Instagram is nothing if not creative – the app itself and its users. When I'm in it watching how the kids who encouraged me to follow them use it, I can't help but smile. They are creative in/with all parts of the experience – the photos, the filters for messing around with photography, the emoticons, the hashtags, and the writing of captions and comments – but in a fun, light way. It's not all … [Read more...] about Kids, Instagram & its new feature ‘Photos of You’
apps
Stickers, emoji & other social-media conversation add-ons
You may've noticed this too: Online and on-phone conversations have gotten very mixed-media – very artful, in a sense. Have you noticed that our children are among the most creative mixed-media conversationalists now? It's delightful to see the fun they have with this. Take stickers, for example. Because they're now part of Version 3 of the Path app, as I mentioned in my last post, and Path's … [Read more...] about Stickers, emoji & other social-media conversation add-ons
App ambition: Fun media-sharing for small social circles, planet-wide
Path, the mixed-media app for more intimate phone-based social networking, really illustrates how very borderless but cultural social media is. Growing by about 1 million users a month and now one of the Top 20 apps for Android phones, according to the Wall Street Journal, this app that limits your social network to 150 friends started growing fast in Asia first, its CEO David Morin told the … [Read more...] about App ambition: Fun media-sharing for small social circles, planet-wide
‘Less is more’ for mobile teens
Wired speculates that, because some Asian texting apps – such as LINE, WeChat, Gangnam Style and Kakaotalk – have "slick user interfaces that focus on simplicity and visually pleasing graphics," these fast-growing apps will soon cross the Pacific, and at least one of them will take off in the US too. "Today, less is more." But Wired seems to contradict itself a bit, saying they're also adding … [Read more...] about ‘Less is more’ for mobile teens
Snapchat: Privacy as perishable as the photos
Users of the popular, fairly new Snapchat app tend to like it because a photo vanishes within 10 seconds or less of being viewed by its recipient. That adds something fun, spontaneous and just "real" to photo-sharing that's pretty unprecedented in social media. New parents' guide Here's why: Typically in social networking, "users tend to feel pressure to curate the perfect representation of … [Read more...] about Snapchat: Privacy as perishable as the photos