It's the end of a big week here at ReadWriteWeb. For one, we just got acquired by SAY Media. As I sit here thinking about what happened in 2011 and what's to come in 2012, I keep in mind the simple fact that soon ReadWriteWeb will be operating under a very clean look and feel in this brave new tech world. What does that have to do with 2012 predictions? Not much. Just thought I'd remind you about the state of tech news right here and now.
Which brings me to my 2012 predictions for Facebook, e-commerce, location and social networks, the four areas I've been watching closely since I joined the rad team at ReadWriteWeb this past October. Come along to the next page!
Zynga CEO Mark Pincus named his gaming company after his late American bulldog, a beloved yet health issue-ridden breed with a short life expectancy. Ninety-five percent of four-year-old Zynga's business depends on Facebook. Will Zynga's overdependence on Facebook make it repeat the story of the bulldog it was named after?
A new study-turned-infographic from Mr Youth suggests that social media interactions influence consumer purchasing tendencies. The data was collected during the three-week period of time leading up to, and including, Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Yet despite glowing percentages about social media users - 65% of users recommendations led to a purchase, and recommendations by social media users were twice as likely to lead to holiday gift purchases - brands apparently are not responding to consumers on social media sites.
Today Facebook launched the much anticipated Timeline and Timeline mobile for Android and its HTML5 mobile site m.facebook.com. But Timeline mobile for the Facebook iOS app is nowhere to be found. Timeline on the iPhone will be available in a future update of the Facebook iOS app, a Facebook spokesperson tells us. For now, iPhone and iPad users will have to use Facebook Timeline through the mobile site.
There's no doubt that Facebook Timeline will eventually go live for iOS apps. But for now, Facebook seems to be mostly focused on its HTML5 web app project. The fact that Timeline mobile isn't going live for iOS anytime soon is proof of that.
Facebook's new Timeline is rolling out to the public, offering users the chance to upgrade to "a new kind of profile." The new profile was revealed at Facebook's f8 developer conference on September 22. The rollout began in New Zealand on December 6, and it's now spreading worldwide.
Timeline turns the profile into an illustrated, browsable history of a user's entire life, with major milestones and little moments smartly chosen by Facebook's algorithm. The recent history is specific and full of activity, but Facebook automatically focuses older stories on life's big moments.
This year, Facebook unleashed frictionless sharing. As with most things Facebook, it stirred up controversy among everyone from the casual Facebook user to tech industry insiders. Here's how it works: Anytime you're reading news from a social news app or listening to music from a social music app, Facebook automatically shares it to your Facebook profile (soon to be Timeline). Frictionless sharing could be the end of manual curation and the beginning of an automatically curated social Web. Or it might just become a combination of both, with some users preferring to continue curating manually, while others mix it up. Still others will go all-auto all the time. Up until now, the user had more control over their version of the social Web. In the social networks battle, frictionless sharing could work. But it needs some adjustments first.
Facebook just confirmed with us that it's testing a feature that would allow people and Pages to communicate privately. This update was first spotted by communications agency WeAreSocial.sg. The private messaging feature would give customers the opportunity to speak privately with page owners. This is actually another Twitter-like move by Facebook.
On Twitter, brands that follow their followers back can easily communicate through private DM messages. On Facebook, however, most of the conversation between brand and user takes place on the wall, something that not all customers may feel comfortable with.
When you really boil it down, which apps that you've downloaded from the Android Market do you actually use? According to new numbers from Nielsen, outside of the Market itself, Facebook is the next used app across age groups on Android. Four out of every five people use Facebook for Android, outdistancing Google's own apps and just about every other app on the platform.
That comes as no surprise. Facebook is the most popular app of all time, with 350 million people accessing the social network from mobile devices. Across the age demographics surveyed by Nielsen, Google properties took the next four spots. After that, the list gets interesting, with media apps more popular for younger segments and productivity apps prevalent for older Android users.
Today Google+'s photo app launched a new feature called Find My Face, which purports to make tagging photos of you and your friends much easier. Thankfully, this isn't a super creepy facial recognition tool. Not only is it completely opt-in, which means that Google asks for your permission before turning anything on, but users can decide whether or not they want to make the switch using Google+ settings. Matt Steiner, the engineering lead on the Google+ Photos Team, made the announcement today on Google+. Find My Face rolls out over the next few days.
Today Facebook announced that it is launching an update to its Android app that it is "two times faster than previous Android apps." This update looks a lot like the Facebook iPad app, all the way down to the Nearby option, which was previously called Places and, previous to that, Check-In. Messages and notifications start at the top of the screen, which should make navigation around the app much simpler. The menu is now located on the left-hand side of the app. Users don't have to switch back-and-forth from the Home screen just to see events, news feed and messages and other features. Now everything is located in one space.
Slowly but surely, the world's biggest social network is beginning to converge its platform UIs. The big question is, will users like the new UI?
