Tag: Social Media

ThisLife "Review"

When Apple released iOS 5 they introduced iCloud to help with syncing content on your phone back to your desktop. The idea was simple. Create content on your iPhone or iPad and back it up to the cloud and continue editing on your Mac. Apple updated the iWork's and iLife iOS and OS X app so that you could work from anywhere. But the feature that got the most attention was Photostream.

The one feature of Photostream that I like the most is the ability to create and share albums of photos with my family. I've used it at family events to take snapshots to share with my extended family. They can just view the photos or, if I've given permission, they can download the images to safe keeping. It's easy to set up and it works well.

However, after getting my family hooked on the feature my brother-in-law challenged me with a simply question. "Can I add photos to the albums someone else has created?". It was a simple question and I could see why this was important. We often attend the same family events but we may each have a taken photos -- each from our own perspective -- and he wanted a way to easily compile these photos into one share album. It's a really good idea but, alas, Photosteam does not support that today. I went searching for a solution.

The requirements are simple -- we need a way to create a shared photo album to which a limited group of people could add photos either via a web site, a mobile apps or a desktop app. After searching and trying out several apps I think I found a solution, [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="yes" overflow="visible"][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="no" center_content="no" min_height="none"]ThisLife.

ThisLife is a website that helps you organize your life media – pictures, videos, notes, and more – into a sharable, searchable Library. All of your Moments are securely stored in the cloud and in their highest format quality. We created automatic features such as facial recognition, image de-duplication, and photo enhancement so that your Moments are beautiful, accessible, easy to find, and easy to share.

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ThisLife is a desktop Uploader app and a web app but an iOS -- iPad and iPhone -- app is planned. I downloaded and installed the OS X app -- ThisLife is a Mac only app -- and created my account. By default I was given a Starter Box accounts which is good for storing and estimated 1000 photos or 60 minutes of video. Your actual usage will differ depending on how large your images are. One I created my login, I was prompted to add photos from my social media account such as Facebook and Instagram.

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Uploading to ThisLife was quite easy. I dragged and dropped a set of images onto the Dropzone in the Uploader app. I could also have copied my images to a special folder that ThisLife created on my desktop or imported directly from iPhoto. The Uploaded will also import photos directly via from my iPhone, memory card, hard drive, or other USB connected camera.

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I store all my images in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom so a plugin would make my uploading workflow a bit easier. However, I got around this limitation by creating an export preset to export to the ThisLife uploader desktop folder. ThisLife will store either RAW or JPG images in full resolution and will detect duplicates. Duplicate detection is for true duplicates not multiple shots of the same subject.

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When and if you choose to download your images back from ThisLife to your hard drive, you will receive the original file you uploaded – even RAW images.

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The app has some rudimentary facial recognition technology. Once it was trained it started to recognize and tag the faces of my family. This feature is very useful to me. I'm quite often asked by my wife to find a photo of one of the kids for a school project. The problem is that I store most of my images in Lightroom and I'm often too lazy to tag the images. ThisLife will make suggestions if it finds faces in any photos. It's quite easy to bulk tags photos making it much easier to find someone later.

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Now instead of trying to find a photo of my daughter from last year I can now search by her name.

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ThisLife can preserve the geolocation of images. Together with facial recognition I can search and find images person and place.

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Photos uploaded to ThisLife are private by default but you can easily share images with anyone by inviting them to view your album. You can also make your albums public and share them via social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. What's really cool is that my family and I can collaborate on albums together.

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The default ThisLife account is given space to store 1000 image but additional storage options are available. The thousand image limit is interesting given that's it's the same limit as PhotoStream. I think the thousand limit of the free Starter kit is adequate for most people but it's good to know additional storage is available if needed. Icebox is basically a cloud storage service like Dropbox. You won't get the organization and sharing options. SuperBox has all the features of the Starter service but with larger storage limits.

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I love flicking though the Timeline looking as old photos. Swiping across the mouse I can quickly go backward and forward in time. I think ThisLife is a great alternative to PhotoSteam and the ability for a private group to collaborate and compile photos from and event makes it even better than PhotoStream.

The website has a note that an iOS app will soon be available. That can only be a good thing. Perhaps in a few months I'll start asking, “What's PhotoStream”.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Instagram Alternatives

The web is buzzing ( as in angry ) about the changes Instagram made to its terms of service. Instagram -- which is now the subsidiary of Facebook -- has given itself the rights to license your photos (well mine too) for use in advertising. This has implications.

According to attorney Paul Jacobson

While the more conventional display ad model raises privacy concerns with how the ads are targeted, this new model potentially has privacy, reputational and even commercial implications for Instagram users.

I’m not sure I want a photo of my head being inserted into an ad for genital herpes. Some blog authors think every one doth protest too much.

After thinking about it for a few minutes and talking it over with my friends I decided to delete my Instagram account. This was not an easy choice. I have over 400 photos on Instagram and a small following. Deleting my account meant saying goodbye to all of that. Fortunately, there are some worthy alternatives to Instagram.

Snapjoy

But first I exported my Instagram photos over to Snapjoy.com. I found the service via a Forbes article. Moving the photos was easy. I created an account and authorized Snapjoy to import my photos from Instagram. Depending on how many photos you have on Instagram the process can take a long while. Fortunately, Snapjoy can start the process and notify you when it’s complete — even if you shut down the browser.

After the import was complete, Snapjoy created a portfolio site with all my images organized by date. I could also import my Flickr and PicasaWeb photos if I wanted to. The service offers 5GB of storage but I can get more if I convince my friends to try Snapjoy. Snapjoy also allowed me to create and download an archive (Zip file) of all my images. Each archive is stored for 7 days. There is also an iPhone app for accessing your photos or syncing your phone photos to the service.

Starmatic

The day I found out that Facebook was acquiring Instagram I went looking for alternatives. There where are few but one that caught my eye was Starmatic. The app and services are very similar in design to Instagram. There are a few limitations — no web profile and it’s iPhone only — but most users may not care.

The Starmatic Brownie Camera was a toy camera created by Kodak back in 1959. In 1963 Kodak introduced the Instamatic camera. So now you have a short history lesson — and some indication of where Instagram got its name — let’s move on to the app.

The app is quite basic. Take a photo, apply some filters — from a choice of 16 — and share to your choice of social network. It’s a rather limited choice; Twitter and Facebook. You can use one of those existing social networks to create an account. After capturing an image with the basic camera you can apply filters. Starmatic names these after films. After applying filters you can share your photo creating with the Starmatic community or with your Facebook and Twitter followers.

There is one very exciting option which Instagram switchers will appreciate. You can import your photos from Instagram to Starmatic. Keep in mind this imports your images only. Your followers and comments and likes won’t transfer. Starmatic allows you to comment and heart community photos and follow and be followed. Except for the lack of a web profile, this app feels like Instagram.

Eye’em

Back when I was a photo sharing noob, along with an Instagram account, I opened an Eye’em account. Just like Instagram, Eye’Em has a vibrant social sharing community with both an app and a web presence. The app has support for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone.

The app has the requisite features expected in any photo sharing app: filters, hashtagging and social sharing ( Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and Foursquare). It has a lot of features an Instagram switcher might want including a social profile page, something that Instagram recently added. Eye’Em had this feature first. Just like on Instagram, you can discover new photographers to follow and post comments and “likes” of photos.

Choosing

While I like prefer the user interface of Starmatic — it so similar to Instagram — I prefer the active community on Eye’Em. Starmatic will import your existing Instagram photos making the transition easier. However, with Eye'Em I will be starting over. Eye’Em has been around a lot longer and has all the features I had come to expect from Instagram. I will keep both on my iPhone for now but I expect very soon one of these two will be deleted. You can find me on Starmatic as khurtwilliams or link to my Eye’Em profile.

One way Google+ helps Local Business

I recently attended a meeting of the Mercer-NJ Small Business Coffee Talk. After a round of introductions and some discussion about how each attendee used social media to engage their customers and grow their business, we broke out into to groups to learn more about using Google+. The first group was led by Lynette Young, a Google+ expert who started the Women of Google+. Lynette has a huge following on Google+. The second group was led by me.

During our discussion it was mentioned several times by a number of people that they felt that Google+ did not function as well at reaching a local audience. Some felt that Facebook was better for that sort of engagement and that they were wasting their time using Google+.

To some extent I agree with that sentiment but I’ve had some time to think about that sentiment and I think Google+ is still necessary as part of a social media and brand management strategy. I think it requires that local business owner look a bit differently about how they use the service.

In the past few months I’ve had the need to order flowers but for two different reasons. The first reason was as a condolence to a friend who had recently lost his father. The second was as an anniversary surprise for my wife. In both cases, I ordered an arrangement from Monday Morning Flower & Balloon Co.. The business is owned by Georgianne Vinicombe with a store in Princeton, NJ and one in the other in Yardley, PA. Both of orders were for local delivery but I could just have easily ordered from a large national retailer. But I wanted quick service with a personable touch.

But my Mom wanted to send flowers to me from her home in Florida? Could she get the same quick personable service from a national brand? Perhaps. But what if Mom wanted to shop “local’ and get speedy service? Mom, could do a Google+ Local search for florist in the Princeton zip code. She could look at customer reviews, get contact information, and maybe engage in some social media chit chat before choosing which florist will get her business. Looking at the results, I can see that Monday Morning Flower and Balloon Co is the second florist on the list.

I’m planning a trip to Niagara Falls, Canada with my family this summer. We’ll be staying for a week and I’m using Google+ Local to help me find restaurants and entertainment options. Local businesses who have a Google+ page that ranks on the first page of search results will most likely get my business.