Disqus - Latest Comments for peeta

Re: Foursquare “Experts” Reintroduces Gamification Into New App

Peeta — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 13:34:33 -0000

It actually looks like a decent direction for the app that has a lot of value for current users of Foursquare but this whole Swarm launch has been botched beyond belief. Why would they force the adoption of a new app before this update was ready? There's just some insanely backwards thinking in how Swarm was introduced and communicated to Foursquare users. Not to mention, I don't really see anything in this update that wouldn't complement leaving checkins as a feature, even if it was no longer central to the app. This appears to be a case of very insular thinking by a group of people that are too close to their product. You see the same thing at Facebook, where Facebook Messenger has replaced email internally even though this is hardly the case with the rest of their user base. These tech companies need less MBAs and more people with experience seeing what happens as a result of these decisions.

Re: Will users swarm to the refreshed Foursquare?

Peeta — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 12:28:24 -0000

I bet this is a case of bad data informing a very bad business decision. I don't know anyone who doesn't enjoy the novelty of the check-in and only uses it for discovery. Even then, Swarm comes off as very juvenile, which doesn't seem to match up with the core of Foursquare's audience very well. Overall, I think this was a huge mistake and, if they fail to correct it quickly enough, it could kill the company. After losing Dodgeball to mismanagement, it's really sad to see Foursquare do this to themselves without any outside factors forcing the move.

Re: The 8 Best Lines From Ginsburg's Dissent on the Hobby Lobby Contraception Decision

Peeta — Mon, 30 Jun 2014 14:19:33 -0000

Better hope your boss isn't a Christian Scientist.

Re: http://royalbacon.com/post/16540356862

Peeta — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:26:40 -0000

I meant the Bacon Tumblr link.

Re: http://royalbacon.com/post/16540356862

Peeta — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:16:27 -0000

I'll also say this is one of the nicest looking Tumblogs I've ever seen.

Re: http://royalbacon.com/post/16540356862

Peeta — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:15:25 -0000

Should I be worried that your link to the blog it was hosted on is broken?

Re: It's Not Wrong for Google to Focus on Its Own Users

Peeta — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:28:47 -0000

Let's give them a little time to figure it out. SEO and spam is killing organic search results on all platforms and integrating social is one way to help combat that. Just like with any change to the search algorithm, it will take time to perfect it and get all the weights right. If you're building a social network of people you like and trust as opposed to friend collecting, being able to factor in that network has a lot of value. Most the people rallying against this are people that try to building giant social networks as part of their (innately flawed) personal branding campaign and that will definitely serve up worse search results. For average people using social services as they were intended it will be a big step forward.

Re: #screwcable

Peeta — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:41:41 -0000

I'm hoping that HBOgo and many of these streaming packages from the sports leagues will be a sign of things to come. I'd gladly pay for the content I want to see a la carte and, in many cases, I already do. I pay for MLB.tv, NHL Center Ice, Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime in addition to Comcast, who blocks my access to HBOgo on all TV connected devices despite that I pay extra for it.

In many ways, this looks a lot like what happened to the music business. They ignored the demand for portable media and their customers found another way to get it. The cable companies and, to a lesser extent, the cable networks that force these channel packages on us are ignoring the demand for a la carte programming. Now that content providers like HBO are offering their content through an app, I don't think it will be long before they cut out the cable companies.

Unfortunately, when this happens, I suspect the price of broadband will go up and any actual savings will be minimal. Unless a new competitor pops up, like broadband over the power grid, I don't see the MSOs getting any more consumer friendly.

Re: http://baconreview.com/post/15113555366

Peeta — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:49:33 -0000

Not an album. Boo!

Re: http://baconreview.com/post/14513556289

Peeta — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:03:56 -0000

A and C. I think you could make a case that Death Cab sounded more unique before Transatlanticism but it hasn't really hurt the quality of their albums. Ben Gibbard is just a good songwriter and I kind of like how the band has grown around these songs. However, they are still one of the most boring live bands in the world.

Re: Social Six: Is Facebook on its way out?

Peeta — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:07:25 -0000

It's part of a cycle that has been around for a long time. Each of the dominant social networks before Facebook had critical flaws that they were unable to correct, which led to a migration to the next thing. For Friendster it was scaling problems and customization and for MySpace it was the sloppy monetization of the site (ads that people were embarrassed to see on their screen) and user experience issues that feel to the wayside after the Fox acquisition. For Facebook it's definitely privacy. While privacy has been a non-issue for most consumers to this point, once they see weak privacy at in application, whether it's an ad that co-opted their information or personal info showing up somewhere they didn't want to see it, they develop a taste for it.

You really can't ignore Facebook's scale though. MySpace has been "dead," by most approximations, for a few years now yet it remains a top 25 Web property. Even if this is the beginning of the decline of Facebook, it would most likely take more than 5 years for the site to really be irrelevant, from a media perspective.

Google+, with it's seamless integration with products that have already reached critical mass (no pun intended) and commitment to privacy/data portability, could be well positioned to capitalize on this but the adoption of the platform to date, despite the inflated numbers, certainly leaves a lot of room for someone to come in and innovate the space. I'm personally seeing Path pick up a lot of the slack here in the mobile category but it's too early to tell.

Re: http://baconreview.com/post/13592868146

Peeta — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:40:35 -0000

Yay! I love the Bacon calendar almost as much as I'd like a real calendar made out of bacon!!!

Re: Why We’re Not Hiring Creative Technologists

Peeta — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:41:04 -0000

People who code hate to hear this but programming is one of the most commoditized skills in the world right now. Sure, talent is talent but, as a category, being able to code your ideas doesn't fill the huge void that most agencies have in front of them in creating compelling digital work that actually provides value that is unique to digital media. Creativity with technology and knowing how to bring a creative digital idea to life is the real skill and people with experience doing that, regardless of whether or not they can code, are the real asset that most agencies are lacking. Unfortunately, agencies, especially creative shops run by guys who are far from being digital natives, tend to focus on hiring the areas they know the least about. This is why the focus went from web developers to UX to creative technologists now, with little regard with how those roles can most effectively be applied to the creative process. More often than not, the talent is there to produce good work but the agency doesn't know how to leverage it. The problem is that creative leadership at these agencies is behind the curve in regards to what actually produces results in digital and the best UX/CT teams in the world can't save a bad concept that only works in TV. This is why use of the word "integrated" can so often be an early warning sign for bad digital work tacked on to a traditional media campaign. A creative digital thinker with experience bringing ideas to life, regardless of whether or not they can write a line of code, should be moved as close to the beginning of the creative concepting process as possible if this industry really wants to evolve with the people they're trying to target. This will help agencies move beyond just churning out disposable digital assets and start building things that people actually use. I don't think the key to that is more coders. If only mechanics could design cars, we'd all be driving tanks.

Re: Inflight Engine Failure

Peeta — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:32:51 -0000

Another great video. I like how you focus on the stuff that matters as opposed to getting hung up on some complicated procedure. That's definitely a great one to practice all the time...just had a pro pilot at my home airport drop a few skydivers before losing his engine a few miles out of from the strip. He did a couple things wrong and made things a little harder on himself but luckily no one was seriously hurt.

Suggestion for future video: Flying VFR in B and C airspace. This is one of those super practical things that seems to be avoided on the checkride. I think most young VFR pilots (myself included) aren't really sure how to transition through B airspace and end up going way out of their way to avoid it.

Re: The Emperor’s New Clothes and Google Plus

Peeta — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 13:29:46 -0000

Good post. However, I don't think G+ needs to be a complete overhaul of social networking to be the "Facebook killer." The features you mention - Circles, Hangouts, Huddles, etc. - are much more organic methods of content sharing than anything I see on Facebook (and I think it's important to note that we're talking about content sharing not recreating the water cooler online). I think that's even more than what is necessary to be the Facebook killer though. MySpace took Friendster's user base because of Friendster's scaling problems and how long it took to navigate the site. Facebook won with it's UI after MySpace became a nightmare of poorly targeted advertising and embedded Web 1.0 tricks that made user pages painful to look at. Facebook's achilles heel is privacy and how safe users feel on the platform. Circles is answering that weakness extremely well and it's not just a tool for early adopters. Seeing a lot of social bookmarking garbage in your stream is probably because you follow people who are used to sharing content like that. When our mother's join, they will see something very different.

Re: LEGO, Sexism, and Stereotype Threat

Peeta — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 10:25:29 -0000

I hate how they pigeonhole men too. Why do all men have to be firefighters, policemen or airplane pilots? Talk about professional discrimination! How will my children learn about the importance of consultants, CPAs and tax attorneys unless they're accurately represented in a small toy that reflects a caricature of our society based on the interests of toddlers?

Re: Is Facebook Still Likeable?

Peeta — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 11:30:46 -0000

Facebook's numbers started showing signs of an impending decline last year as they had their first ever back-to-back months of declining active users. This has played out before. A social network dominates the market and then another one comes along and answers the criticisms of the dominant player. MySpace did it to Friendster and Facebook did it to MySpace. Yes, Facebook is a lot bigger than MySpace now but MySpace grew to be a lot bigger than Friendster too...it's a natural evolution as media habits move to online. The argument that Facebook can't lose because they're so big is not strong. Yes, that will buy Facebook a lot of time, like it did MySpace (still a top 50 Web property), but users can shift faster than they ever did before. Google exploited Facebook's privacy problems and I think that's appealing to very large swath of the Facebook audience. Early adopters and tech people aside, there is a lot going for G+ for general SN users. G+ still has a little ways to go in managing large volumes of content but I bet they will figure it out. Facebook won't go extinct in a year or anything but my money is on "Facebook me" becoming a popular tech joke in five years and the noticeable declines in Facebook will be widely reported by the end of the year.

Re: The Only Reason to Participate in Social Media

Peeta — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 10:55:31 -0000

Great concise insight. What you're really talking about here is building a brand, which is often the last thing that affiliate marketers think about. Earning trust and showing brand value isn't a quick conversion tactic, it's an essential building block towards developing a brand that stakeholders can feel a connection to. Fan/follower counts are false metrics towards these kinds of goals. You can apply much of this same logic towards visual identity and other areas of brand building where affiliate marketers typically get bad advice to go to some crowdsourcing site and get low quality work for bargain basement prices. In social media, like most areas of brand building, the harder way is usually the better way.

Re: Why yo daddy won’t use Google+: no noise control

Peeta — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 13:06:16 -0000

True, I guess circles is your only real noise management tool. You can put people into a specific circle if they're super high volume and you don't want them in your stream and then I guess you have to hope that they choose their sharing circles more carefully so people not interested in their work won't get that content. I'm trying to create very separate circles for personal and professional contacts so I can make sure I don't bother people. Hopefully they'll offer some settings to choose what circles appear in your default feed at some point as well.

Re: Why yo daddy won’t use Google+: no noise control

Peeta — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 12:36:31 -0000

That's a pretty limited view of "utility." I think there are many more users that want to see their friend's diving pictures than want to hear about their friend's work. While I agree that managing noise will be a challenge to G+, and they're playing a little catch-up with FB in this regard, I don't think it's as much of a professional networking tool than it is a personal one. The improvements G+ has made over FB are in features like photo sharing and hangouts but I don't think LinkedIn has anything to worry about.

Re: Exclusive: Myspace to Be Sold to Specific Media for $35 Million

Peeta — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 16:16:43 -0000

That sounds like a slight rewrite of very recent history. When MySpace eclipsed Friendster, there was no awareness for what Facebook was doing (I know it seemed different in the movie). Even after Facebook opened up, it took years to overtake MySpace in registered users and uniques. There's more to the story of the rise and fall of social networks than what has happened in the past three years.

Re: Exclusive: Myspace to Be Sold to Specific Media for $35 Million

Peeta — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:18:39 -0000

For who? I bet the initial sale of $580 million made a lot of people pretty successful. Even News Corp. made their money back and then some. It was the top social networking destination for the better part of a decade. Sure, their success didn't match Facebook but they're still one of the most successful Internet properties of all time. With 30 million monthly uniques, roughly three times the visitors of the WSJ, it's not exactly dead either.

Re: Running out of Twitter steam?

Peeta — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:35:31 -0000

I'd say #2 really is the key. People that follow more than 500 active users really can't keep up with the stream of content. I'm down to about 250 people that I really try to follow and I still can't really keep up.

I'm starting to use Twitter more as a timely social bookmarking tool. I go look when I have a few minutes and want to check in on what people are talking about. Once the echochamber effect kicks in, like today with the reposts of the same links about Google reaching a billion uniques a month, I take a step back.

That said, I still feel a responsibility to respond to @ replies and retweets. If you can't manage direct communication with peers, I think you need to get off the platform. It is, after all, a social service.

Re: Advertising to Facebook Fans Improves Conversions, Says Study

Peeta — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 17:18:53 -0000

So marketing to people that are familiar with my brand will increase conversions? Isn't this a lesson that experienced marketers learned a long time ago through other channels? It's frustrating when these kinds of things become revelations when they happen in social media. I think using this kind of data as a justification to dedicate resources to boosting "Like" counts misses the value of social media to brands and ultimately makes it harder to do smart social media marketing that has lasting value.

Re: Condé Nast’s New Yorker Is First to Market With iPad Subscriptions

Peeta — Mon, 09 May 2011 16:43:14 -0000

It's just the reality of publishing. You can't blame the New Yorker. Advertisers will want to pay less for digital readers and if the New Yorker keeps making less money than they won't be able to pay for content and the publication will quickly become irrelevant. It will take some time before advertisers are willing to pay more to reach tablet users and only then will you see subscription costs come down.