pretty much the same tools that we use to master human language. Our beaver’s vocabulary is set to a handful of words and phrases right now. To see a full translation of its recognized natural human speech, visit Producteev's Natural Language Capabilities at our Support Center.
Now to the good stuff: What can I do with the beaver’s vocabulary? Talk to it, naturally! Pun intended.
For example,
You can create new tasks. From any Producteev application (web, iPhone, e-mail, IM, Gmail gadget...), type @Smith payroll on Friday. Your colleague Smith is then assigned the task of completing payroll, and Friday’s due date is conveniently added.
Or, you can retrieve task lists, like tasks that are due for the day. Send us an e-mail or IM using /today. When the beaver sees the forward slash, it knows you need help finding something. We’ll then provide you with a complete list of all of your tasks due by the end of the day.
And, you can reply to reminder notifications. When an e-mail message or chat box appears giving you a gentle nudge about a task, talk back with the word done. Voila! That task is now registered as completed. The IM platform is the only platform that needs a heads up; if you open a chat box on your own, please remember to grab the task URL (ex: http://www.pdtv.me/t/984378) when communicating. In other words you have to help IM catch the specific task you want to work with.
Otherwise, kiss syntax goodbye. The benefit of having a beaver as your virtual personal assistant is that you can type, write, or reply in any manner that's comfortable for you. That’s the Producteev touch, task management that works the way you do.
Need a visual? View our 4-minute screencast tutorial to see this feature in action.
We are pleased to announce the much anticipated arrival of the community's very own, online support center.
Has your quest for support looked like this?
Not anymore, thanks to the arrival of the Producteev Support Center!
Looking for a place to get answers to FAQs? Or submit some of your own FAQs? How about give and receive cool tips, or see the latest hot topics related to Producteev? Our new Support Center is just what you've been looking for, and it's wiki-friendly!
The Producteev Support Center URL is:
http://support.producteev.com/home
There is also a convenient Support link in the upper-right corner of the web app. Just go to the right of your user name to access it!
Remember: this is your support center, and this is your community. Don't be left out! Sign up, get more connected today. You'll be glad you did!
This image is from Simon Howden's portfolio.
Today Google announced the integration of Google Voice into Gmail allowing users to place and receive phone calls from their computer from any place in the world to the US for FREE.
Since the acquisition of GrandCentral by Google, Craig Walker and his team have been working hard to make the world a better place for communication.
One of the targets is to make Google Voice accessible to all users (meaning outside the scope of Google) with an horizontal approach ranging from Mobile phones to Web based applications and device dependent applications as well. Google Voice has been available for Blackberry and Android phones for over a year. But they never could make it to the iPhone. The application went live for a few hours before Apple’s executives decided to remove it from the app store raising a Valley drama on Twitter and Facebook.
Google asked the FCC to look into Apple’s motivation, Apple replied, FCC sent a few letters, AT&T denied any implications…bottom line: nothing happened. In a world where technology is evolving around time, FCC has failed to do its job.
Worse, I believe FCC integrity is challenged by its dependance to regulatory fees mainly paid by carriers and manufacturers e.g. AT&T and Apple. I see an urgent need to reform FCC processes to adapt to 21st century technology pace.
Here is an imaginary open letter from Google to FCC regarding Apple’s Rejection of the Google Voice for iPhone Application.
Adobe is the number one gaming platform for developers. Even if Apple is trying to destroy the company’s future, nothing is really changing.
HTML5 is not the new Flash although for video playback it might be a better solution (or not). But developers have constantly praised Flash for gaming. I’m not saying Flash is perfect, nothing is perfect and there is always place for improvement.
But the acceleration of hardware miniaturization, the abyssal growth of smart mobile devices, the potential explosion of tablets and the furious competition between Apple and Google (soon Microsoft will join) makes Adobe a key player in this war.
Google –unlike Apple- has decided to work with Adobe on integrating Flash on their proprietary operating system Android and certainly Chrome OS. Their strategy lays before us on multiple announcements issued by Mountain View’s giant in the last week.
Flash Player 10.1 on Google Nexus Ones
Native PDF integration on Chrome Browser 6
At least 5 different Google’s units – YouTube (largest Flash network), Android, Chrome browser, Chrome OS and Google TV have made deals with Adobe. Hard to believe it’s all happening without top level corporate talks between both companies.
Adobe’s market capitalization has dropped 30% since Steve Jobs has openly called Flash an insecure, CPU killer, crash-inducing add-on. A $5bn insult – thanks Steve.
Revenues are also on the downside from $3.5bn in 2008 to $2.8bn in 2009.
Google’s market cap is 11 times Adobe’s and would give the search engine company a nice entry in the mobile gaming playground.
Adobe can’t expect a lot as all deals are based on offer and demand. Apple will obviously not make any bid; Microsoft is too far behind in their mobile road map and will bet everything on Xbox/WP7 synergies.
So who else can afford a $15bn GI Joe?
Since I posted a picture of my iPhone unlocked running T-mobile I keep getting DMs, texts and calls on how to do it.
The procedure takes less than 5 minutes. You don’t need a computer. Just your phone and a data connection (wifi strongly suggested).
Open Safari and go to www.jailbreakme.com, unlock the slider and leave the magic take place.
Follow the on-screen instructions. Once rebooted, your device should show a new icon Cydia.
Open Cydia – choose “user settings” when prompted, wait for the refresh
Search for Ultrasn (search icon is on the lower right of the screen).Ultrasn0w should appear. Select the app, install it and let your iPhone reboot.
That’s it. Done. Your iPhone is now unlocked.
Lately I got too busy to blog. Not that working and blogging are incompatible, just that my mind was focused on something else. Few posts are in my draft folder just waiting for a quick review which should happen later this week.
About 18 months ago, Ilan pitched me about his project. From day 1 he had a clear vision on what he wanted to do. I’m honored to be a shareholder of Producteev.
Producteev, a task management start-up from New-York launched their API for developers few weeks ago. The API allows developers to access all of Producteev’s extensive task management features. I am very excited to see where this will take Producteev and encourage you to try your luck at developing something for them.
http://www.producteev.com/developers/
A lot has been written about the iPad and the printing industry. Recently Fred Wilson wrote a post explaining why he doesn’t like the idea of a mobile application but would rather read content on Safari.
His demonstration has some strong point for a power-user but certainly not for the masses. The whole conversation reminds me of the controversy about iPod and music.
Yes, I would basically agree that reading content on a browser is more convenient for me. But reality proves that monetization of digital content via web is complicated.
Apple has created a value added chain of services from publishing to distribution. It’s easy to buy and use.
Newspapers over the world are facing their worse crisis ever. It’s the end of an era. And however we look at it, printing news on paper in 2010 makes no sense.
So will the iPad save the newspaper industry? I think it will. Web content will be limited to headlines, forums, past editions, but premium content will be distributed via apps.
The basic recurring argument saying people won’t pay for content because they can find fresher news freely on the web is just ridiculous. No one buys a newspaper for fresh news. Newspapers are here to bring a deeper, better understanding of the raw information. I don’t think Fred Wilson buys The New York Times to find anything new. He cares about the analysis, the vision brought by journalists and experts.
iPad distribution of newspaper solves many problems:
- production cost [printing]
- distribution
- reachability
- interactivity
- loyalty
- spontaneity
When it comes to market ipad/iphone study I turn to my mother. She discovered emails 2 years ago and never wrote a letter since. Same for the iPhone, which never leaves her sight. iPad has dramatically change the way she reads news and this is just the beginning. I bet newer devices will upgrade the digital experience to unprecedented levels.
Apple brought to the masses what the web failed to provide. SECURITY. My mother feels more secure buying an app online than walking to the newsstand down the road. And that, my friends, is the reason why I believe app stores will succeed.
The ability to pay for your digital content in ONE place, all in one click of a button is magic. Until the web can fix compatibility problem, offline reading, payment options, reminders, push notifications and much more, mobile applications will rule.
I’m not a big sport fan. Actually thinking about it, I’m no fan at all. My circle of interest is limited to family, faith, technology and very little time left for other distractions.
One of my guilty pleasures is watching movies during long flights. Mostly for its soporific agent. Very rarely can my body stay alert until the very end word.
Invictus is one of those movies. A movie transcending actors into players, script into documentary.
Clint Eastwood directed the movie – maybe I should have started with this. Gran Torino is undoubtedly among best movies of the decade.
Short pitch: Morgan Freeman plays is Nelson Mandela. The story focuses on the end of apartheid in South Africa and how rugby helped in reunifying the country together. Mandela had the perception sport could bring blacks and whites into one homogenized group of supporters. He was right; sport is not about race, religion, skin color but about performance.
Captain of South Africa’s rugby team played by Matt Damon comes from a family of white pro-apartheid activists that slowly understood the need to change. The movie gives a short glimpse of what was the process of re-unification after the apartheid. Clint Eastwood left the violence aside to focus on 1995 victory of South Africa during World Rugby Cup.
France had its Mandela moment after they won 1998 World Football Cup. I remember that night on Champs-Elysées when people were kissing, hugging and cheering all together. La France Black-Blanc-Beur literally Black, White and Arab was born.
My first visit to Johannesburg was in 1982 as a kid, it was a disturbing experience. I was horrified. Years later I came back in 1990 and things seemed even worse. Hopefully my last trip there in 2001 was a much different experience although poverty and discrimination are still dominant.
Movie has been out for a while. A must-see.
“I’m the master of my fate, I’m the captain of my soul” says Mandela. Food for thoughts.
Half of my feeds is about Facebook and their privacy policy. A complete case of propaganda built up by the blogo-journalistic cartel. Few thousands of top self proclaimed internet right activists are trying to convince 300 Million users that their life is ‘exposed’ by Facebook voluntary exploitation of public data.
Facebook offers a wide selection of options to protect your info and we will go through those steps a bit later. But let’s not be hypocrite here, if you want to keep your life private you need to stay away from social networks. Permanently.
Those attacks are becoming more targeted against Mark Zuckerberg like an attempt to stop the ascension of a giant. The worst is to come after I read the upcoming release of a movie describing Facebook’s founder as a drunk billionaire geek who is a sex-mad “borderline-autistic” conniver.
Mike Arrington wrote an excellent note on the subject but personally I think Zuck will have to face the same hatred Jobs and Gates faced decades ago. Hopefully genius will prevail.
—
Now here is how you can simply protect some level of privacy on Facebook.
Simply login to your account and head to ‘Privacy Settings’
Once you get there click on ‘Personal Information and Posts’
This will give you access to a set of customizable features. For best protection chose ’only friends’ to all options.
I personally do not accept wall posts. If a friend has something to say he can:
- send me a message or – comment one of my entries.
Finally you can opt-out from public searches meaning search engines will not display your Facebook profile
One last recommendation – be sure to set privacy settings on applications and games. You surely don’t want to share your recent activity across the board:
Be curious and explore those pages. You will find lots of useful information.
The only valid reproach we can aim at Facebook is the lack of universal control of privacy [windows way for security] where user can set level of data sharing from None to Public in one click.
In french we have a nice expression “l’arbre qui cache la foret” literal translation ‘”the tree that hides the forest’. Icelandic volcano is a big tree planted right in front our eyes to hide a much larger problem: airlines gigantic losses.
Earlier today Air France made an announcement claiming a 35M Euro loss per day due to the ash cloud. Share lost 5% on french sotck market – enough to call for a bail out by European Commission.
Bunch of crap. Of course there was an eruption, and safety should prevail. Extreme weather conditions is a cause of force majeure and does not oblige airlines to reimburse any of their customers. Their only obligation is to re-schedule flights. So when they say losses- they mean loss of income. Quite different.
But here is the biggest issue. Air France will shortly publish their figures for 2009 and guess what? A 1.3 billion Euro loss roughly $1.8 billions. Yes a mere $5M burned each day…ashes to ashes.
Volcano is to airlines what the mad cow disease was to meat producers. A savior.
Air France is poorly managed and like in the 70′s, 80′s and 90′s they seek for Government monies. How convenient.
Public bail out means us – tax payers. Expect to see a ‘volcano tax’ very soon on EU airfare. After all they have it all figured out – 20 euros per ticket and they break-even.
Bummer!
It all started with a blog post by Fred Wilson about 3rd party apps temporarily filling holes for Twitter followed by a series of announcement that sparked the Twitt-o-sphere on fire. The young growing social network officially released their first mobile application for Blackberry and announced the acquisition of Tweetie (leading iPhone client).
What does it mean for other 3rd party applications offering competing products on BlackBerry and iPhone? Well it doesn’t look too good to be honest- terrible news for Socialscope, Ubertwitter and Seesmic who devoted thousand of hours building a Twitter client for Blackberry and ultimately hoped to be acquired by Twitter…
The official application uses non-public APIs, offers no request limitation (recently Twitter raised their limitation to 150 requests per hour) and can be easily promoted virally by Twitter as a featured application. So many reasons for developers to spoof a revolt and to call for a broken Twitter eco-system…I call it bullsh*t.
Because frankly – this is what they were all looking for. To beat the watch and build a good enough client so Twitter will buy them out. It didn’t happen although Twitter had initiated contact with those companies. Obviously the price range to acquire a Blackberry client didn’t make any sense to Twitter’s investors (Fred Wilson at least) so they decided to go build their own. If one of the apps had been bought out – the feedback would have been very different.
When I hear stories about Twitter eco-system it reminds me of a quote from Louis C.K. “it’s funny how quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only ten seconds ago”.
About 15 months ago I wrote this post discussing about Twitter’s options to drive revenue. The main threat to revenue stream was obviously the existence of 3rd party applications making money on the back of the social network. Not many developers were too concerned about it and kept raising money to bite the hand that feeds them.
This is why Ev Williams promptly announced the acquisition of Tweetie, confusing everyone on Twitter’s real intentions for future growth. Will they buy or will they develop?
In the meantime, many Twitter clients will disappear from the radar until developers can focus on producing genuine ideas and not just filling holes.
Here are my thoughts after 5 days of regular usage of an iPad.
Most people I met that haven’t bought one yet are saying to be waiting for a newer version. Although a newer version is always coming there is supposedly somewhere between 400.000 to 700.000 units sold so far. If I was into hardware I would build a line of accessories based on this iPad case with integrated webcam, solar panel, or extra-battery. The iPad case is the perfect extension to add functionality to an already powerful device.
Last point after a few days showing off the tablet around is the sociability of the object. Andy also mentioned it to me. As soon as I pull it out my backpack, it brings immediate attention from strangers asking millions of questions. Becomes annoying after a while to be honest.
