How do we fix them?

To find the solution, we first need to fully understand the problem.

2screen / dual-screen / second-screen — all are different names for the kind of integration that I’m referring to and it’s something I’ve been kicking around in my head ever since I went to my first 2screen event back in October 2010.

It was a big deal then and it’s a bigger deal now.

With the increase of iPad penetration and the continuous growth of the smartphone market, the notion of 2screening is becoming more and more commonplace. In fact, a recent Neilsen survey found that 80% of tablet and 78% of smartphone owners used their device while watching TV at least once during a 30 day period.

In the app-world, services such as ZeeBox and Sky Sports for iPad are doing very good things indeed. Both integrating news, stats and social media streams into your second screen; providing a suitable data-based accompaniment to your visual consumption.

However, I want to talk about television-based social media integration (not app-based).
This kind of stuff -

That’s how Sky One’s ‘Got to Dance‘ handles it and many other broadcasters follow suit. BBC One is getting in on the act too, here using a Twitter wall backstage for the UK edition of ‘The Voice‘.

What do these examples all have in common?

Fundamentally, they are all bringing (or at least attempting to bring) the conversation from the second screen, to the first. Which, correct me if I’m wrong, kind of defeats the object of the second screen.

Whether it’s reading out tweets during the credits of Celebrity Juice on ITV2 or talking about Facebook wall posts inbetween programmes on BBC3, broadcasters seem to be obsessed with sharing (read ‘owning’) viewer social media.

Recognising that conversation takes place away from their platform(s), TV + social media work best together when television directs its audience to the conversation medium, as opposed to smashing them in the face with it via another.

Sorority Girls, an E4 TV show, flashes up their hashtag both at the start and at the end of their show as well as when going into ad breaks.

This is good! This is television saying -

‘Hey, perhaps some people are actually watching our shows when they’re on and, instead of going to the kettle during an ad break, they’re turning to Twitter!’

- and giving the audience a your hashtag at this point is a very good idea. You own it, you guide it, you track it.

Ignoring The Voice for a second, the BBC actually do this quite well, both with Question Time and Have I Got News For You, for example:

via Roo Reynolds

Little pointers like this give you, the viewer, the option of tracking (and joining) the back-channel. If you understand what it means, you join the conversation. Perfect.

I guess this is one big plea to broadcasters to just stop reading out tweets and Facebook updates on the telly. Seriously, it just doesn’t work.

Finally, and returning to the opening image of this post, the new trailer for Prometheus aired recently during the first break of Homeland. Channel 4′s own announcer was employed also, asking viewers to tweet their reactions using the hashtag #areyouseeingthis.

So far, so good. Right? Right.

Except that, 20mins later (during the next ad break), those very tweets were displayed onscreen for all to see.

via Digital Examples

Yes that’s actually a TV ad you’re seeing there, with (clearly moderated) tweets displaying instead of your usual commercial break. Mental.

Reports state that this activity reached a potential audience of 15m users. (Note: POTENTIAL audience. That’s the number of every tweet with the hashtag, multiplied by their sum of their followers – ie: not a real number). And while this kind of exercise is a great advert for Twitter, it leaves existing fans and users feeling a bit… empty.

In closing, encouraging viewers to join an online conversation is one thing, replaying that conversation to them 20mins later is just a pain in the oculars.

Discuss.

An opinion from someone who’s read the internet -

Announced last Thursday as, believe it or not, the third device in the Samsung Galaxy S range. The SGSIII was all set to inherit the crown of ‘biggest selling non-iPhone / smartphone of the year’ from last year’s winner, the SGSII.

At least, that’s what we thought.

You can’t argue with the numbers – in 2011, the SGSII was a fantastically popular phone and Samsung, with its large screen, speedy graphics and TouchWiz’d version of Android – hit the sweet spot for consumer awareness + desire for the best Android phone on the market.

Admittedly, I was never a fan. I prefer my Androids to be pure Google experiences and both HTC + Samsung (amongst others) like to skin their OS accordingly. It’s a bit rubbish and generally gets in the way of being able to actually use the phone… but still, I can see why some people like it.

I’m rambling. Let’s get cut to the chase -

Is the SGSIII a worthy successor, is it actually any good?

Before I answer that question, let’s make one thing very clear:

I have not had hands on with this device at all.

What you are about to read is pure conjecture based upon the opinions of trusted friends & peers, images & video from the launch event, and several years working in and around the mobile industry.

Understood? Good. I don’t exactly love this kind of post, but to those of you that are still here, thanks – there’s a few things I’d like to cover -

1: The Samsung SGSIII is ugly + made of cheap plastic

I am going to just go ahead and say it: Samsung needs to fire its entire handset design department and start over.

— Eric Zeman (@phonescooper) May 4, 2012

As per my note above, I agree with Eric’s comment purely based upon the photos, videos and posts I have seen from the launch event. But even so, he’s not alone, and the man has a point. And while it might be harsh (I’ve seen worse devices), we – the industry at large – were just expecting something more.

And actually, while we’re at it, when your software is fundamentally the same across different handsets, design is a fundamental key selling point. It’s why I rock a Lumia 800 and it’s why I’ll recommend the HTC One X over the SGSIII should someone ask me about Android phones.

2: The Samsung SGSIII features some a sweet innovation

The word ‘innovation’ is bandied about too fast and loose these days however, reading this post TechCrunch shortly after the SGSIII announcement I was actually quite impressed by one particular paragraph -

“The Galaxy S III looks deep into your eyes and only turns off when you do,” noted Jean Daniel Ayme to the audience. That is to say, the screen will note when your eyes are on it and will stay “awake” for as long as you look at it. “It knows precisely what we are doing and our intentions.”

Now this is more like it.

While ‘creepy’ is a word I’ve heard a couple of times since discussing this particular addition to the handset, having a phone that turns on *when I look at it* is actually kind of awesome. I like this, a lot. Proper ethnographical research, informing technological innovation. More of this please.

3. TouchWiz Android is horrible

TouchWiz still makes my eyes bleed though. The icons just look so… dated.

— James Whatley (@Whatleydude) May 3, 2012

As Android skins go, HTC Sense is pretty darn ugly but, TouchWiz takes it to a whole new level. If you want a ‘pure’ Google experience with Android, buy a Nexus. Other device manufacturers can’t be trusted.

4. The SGSIII is a HUGE disappointment

As much as I dislike their current advertising, the HTC One X is probably my favourite Android device on the market today and the SGSIII has done nothing to change that. But don’t just take my word on it, the out pour of disappointment around this particular phone launch is staggering -

For example – ‘How Samsung Broke My Heart‘, ‘The Galaxy SIII is a “Me Too” Device and a Disappointment‘ and ‘Dear Internet: I am incredibly sorry for over-hyping the disappointment that is the Galaxy S III‘ are just three well-written and well-informed pieces that I’ve read over the past couple of days, of which I am sure there are many more.

Sad times.

And, even though I happily acknowledge that I haven’t even played with the SGSIII yet, I can safely say: if you’re in the market for an Android phone, look at the Galaxy Nexus or check out the HTC One X.

Cheers.

First up, watch this -

The video description:

The Experiment: We chucked a photography student out of a plane to see if he could take the perfect fashion photo. We gave him a model, lighting guys, a makeup artist and smoke machines. The only thing we didn’t give him was a camera. We gave him a phone.

This is the commercial that’s currently running in the UK globally to mark the worldwide release of the HTC One. While it’s not the most original idea in the world, it does have great piece of backing music (Tick of the Clock, Chromatics – most recently heard on the DRIVE official soundtrack), some great imagery and… well, that’s about it.

It sounds harsh but, I’m not entirely sure what the advert is for.

Yes, it’s for the HTC One, I get that much, but why are they jumping out of the plane? Why is the HTC One being used in this instance? From what I’ve read, it’s to help show off  ‘the One’s low-light capabilities’ – if that’s the case, why can’t I see the image and/or video quality that ‘Nick’ shot with the phone in the advert?

The very last second of the ad ends with ‘Watch Nick’s story online’, let’s get online and find that content then shall we?

A Google image search for ‘HTC One free fall fashion shoot‘ only turns up images shot by other cameras that were present on the day; DSLRs etc… keep clicking and eventually, on page 3 of the search, this image shows up via All Things D -

I’m not sure, but I’m thinking that this might be the actual image that our man Nick shot with his HTC One. Not bad, right? Right. But I want the full image; the original, uncrunched image, with EXIF data.

But I can’t find it.

Even the official photo album from the shoot, the one from HTC UK’s very own Facebook page, doesn’t have the full file [instead uploading a frustratingly bad and super-compressed FB-friendly version]. Additionally – and still, according to the ad – Nick was recording video and trying to get the perfect photo at the same time. Guess what? No sign of that footage either.

I’m labouring the point, I know. But if you’re going to make a big deal about a fashion student being given the opportunity to take part in a one-of-a-kind free-fall fashion shoot, then surely you’d make a big deal around the actual content that said fashion student produced. No?

Just me then.

Read the press release, make your own mind up.

A few days ago, I wrote this post suggesting a feature for mobile-based video services, the overall idea being that the app might display different length content based upon the user’s location.

I cheekily surmised that perhaps content should be served depending the answer to the following question: 

“Hi, where are you? In bed, on the train or on the toilet?”

Terence Eden, one third of the brains behind awesome mobile web Twitter service, Dabr, commented on the post with, amongst other things -

“Hmmm… You’ve given me an idea for a weekend hack…”

Well, it’s the weekend, and Terence has finished hacking – LooTu.be has arrived!

While not the most tasteful of mobile web apps available today, LooTube is awesome as it answers the challenge I posed last week: why can’t mobile video be served in order of length (based upon your location)?

Amazing, nicely done Terence.

Give it a go yourself, next time you’re headed to the can – hit up http://lootu.be on your mobile and see what you fancy watching.

UPDATE:
Terence has posted too – ‘Context Specific Content Surfacing‘ 

I started writing this post last weekend, before the big Facebook sale was announced, as I wanted to talk about – in light of the recent Android-owners backlash – I use (and enjoy) Instagram. It’s funny now though how that very same backlash has not only continued but also now includes all things Facebook. Incredible. C’est la vie.

_______________________________________________

I love Instagram. There, I said it.
I also don’t own an iPhone.

So how?

Anyone who’s been reading this blog for any amount of time knows that I am a Nokia fan. My current phone du jour is the Nokia Lumia 800 and before I now I have waxed lyrical about its predecessors the N8 and the N86. Similarly, regular readers will also know that I am an iPad-owner also. Of that too, I am also a fan.

I am a social media junkie; If something is new and shiny, I take a(n educated and measured) interest and, in all honesty, the lure of Instagram was too much.

The next logical step? Install Instagram onto the iPad.

While there isn’t an official Instagram iPad app, the iPhone version doubles up just fine. Problem solved, right? Well, yes but that’s not enough. I own an iPad 2 y’see and, while it does have an onboard camera, you may as well give a packet of crayons to a pack of blind monkeys for all the use it’ll do you. A decent image it produces, not.

The great thing about Nokia devices however, is that the top end bad boys tend to come packing high-end mobile camera technology. Which is great, and as 99% of the images I snap with my Lumia end up on my Flickr account – all I need is a method of getting those images into Instagram.

Well, that’s where Flickr Studio comes in -

I can browse my Flickr photostream and download the images I want/need onto my iPad (you can see where this is going can’t you) which closes the circle nicely -

Lumia – >; Flickr
Flickr – iPad
iPad – >; Instagram

Yes, it’s a lengthy process and yes it’s not exactly ideal either but like I said, I like the network and I like the people I follow there. I installed Instagram onto my Nexus S a couple of days ago and I’ve hardly used it. I prefer the iPad experience. Plus, my pictures are infinitely better.

Since the Android release last week it’s almost too funny how much the elitist iPhone-owners have spat back at the network [EDIT: even more so now after the sale]. Apparently some slighted iPhone-Instagrammers are even flocking to new services to escape the influx of ‘tasteless’ Android-ers. Hilarious.

I’ve enjoyed being a part of the Instagram community and have never uploaded an iPhone-created picture, ever. That makes me happy inside and that’s how I use (and why I love) Instagram.

_______________________________________________

PS. As I said earlier this week, post-sale, Instagram will be fine -

;

@DominicTravers I was thinking about that this morning, of the 30m+ users that Instagram has, they can’t *all* be Hipsters… it’ll be fine.

— James Whatley (@Whatleydude) April 10, 2012

__

(or TED, or any video-based mobile app)

When I open the application, I want the app to gauge my time and serve me content accordingly. It could ask me ‘How much time do you have?’ but that’s boring. My thinking is you could get quite cheeky with the measurement -

First question: location. Based upon your answer to this, the app takes an educated guess as to the length of video you want to consume at this time.

Like so -

“Hi, where are you? In bed, on the train or on the toilet?”

In bed, you get everything; on the train, you get everything up to say…  30mins? – and on the toilet, well, you get content up to ten minutes. Obviously there’d be other (probably more user-defined) options available, but you get my point

I’ve mentioned this before (to the Beeb itself at one point) and I don’t know why this hasn’t been done or why content isn’t browse-able by length at all* in fact. I’ve got a 15 minute journey ahead of me so therefore I’d like to see all content that is 15mins or under in length. Simple.

.

What is the behaviour of your mobile user?

*if it has, I haven’t seen it and well, I fully expect to get told about it within minutes of hitting publish….

I had a post scheduled for later on this week talking about my recent love affair with all things Instagram (even though I don’t actually own an iPhone) however, some news is breaking right now that kinda needs covering.

Facebook just bought Instagram, for $1bn.

That’s right: One. Billion. Dollars.

Stefan nailed it -

All you guys tweeting about how sad it is that the instagram guys sold out: shut your face. Do you know how much $1 billion is?

— Stefan Constantine (@WhatTheBit) April 9, 2012

Well, do you? It’s a lot.
But why?

To start us off, here are some numbers* to get your head around taken from the mere 18mths that Instagram has been in existence:

• 1 billion photos uploaded
• 30 million registered users
• 5 million photos uploaded every day
• 575 likes every second
• 81 comments every second
• 1 million downloads of the new Android app in 24hrs

That’s a lotta love for an app that is solely mobile-based. But why is that important to Facebook? Think about it – Facebook is about the data. As the saying goes: if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product – and Instagram just sold a whole ton of data about its users. Not personal data, or contact data but image data and sharing data.

What people snap, what filters they apply when they’ve snapped and where & how they share that snap is all important data for a social network that builds itself around social objects and the relationships that people form around them.

While this kind of purchase is new ground for Facebook, it’s refreshing to see that it has every intention of keeping the service independent and multi-platform friendly. Mark Zuckerberg has already talked about lending Instagram Facebook’s strong engineering team and infrastructure – something that they’ll need when it comes to the building for scale. That sounds like someone who only has the app’s best interests at heart, certainly.

And while a billion dollars is a lot of money, Facebook has just bought itself its own standalone photo-sharing app, with a built-in base of happy users while at the same time cancelling out a potential competitor in the lucrative social networking space. Good things will come of this acquisition, Yahoo + Flickr this ain’t.

As Instagram CEO, Kevin Systrom, blogged earlier today -

It’s important to be clear that Instagram is not going away. We’ll be working with Facebook to evolve Instagram and build the network. We’ll continue to add new features to the product and find new ways to create a better mobile photos experience.

Remember, the future is mobile and Instagram have proven that a mobile-only social network is not only worthwhile but 100% achievable to boot.

Best of luck guys (all 13 of you); your fans, users, industry and investors will be watching.

*since April 3rd, 2012 – source

UPDATE – Other posts of note:

• Instagram’s ride to glory, TechCrunch
• 15 responses to the FB / IG sale, ReadWriteWeb
• Facebook just saved Instagram, TheNextWeb
• What the tech pundits don’t get, Fast Company

Or lack thereof.

First, in 2009, this -

[Bungee jumping, shot on a Nokia N86]

Then, in 2010, this -

[A rollercoaster review of the N97 Mini, shot with the N97 Mini]

So far so good…

Straight after that, we got to work on this -

[Shoot what you like with the Nokia N8, shot on the Nokia N8]

With the winners being invited along to this -

[A zero G flight, shot on the Nokia N8]

Great stuff.

Later, in 2011, this appeared -

[A rollercoaster review 'unboxing' of the SGSII, shot with a ?]

Brilliant? Yes. Familiar? Slightly.

Admittedly they went one better, with this -

[A skydive review 'unboxing' of the SGSII, shot with a ?]

Well done.

Imagine my surprise when, today in 2012 this appeared on TV for HTC  -

[A free-fall fashion shoot with the HTC One, shot with a ?]

Amazing. Not.

Seriously, three years of this now… come along guys, at least try to do something different. It genuinely doesn’t matter who had the idea first or even who managed to push it to the next level. All we’re asking is for some originality.

Samsung was blatant, HTC is just plain late.

And while it’s fair to say, admittedly, everything is a remix; if Sony can create something new, you can too.

-

Do. Better.

Dabr is probably the best mobile web interface for Twitter available today. Described as ‘m.twitter on steroids’ by its users, Dabr is a labour of love by three chaps from England.

It started back in 2008 when David Carrington, mobile developer hobbyist extraordinaire left this comment on the then SMSTextNews website, Mobile Industry Review. I replied and then we took it offline.  From there, ideas started firing back and forth right up until the end of the year.

Three months later, in January 2009, I signed on as official strategic advisor and since then, we’ve grown the service massively. As of August 2011, the open source code has been downloaded 27,000 times and, even as far back as 2010, our user numbers and stats have been fairly impressive (which reminds me, I have an update from 2011 to put up on the blog).

Originally built for alpha-numeric keypad devices, such as the Nokia N95, Dabr now caters for screens big and small, with touchscreens and without, sometimes even stretching to devices that aren’t even phones!

Being open source means that guests can add their own code to the story and Terence Eden‘s contributions were so damn good that David asked him to become the third member of our team. It’s only a part-time project (we all have day jobs) so the more help we can get, the better. Terence’s contributions have been fantastic. In fact the last overhaul (when we switched servers) included a whole host of features that were mainly based on his awesome developments and iterations.

Thanks to our successes on the user number front, we had to introduce adverts to help pay for new (and better) servers. Fortunately, the users that we’ve done this for have been both supportive and loyal throughout this time and our numbers have stayed steady. Ads are in, the users are happy and the service still lives on.

Next time you’re on Twitter, have a look for the tell-tale sign of ‘via Dabr’ at the end of someone’s tweet, that means they’re using one of the best free web-based Twitter apps available today.

Give it a go, you might like it -

Related links:

Dabr
The Dabr Blog
Dabr on Twitter
The Code
Terence Eden’s Dabr Posts

…
…

In the press:

Channel 4 News [link broken] but references can found on the Dabr Blog and Mobile Industry Review
One Forty Review Page (4.5 out 5)
Mr Phillip Schofield is a fan and user
‘Service of the Week‘ by mjelly
UberMedia using Dabr’s code c/o The Next Web
First Second Twitter app to integrate Twitter lists

Also published as a page for future reference –

I gave this talk back in May last year (I blogged about it at the time), merely one week after I returned from my Trans-Mongolian Railway adventure. However, I’ve only recently discovered that the video is now publicly available. Awesome!

So, as well as going back and updating my original post, I thought I’d publish it here for all to see.

Inspiring new forms of creative expression through mobile devices

From iPhones through to space rockets and back again via Instagram’d monastic rooftops – this is how mobile is changing the way we create.

My work with 1000heads is mentioned, as is some Nokia stuff too aaaand, to top it off, my friend (from said train journey) Ben Wallace manages to make an appearance too.

Enjoy – and leave comments!