The company behind Rounds – a video hangout app for mobile and Web – has decided to keep the socializing just among friends. Referring to its "young user base" (it says 70% of its users are under 25, though it has yet to catch on at my son's high school), this week announced that the less than 3-month-old app was "retiring" its "Meet New People" feature "to focus on longer, more meaningful video … [Read more...] about Details, context on Rounds, Vine & other video-sharing apps
apps
Perishable pix: First Snapchat, now Poke
Snapchat, the little app that came out of nowhere – well, Stanford University, but launched with no media fanfare by a couple of students whose service now supports 50 million snaps a day – has been joined by a similar "ephemeral messaging" app by Facebook: Poke. But now that perishable photo-sharing (the photos disappear in 10 seconds or less) is a trend, let's look at what's really interesting, … [Read more...] about Perishable pix: First Snapchat, now Poke
FTC still not satisfied with kid app privacy
Only 20% of the 400 children’s apps the FTC analyzed "provided disclosures about their data collection practices," the New York Times reported today – and the apps that did linked to long, dense privacy policies that few users could comprehend. The Federal Trade Commission's announcement does not surprise; it's an update of the Commission's report last February (see this). But it says "little or … [Read more...] about FTC still not satisfied with kid app privacy
Activist app developers: Reachout.com’s winners
The winning app developers of Reachout.com's "Don't Just Stand By" cyberbullying prevention contest not only received prize money but also serious professional mentoring: Timothy Mullican, 15, in Alabama, who has been writing code since he was in the 6th grade. The first-place winner, who aspires to being an information security specialist for government or the private sector, told Reachout … [Read more...] about Activist app developers: Reachout.com’s winners
Snapchat: Gamified Instagram, ephemeral Pinterest?
Don't get me wrong. By blending the most popular elements of mobile technology in a new way, Snapchat is in a separate category – in fact, a category leader like Instagram or Pinterest. But it's also a little in the Instagram category – photos + text, only with a time element to it (more about Instagram here). And it's kind of a perishable Pinterest, where photos are scrapbooked or placed into … [Read more...] about Snapchat: Gamified Instagram, ephemeral Pinterest?