The signal to noise...

A little social media & tech humor. Although I wonder if this transaction should be updated to be shown virtually or via Entelo, BranchOut or TalentBin instead of IRL. Might be reality in the not-too-distant future!

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jayparkinsonmd:

Moves is disrupting Fitbit, the Fuelband, and all those other nonsensical gadgets. 

I’ve been using Moves for about 2 weeks now and I really, really love it. It’s an app that essentially functions as a pedometer and runs in the background tracing where you’ve been throughout the day and measuring your steps. 

It is not some goofy thing I have to wear on my wrist or on your bra. It’s not something I have to remember to charge. Fire it up once, and it’s on for as long as you have an iPhone. It may not be as “good” as a Fitbit or Fuelband, but it works just fine, it’s available to everyone with an iPhone for free, and it runs in the background of your life. And, most importantly, I haven’t noticed an impact on my iPhone’s battery. 

It’s a classic disruptive innovation. 

I bought a Fuelband a few months ago, synced it with my iPhone, and connected it to Facebook. Facebook said “You have 37 friends with a Fuelband. Click here to see how many people have live data in the past week.” I clicked and saw 2 people. I immediately returned it to the Nike Store. I knew that goofy thing would be in some drawer in a month after the novelty wore off. And I don’t like to throw away money for gimmicks.

My iPhone is not a novelty. And Moves now runs in the background of my life letting me know how active or inactive I’ve been that day. Interesting, motivating, and exciting stuff. Congrats to the Moves team. Y’all are killin’ it.

Disruptive innovation in #mhealth quantified self tracking? Definitely will check it out since Jay is one sharp guy in technology and health, but I’m not 100% certain the sector is mature enough at this point to declare entrenched dominant winners who are at risk of disruptive innovation (see HBS Prof Clay Christensen’s work on disruptive innovation at his site: www.claytonchristensen.com). In another 3-5 years? Perhaps. But onward and upward for available and affordable technology to improve health and fitness.

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fredericwilliquet:

(via Rethinking the Customer Journey in a Social World - Forbes)

Technology, and specifically cloud computing and big data, is a hot sector right now, with many big companies making huge investments and initiatives in this space.  Technology can be great for many things, but it also can lead to epic fails, such as this one.  Maybe it was easier in the old days, with actual Kodak prints in albums and frames, instead of digital Instagramed pictures on iPhones and iPads.  It’s also hard to remember different passwords for all the different websites most people use - Google/Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, etc. - and to keep changing them every 3-6 months.

This is a nicely written article about how one’s digital life got hacked and destroyed in one hour that appeared earlier this week in Wired… sad that it happened, but yes… it can happen to anyone.   

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Brilliant and thoughtful piece here: “The Social Media Revolution Betrayed”.  Basically where does social media go from here?  And no, it’s not just prompted by this week’s Facebook’s earnings report as I’ve posted about this topic before.

It will be an interesting time over the next few months for these social and digital media companies, both public and private.  For successful private start-up companies, there’s usually a complicated set of decisions around M&A overtures and exit opportunities.  But for those who always dream of being a public company and ringing the NASDAQ opening bell, here’s a nice summary of “social stock” performance. 

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A very interesting infographic - reinforcement that vast opportunities for innovation (through mobile phones i.e. commerce, health, education, marketing, etc) lie outside of the US and in emerging and developing markets such as China and India.

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fauxchart:

“El mundo de los teléfonos móviles #infogafia #infographic” #infographic http://bit.ly/xI7EY7

#socialmedia “explained” here… although missing @tumblr!

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ataussig:

Thank you @douglaswray and @threeshipsmedia.

Apple’s Q1 2012 earnings report is astounding: ~$13B in profit which exceeds Google’s quarterly revenue of ~$11B. TechCrunch provides a great write-up with further context here vis-a-vis other tech companies and countries like Greece, appropriately titled - boom^6.  Some of the tech comparisons seem almost unfair, like the ones to Yahoo and AOL, and perhaps a better word than “comparison” should be used.  I’d be super interested to see what would happen if Apple were to tackle health; I’d proffer that because of their insane focus on design and consumer UI/UX… they’d succeed where other notable tech companies such as Google and Microsoft have stumbled.  With almost $100B in cash on the balance sheet, they could afford to pour not a little bit of money into a health skunkworks. Needless to say, the Apple earnings numbers are indeed mindboggling and let’s see if the trajectory continues to increase.  As they say - boom goes the dynamite.

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melodykoh:

It’s astonishing how a consumer electronics (hardware!) company can produce such profit. Apple- good job.

parislemon:

This is actually the craziest chart about Apple following their insane earnings today.

There is exactly one company on that entire list that is not an oil and gas company. And they’re not that far from the top. 

I guess this encapsulates what Steve Jobs strived for: simple, easy to use and navigate (UI/UX) technology products that all humans, young and old, technophiles and neophytes, could figure out and use… so simple, that even perhaps monkeys could too. :)

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brooklynmutt:

FaceTime for Apes: Orangutans Use iPads to Video Chat With Friends In Other Zoos - Popular Science

(Source: brooklynmutt)

Very excited for the future of education and healthcare, two huge and important industries that are ripe (and overdue) for new technology and innovation.

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gjmueller:

Students Want Social Media in Schools

In its Policy Priorities report, Can Social Media and School Policies be “Friends,” ASCD provides a state-of-the union on social media use in schools. How administrators and educators deal with federal regulations, defining what’s legal, parsing out school responsibilities and weighing them against the benefits of using social media to engage and communicate with students are all addressed in this useful guide. MindShift’s Dispelling Myths About Blocked Sites is also in the lineup.